Before I got pregnant, I had an ok relationship with my body. For the most part, I’m pretty content with it and what it does for me. I have good days (where I feel like I might actually be the most beautiful woman in the world) and bad days (where I feel like I’m the troll under the bridge waiting to snatch small children for my lunch).
Most days, I’m somewhere in the middle but lean towards to good side. I am pretty content in my skin. I recognise that I have some privilege in that as many women don’t.
Getting pregnant was a fascinating experience. Before and during, I read a lot about the changes that would happen and was regularly in awe of what a woman’s body goes through as part of gestating. First of all, learning about conception and all the things that need to align in order for an egg to be fertilised and then implant into the uterine wall. Admittedly, I wasn’t there for the fertilisation part – that was facilitated by an embryologist – but I assume there were dim lights and candles and probably a little Barry White on the stereo.
Also cool was sharing these things with friends who had never considered what goes into making babies (turns out it can be more complicated than a drunken shag in the toilets at Malthouse). “Why would you have to watch for ovulation, wouldn’t they just pop it in and hope for the best?” Or, my fave question from a male friend: “Why if it doesn’t work the first time would you have to wait an entire month to try again?” I was actually talking to two male friends at the time and I just looked at them and gave them a moment to think about why a fertility thing might be one a monthly-ish schedule. They clued in pretty quickly.
Also fascinating is all the changes that a body does to accommodate a growing being. Megan and I were hanging out one day talking about organs and things – it was late into my pregnancy – and I wondered where my ovaries were since I knew that the top of my uterus was up into my ribs.
There are some great animations that show where the organs slip to while the baby grows. It’s fascinating – and it becomes really clear why pregnant women always need to pee. I’m pretty sure I would need to pee again the minute I left the bathroom.
So, from a science perspective, my body was a wonderland (you’re welcome for the ear worm). What about emotionally though?
Normally I’m pretty comfortable with physical contact. In my first trimester though, I didn’t want anyone to touch me. I was a bit worried about that. I love good hugs and massages and pedicures and if I wasn’t keen on touching, none of those things that are normally comforting would be available to me. Fortunately, around the time that there’s the hormone shift into trimester two, physical contact came back on the cards. I was very glad of that.
In April, when I was 21 or 22 weeks pregnant, I appeared in a show called Naked Girls Reading. It is what it says on the tin. Naked women, on stage, reading. Each show has a theme and ours was Fantasy. I read a bit from The Hobbit, from a book called Uni the Unicorn about a unicorn who is teased for believing in little girls, and an essay about the place of fantasy in our lives.
I was nervous about appearing nude on stage especially pregnant, but having been to a few of these shows before I knew that they’re very positive and warm events. I can confirm that I mostly forgot about the fact I was naked pretty quickly. The stage lights were nice and warm and my company on stage was wonderful. I had several friends in the audience who were very supportive and seemed to also enjoy the show.
The thing that sticks with me the most, though, came after. I was approached by a woman who was a few weeks further along than I was. She had really been struggling with how she’s felt with the changing shape of her body. Seeing me in my imperfection owning my body as my own, it changed how she felt about hers. Maybe not enough to be in love with it, but to admit that if I can feel beautiful in my overweight and pregnant form, maybe she could too.
I nearly cried at that. To me, she was beautiful. Women’s forms in all their shapes and sizes are but I especially think it’s important to make sure that pregnant women feel extra beautiful. My yoga instructor used to rave about how sexy she thinks pregnant women are. She’s not wrong. There’s something extremely earthy and wonderful about what a woman is capable of. Yes, even when your acne is out of control and every joint hurts and you just peed yourself a little because you laughed when I called you beautiful.