losing it. perhaps literally.
“She’s got such a pretty face. It’s too bad she can’t do something about her weight.”
This remark can be attributed to a member of my own family. One I’ve secretly never forgiven.
My love/hate relationship with my physical self started very early. I have a crystal clear memory of being on the school playground in the third grade being called fat by a friend who was angry with me for one reason or another.
I spent high school in a fog of self conscious, shirt tugging anxiety, never happy with myself. Not until someone fell in love with me did I feel remotely confident. That helped, as did the roughly 30 pounds I lost over the summer following graduation. It wasn’t a conscious effort; I simply worked on my feet and rarely stopped to take a breath. Even relatively thin I dressed conservatively for someone my age, feeling as though other people shouldn’t have to be exposed to any more of my body than necessary.
Fast forward, past more than ten years of student and office life spent largely on my arse and I was back to where I was at 15; softer around the edges and thicker around the middle than I’d like.
And pregnant.
By the time Sadie was born at 42 weeks I had gained just under 60 pounds. I was comically rotund but somehow I loved every stretch-marked inch of myself. Even though my knees creaked when I climbed the stairs and I couldn’t get out of bed without rolling out, I felt better than I had ever felt before. My mind was as clear as my skin. Months of clean eating and plenty of sleep had made what I thought would be an indelible impression on me.Within two weeks of Sadie’s birth I had lost 20 pounds. Four weeks later she was gone.
If I’m being honest, I completely lost interest in caring for myself the morning we said goodbye to her.
I’ve spent the past year eating and struggling and drinking and feeling excessively. I joined a gym and went sporadically for two months before abandoning it altogether for three. I suffered from random insomnia and popped pills in all moments of weakness: hangovers, backaches, constipation, and depression. Rest certainly hasn’t come easily for me since her death, not without some sort of help. Whether that was a glass or four of sauvignon blanc or a couple of herbal sleeping pills, it was always something. Like many parents here will understand, it’s when the lights go out and I’m left along with my thoughts and memories that is most painful.
So much for my body being a temple. At the moment it’s barely a lean-to. I can’t decide if I enjoy punishing myself or I don’t believe I deserve to feel good in the first place. Whatever the case, I feel as vulnerable now as that third grader in the schoolyard.
Less sensitive people have been asking us whether we’ll try again for months. Others have tactfully left it to us to bring up if and when we’re comfortable. I have often wondered if Sadie hadn’t been our first, would we be where we are right now. I am doubtful and terrified that my abused old body may not even be capable of making a healthy child. Am I strong enough, physically or emotionally, to try? Am I too far beyond repair to risk it?
My husband has lost more than 20 pounds since Christmas; regularly pounding out God knows how many frustrations at the gym. It wasn’t until he started annoying me with a daily ‘calories burned’ report that my latent competitive streak was roused. Then it got even worse: the bastard started shrinking (damn those men and their superior metabolism). I’ve literally had no choice but to get off the couch and pick up my sneakers.
I’m not making any promises, least of all to myself.
If I were brave I might ask myself why I’ve let the idle lifestyle go on so long. Knowing I won’t allow myself to get pregnant again without being in suitable physical shape first, I might also ask if there is a chance I’ve been using my body as an excuse to put off trying again. But I’ve never been much in the bravery area.
How has your body image changed after pregnancy, and after your loss? Have you ever knowingly punished your physical self, it be with neglect or otherwise?
This post is a part of The Body Shop at Glow in the Woods -- a month of themed reflections and memes that explore what we do in an effort to occupy these physical selves with grace after babyloss.
20 Comments
Reader Comments (20)
While I've lost 30 of the 40 pounds I gained in the pregnancy(but I hadn't lost the weight from my first pregnancy when I started this pregnancy), I still very much look pregnant, with a big belly ploof.
About 6 weeks after losing my daughter, in a bid to kickstart my grieving and healing I joined a workout bootcamp. I made it two weeks before my knees gave out, and I could barely walk.
My body image is just a mess. I just want to be able to tell the world, yes, I'm fat, but I also had a baby just 3 months ago....but then, I also have to say my baby died, and she likely died because I am fat because I just wasn't healthy enough to keep her safe. And thats a conversation I'm not ready to have with anyone but myself.
Due to the anxiety and depression following the death of my daughter, I could not eat for weeks. I lost the baby weight rather quickly, although I still have plenty more weight to lose.
I also started taking any and every pill I could find. Me, who has never taken a sip of alcohol or smoked a cigarette in my life. I needed something to dull the pain- if even for a moment. Without the pills, I just felt too much.
Looking back, I was in a dangerous place for a long time.
Since the death of our son, my husband and I have separated and I am in the early stages of another relationship. It is hard enough to be single let alone confident with a forever postpartum body. When I think of someone new seeing my body it is highly emotional. All the "normal" body image issues pale in comparison with the memories of two dead babies written across my body.
Eight months later though, I now weigh 12kg more than I did that day. And I feel disgusting in my own skin. I am not very tall, and if I'm looking at the BMI scale, I am most definitely obese. Its such an ugly word.
I really let myself get like this though. Eight months of eating crap, not exercising and wallowing at home every day has done it. I only have myself to blame. I just get so pissed to think I might have been able to maintain a comfortable weight after her birth with all the breastfeeding and walks in the park we would have taken. I guess life had other ideas for me.
We are hoping to welcome new life in to this world very, very soon and I know there really isn't much I can do about my weight now. I feel so guilty that my next baby wont get the great start that Hope did.
I just never had the energy to do anything about it, and now I fear I have left it all too late.
And seriously..... I can't believe a member of your own family would say that to you. I don't blame you for never forgiving them.
During our two months in the NICU I lost most of the weight from the twins' birth. By the time Liam died I was wearing all my pre-pregnancy clothes, pretty much... and people were telling me how great I looked. Which was hard... I'd only been pregnant for 27 weeks, and had lost weight thanks to hospital food, bone-shaking fear and self-neglect... the NICU diet. Honestly? I was too occupied with death and life and self-loathing to eat much of anything.
Then we were released and slowly, I regained twenty pounds or so - where I probably should have been naturally had it not been for all the trauma. And now, two years almost to the day, I'm back to where I was - although that's not because of exercise. I'm where I should be in terms of the scale, but I'm flabby and weak.
My punishment of choice wasn't so much a denial of food, but a denial of sleep and intimacy. That's another story.
A great post, Jen, and so complex, so relevant. Best wishes on whatever shape your journey takes, in terms of your ritual - and maybe I should wish you patience? I'd need it. But it's a huge deal to start, and so important and good.
i am actually eating pretty well (considering), going to a personal trainer and staying very very active. i have this big flabby belly that just doesn't seem to want to leave. i want to so badly believe that its just waiting for another baby to fill it up again. but its not happening fast enough.
i was told that holding on to emotions can also stay with you as weight. but letting go all these complex emotions swirling around in my brain day after day seems impossible.
i do drink a little beer or wine almost every day, but it seems like a necessary treat at the end of an exhausting day. i wish i knew what could magically help all of us learn to accept what is but for me, its just impossible. not fitting into pre pregnancy clothes is all but making me want to lose my mind. its just not fair, none of it.
Lean-to is just what it feels like, or maybe I'm more like one of the houses I drive by every day where it's just shy of condemned, the bones are still sound but the windows are busted out and the roof of the front porch has fallen down. Salvageable, but somebody needs to do something now, because in a year it won't be able to be saved.
As for self-punishing, well, I used to do some mild cutting - it was a release and there are days when, in spite of my better angels, I miss it. And the way I was eating the first few months after Teddy died was a form of punishment, an insidious kind since eating has always been a comfort to me (I used to worry so much about how to avoid passing that trait on to my child). I just want to look in the mirror again and not be sad to know that that person is me. I'm getting there, I think, but it's not easy.
My experience was fairly similar to Kate's. I lost a great deal of weight on a four month 'NICU diet' and certainly lost any baby weight I had gained (not that much as the twins were born at 23 weeks gestation). It was no triumph to me and I used to hate it when people told me how slim I was looking. Then I put on about 10 pounds comfort eating once we were discharged from hospital. I've lost most of it now but I still hate the way I look, I hate the way that the shape of my body has changed, fatter hips and a little overhanging belly that I can't get rid of. I feel like a fraud, my body looks like that of a mother but I'm a failure, I couldn't do it. The only time in my life that I really loved my body was when I was pregnant, I felt strong and sure that I was keeping my babies so safe and healthy. Now I just feel weak and pathetic. I don't know if I will ever trust my body enough to try again. Maybe one day.
Possibly compounded by the fact that one of my good friends of a similar height had twins at term and is now a UK size 6 (think that is a US size 2). So not only am I the one that couldn't get the twin pregnancy right but I also look like a heifer by comparison. Sorry if you're reading this Em but you know it's true.
Before I used to spend a lot of time on my hair and makeup, my clothes and shoes. Now I can't be bothered with it at all. Maybe that would have happened anyway?
My only punishment seems to be a determination to lose all my teeth by drinking vast quantites of diet fizzy drinks. I gave them up when I was pregnant and now I can't stop guzzling them. I am too scared to drink anything harder as I have always felt there was an alcoholic inside me desperate to get out.
I wish that none of us had to have any insecurities or issues with our bodies. It feels like too much on top of everything else.
I lost complete interest in food after she died. The act of chewing and swallowing became unnatural and forced, and for once in my life, food held no comfort. I forced myself to eat, and no type of food held appeal. When I finally starting eating regular meals, I ate so healthy that the contents of my grocery cart often solicited comments from strangers at the grocery store. I ate nothing processed and cooked everything from scratch every day. All of this was in the hope of bringing home a live baby someday.
When I was medically allowed, I joined a gym. I went faithfully for months and months, joining classes and pushing myself as far as I could. I was never an athlete, but after several months I found myself running at 7 mph for 30 minutes at a time, and weight training and spinning. I felt like someone totally different. When it would get to the point that I would want to stop, I'd imagine a living baby and keep running. Or I'd imagine the horror of another dead baby and run faster.
I'm pregnant again, and heading to the time when things started to go wrong last time. So far, it seems like things are going down the same path. Considering all the work I've done to improve my physical self it appears that my excessive weight gain last time might not have contributed much to the horrible outcome. In a way, it's a relief that I didn't cause my daughter's death. But horrible that nothing I've done seems to have helped. I guess time will tell as the weeks progress.
I literally starved myself in punishment for having killed my baby. I became completely rigid with what I ate and brutally punished myself for infractions. The weight steadily dripped away, as did my confidence in myself and any security I had in my body - not to mention my energy and any glimmer of a positive outlook that might have taken haven in recesses of my self. Oh, and the infections persisted until I mentioned them to my sister. "Are you using soap to clean your bottom," she asked. "Well of course I am," was my reply. "There's your problem." And it was. I was scrubbing away the healthy balance of flora. No more soap - no more infections.
Another miscarriage, a healthy full-term baby boy and two more miscarriages later....
I gained about 35 pounds in Noah's pregnancy. Two days after he was born still, his life taken at term by a knot, I weighed about 10 pounds less than when he was conceived. I looked deflated, empty, hollow - like a discarded balloon. The grief devoured me. Within six weeks I had lost 60 pounds - and I relished it. My body should just slip away....
And then I got sick. Head cold, chest cold, sinus infection, ear infection, aching muscles, creaking ligaments, bruised-feeling bones - for weeks on end - one on top of the other, over and over, never getting better. My metabolism seemed to stop too. I didn't gain, I didn't lose - by body just marked time in a sickened limbo.....
Until in the end of November when one of my husband's highly skilled swimmers made acquaintance with a still healthy 40-year-old egg and our daughter was conceived. I've been healthy as a horse since - and I've gained about 20 of those 60 pounds back in the process of carrying our girl. Now I relish the luscious melony-ness of my belly and firm heaviness of my breasts. I'm not quite sure why my butt and thighs need to expand along with my belly - but no matter. Our baby girl is in this body. It is her sacred home for the next 15 or so weeks. After that I will need to develop a new relationship with my body - one separate from its role as carrier of new life. I pray daily - hourly really - that grief in allowed no part in forging that new bond. Only time will tell.
My daughter was born still Nov 16, 2008. I didn't feel like doing anything but forced myself to just get up and do it. My first activity was a 1 mile walk for charity in December. Since then, I have started running again and have lost all but 10 pounds of the baby weight. I have recently added biking to my exercise list too. I have to lose a total of 50 pounds to be in the normal weight range according to the BMI charts.
If I could, I would just do nothing. But, I force myself out the door everyday and exercise. When I am running and am feeling tired and want to quit, I just think about my baby girl and it keeps me going. I sometimes wonder if my weight was what caused me to lose my daughter, I guess I will never know...
I, too, have struggled with my body. Struggled to wrangle it into some kind of shape, struggled to accept that this is the body I was given and I make the best of it.
The year before I met my husband I discovered running, and to my surprise found that I loved it. I dropped sixty pounds and started running 5ks every weekend. Then, I met my husband and suddenly it was really hard to get up and train at 5 AM after hanging out with him until midnight. And my husband loves to eat. And cook. Before I knew it thirty pounds had crept back on. I became determined that I would begin running again. I started training, and not long afterward found out I was pregnant. I asked my doctor about whether or not I could continue running, and she gave me the go-ahead, but some spotting early on scared me enough that I quit. The pounds packed on, and then my daughter was born preterm and died.
For the first time in my life, I didn't want to eat. I can remember my husband pulling into the Wendy's drive through on our way home from the hospital, ordering me a Frosty, and insisting I drink it. I placed my mouth on the straw at appropriate intervals, but when we got home, I threw away the still full cup. I forced myself to eat on the day of her funeral, because I didn't want to pass out, but that was about it. I dropped eighteen pounds in two weeks.
And then I started eating again. And not running. Once again the battle I had fought my whole life was consuming me--the difference being that my grief kept all motivation at bay. Then I got pregnant again. This time I was on bed rest for five months, so by the time my son was born, not only was I really heavy, my muscles had pretty much given up on me.
I am now beginning to run again. For my son. For any future children I might have. But not for me. My self-loathing is at an all time high. I hate my body. I hate that it failed one of my children, and that it needed so much assistance to keep my other child safe. I no longer trust it to do what I expect. And that is the real battle I face every day.
Honestly, I've been lucky to feel as generally good about my body as I have given that I've always been just plain large – tall and an unathletic size 16.
I felt great about my body after I effortlessly conceived my first pregnancy – healthy and gorgeous for every second until my daughter was born still at almost 40 weeks. I remember my fallen-souffle abdomen and swollen leaking breasts. Six weeks after her birth, I was still carrying 20 extra pounds on top of the 30 or so I could always have stood to lose. I was comforting myself with food, red wine and handfuls of Ativan. As the stupor started to life, I went to the Y and was in the best shape of my life. I wanted to back to work looking – if not feeling – like nothing had ever happened.
Just a few months later, I had a miscarriage but then managed to get pregnant – with a son who would live. I gained only 20 pounds and was 10 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight within two weeks thanks to breastfeeding and endless walking with a colicky newborn.
People keep telling me how great – that means "slim" when applied to the pudgy – and I feel LIGHT, the weight literally and figuratively lifted.
However, today I have made a change. I joined SparkPeople and put a link on my blog asking others to join me. I can't keep living like this; I am slowly killing myself. I am hoping my friends and family will join in and help me get back on the right path. I actually exercised today and wow! It is a much better antidepressant than any pill I've tried.
That all being said, I know Mother's Day is coming up fast and I dread it. I wish I had a way to sleep through it.
Thank you for the post.