I love my body, yet I am more than my body

Over the past 5 years as I've worked as a health coach, I've personally talked to hundreds of women who have sought me out to help them with their health and weight loss, and inevitably body image issues have come up for almost all of them. The motivation to get healthy starts as somewhat of a base desire. "I want to feel more confident wearing a swimsuit." "I want to look good naked." "I want to feel good about my body while having sex with my husband." "I want to stop hating myself when I look at myself in the mirror."

While I understand where these women are coming from, it hurts my heart to hear it every time. Losing weight is not going to magically help you feel good about your body while having sex or looking at yourself naked in the mirror. These are issues that run MUCH DEEPER than just losing weight. And, it can take years of therapy and training your mind to banish such critical thoughts about your body.

I think all of us as women have struggled with body image issues to varying degrees in our lives. I am not immune to them, but overall I haven't felt like it's been a huge struggle in my life. Growing up, my mother would walk around the house naked. Of course, I thought nothing of it when I was quite young, but as I got older sometimes I was embarrassed and would mutter, "Put some clothes on Mom." Yet, in retrospect, I am so grateful to her for doing that. I distinctly remember one day, either in Jr. High or High School being in a checkout line in a grocery store and eyeing some magazine covers. Probably Cosmopolitan, and I saw a woman wearing hardly anything at all. Perfect perky boobs, no stretch marks, no cellulite... and you know what the first thing that popped into my mind was? "THAT'S NOT REAL."

I gauged it against my mother's body. My mother who had given birth to two children, who had stretch marks and cellulite and saggy boobs from nursing. Not to mention a c-section scar. I'm so grateful to her for teaching me in a subtle way what a real women's body looked like.

I also attribute my views on body image to my church and religion. Studying the scriptures in my teen years about how my body is a temple and how God wanted me to practice virtue and chastity and wait until I was married to have sex, made a huge impact on how I viewed my body. I knew that it was a gift and that I was to respect it and I expected others to respect it as well.

It wasn't until I gave birth to my first child that I grew to admire and appreciate my body fully. Wow. How incredible are our bodies to conceive and grow and give birth to another body!? And how miraculous that our breasts produce milk to nurture and give nutrients to another tiny human?! Let's celebrate the miraculous things our bodies can do, because they are incredible. Regardless if you've given birth or not.

And, sometimes your body will fail. You won't be able to conceive. You won't be able to carry a child to term. You may be diagnosed with a debilitating disease that will one day take your life. In those moments we can give thanks for what our body HAS done and know that though our bodies are indeed incredible, we are more than just a body.

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Pregnancy #8

I am 16 weeks along with our 4th baby. I am so grateful that we've made it this far. I am still nervous about having another miscarriage so I've had ultrasounds every week the first few weeks and now every 2 weeks until I can start feeling the baby move more consistently.

We got to see him again this morning (Azure and Zeke came along) and hear his heartbeat. Azure loved seeing his little feet move. Such a relief! I'm pretty much out of the woods now, yet I am still anxious having had 4 miscarriages.

I'm still processing my feelings of losing our twins in our last pregnancy this past August. I had a feeling it was one girl and one boy. And, because I have felt the presence of our unborn daughter since April 2010, I figured it was Azalea who was coming, but it's a boy. And, it's been hard to understand since I am 99% sure this will be our last child. I don't feel like I could handle 5. I'm not sure how I'll handle 4!!  And, 5 kids is a lot. I've learned since having children that I'm not a "kid person". I highly value my alone time and lots of kids underfoot needing things from me is not good for my mental health. So, I'm left pondering- do we just wait until the millennium to have Azalea? Is it some kind of test of faith to see if we should indeed have 5? I'm not even completely sure it would be her next time. What if it were another boy? I feel like God values my agency and allows me to make a choice. So, what do I choose? Sigh. Kinda heavy topics...

I already found a doula! For so long, not having viable pregnancies, I haven't even thought about birth, but as soon as we had our ultrasound at 14 weeks and things looked good, I let myself go there and it felt good. Some of you may remember long ago, I used to really love all things birth related. But, I must say that I became disillusioned with birth fanatics especially those from the "natural" birth camp. I know that birth is an important and sacred event, but they put so much pressure and value on it as if everything about your relationship with that child depends on your birth experience with them. B.S. I just couldn't stand their extremity or their narrow-minded view anymore. But, I still love doulas and definitely need the emotional and physical support during labor, so I am happy to have found one. There are so many more options here in Boise than there were in Savannah which is so nice. 

I am looking forward to giving birth to this baby boy. Birth has been difficult for me and it brings up abandonment issues and PTSD, but it is also so exhilarating and awe-inspiring. I am so grateful that I get to do it again.