This Body of Mine

This thirty-something-year-old body of mine is 25 pounds heavier than my twenty-something-year-old body of the past. That is not hyperbole.  

This body of mine sags where it used to be perky and ripples where it used to be taut. It is crisscrossed with scars and stretchmarks. It has been cut open and sewn back together. Electricity crackles through its bones and settles in joints with a malicious hum. 

It has hiked Irish hills and explored the British countryside and once it got lost in a sleepy Italian town because maps are confusing and north always feels like it should be right in front of me, no matter which direction I'm facing. It has danced and swam and loved and wandered. It has endured.

This body of mine has become bulbous both with new life and with cancer, stretched beyond what I thought was possible. It's grown and birthed two babies, and grown tumours that overtook an embryo that never stood a chance. 

My babies and my cancer have fed off this body of mine.   

This body of mine is not perfect but it is full. Full with baby giggles and shared jokes and mountain air. Full of 3am pizza and sloppy kisses and travel dreams and homemade birthday cake. This body of mine is not perfect but it has lived. It lives. Twenty-five pounds heavier than ten years ago, self-conscious but not self-loathing, stronger(ish), this body of mine lives. I won't take it for granted. 

Invisible

We'd had very little sleep the night before, and a few hours on the road in front of us, so after lunch I ducked into a coffee shop for the necessary caffeine while Shawn strapped the kids into their car seats.  It was the type of coffee shop with a twee name and mixed-medium art by a local artist hanging on the pristine white walls. The woman who made my drinks was (I guessed) in her early twenties and (I knew) impossibly beautiful.

I ordered our drinks and rolled my eyes at the $11 total ($11! For coffee! Get off my lawn!) and stood at the counter to wait. The guy behind me placed his order and stood chatting up the coffee goddess while she steamed milk and pulled shots. He was young and scruffy in that way that is supposed to look nonchalant but is actually very intentional. 

I stood waiting, invisible, as the young scruffy one told the young beautiful one about house parties and his band and something about a mutual friend and a hammock. She giggled at the appropriate places and coolly accepted an eager invitation to the next house party and managed to royally fuck up our drinks. 

We pulled away from the coffee shop and tried to agree on who would drink which drink. (They both tasted like melted ice cream.) I'll happily forfeit the killer eyeliner and the drunken ragers and the taut skin for my station wagon and babies but I'll be DAMNED if they try to take my coffee. 

It's an interesting thing to be invisible. It's not a bad thing, just a thing. I'm not a young one or a beautiful one or even an intentionally-scruffy one. I'm just me. And I love me. I love my wide hips that have birthed two babies. I love my stretch-marked breasts that make milk like it's their damn job (because it is their damn job!) to feed those babies. I love the scars that tell the story of beating cancer and the dark circles under my eyes that tell the story of my sleep-hating baby. 

My life is full and beautiful and enough. I don't mind being invisible. 

You're Beautiful

"You're the most beautiful mommy," he said and my breath caught in my throat because I wanted to say no, I'm not beautiful, I'm exhausted and smelly and wobbly where I used to be firm and my hair is falling out and I haven't had my eyebrow waxed into two distinct eyebrows in months and none of my clothes fit and my boobs leak breastmilk and my eyes leak tears on a daily if not hourly basis and did I mention I'm tired? I'm so tired. 

But I didn't say any of those things. I swallowed my words and smiled at him.  

"You're the most beautiful mommy because your love shines like Iron Man's unibeam."  

And he's right.  

While You Wait

If you asked me before I was a million weeks pregnant, I would tell you that I don't actually believe in due dates. I think there's a weeks' long stretch of time when a baby can be born and be considered "full-term" and assigning a specific date is a bit silly.

And a pretty good way to drive an expectant mother crazy.

But I am a million weeks pregnant. And with that comes a whole pile of crazy.

Due to some disagreement among my doctors (aka: too many cooks in the kitchen,) I ended up with two due dates, one week apart. Both of these dates have come and gone. Lady Baby is officially "late" (I say in quotation marks because my hippie heart is screaming, "babies aren't late! Babies come when they're ready!")

As a Visibly Pregnant Member of Society, a lot of people have felt totally free to make comments about my body. Comments that under normal circumstances, they would keep to themselves (my personal favourite? "You're huge!" Yeah, thanks. I know.). Throw in the lateness of Lady Baby and all of a sudden it's like my body's failures are an acceptable topic for conversation.

Now, I'm not such a delicate flower that I can't handle people talking about me or Lady Baby's late arrival. I get it. Babies are exciting. The inquiries all come from a place of love. No one is maliciously asking me why I haven't given birth yet. It's all very good-natured. But here's the thing: I am not good-natured. I am exhausted. I am worn out from a week's worth of contractions that start, build in intensity for hours, and then disappear without warning until the following evening. I am tired from sleeping in two-to-three-hour stretches because my poor, compressed bladder doesn't allow for anything longer. I am a mess of hormones and feelings and body aches and pains. So the constant scrutiny feels less and less like love and concern and more like a glaring accusation of "why can't your body just do something right?"

I was diagnosed with cancer at 30. Last year I had a partial molar pregnancy where my uterus filled with tumours instead of a fetus. I am well aware of my body's failings without the constant reminders.

So. While you wait, please know that no one wants this baby born more than I do. That I appreciate your concern and your interest but I am unable to process any sort of ribbing (no matter how good-natured) without sobbing behind closed doors. That I promise I won't forget to mention when Lady Baby arrives. And I won't always be this delicate or emotional. And this isn't an attempt to shame or reprimand anyone, it's just my way of asking for what I need to create a peaceful mind and body (that will hopefully get the message and go into labour sooner rather than later).