This week my OB said rather casually, “You have the perfect
body for pregnancy,” and while a part of me relished in hearing the words “perfect”
and “body” directed my way, I nearly laughed out loud.
Because my body feels anything but perfect right now, and
every visit to the doctor finds me attempting to get this across; yet I’m
always made to feel as if I should walk into my appointment with a glowing
report of health….because, after all, my body is perfect for pregnancy.
I know my OB meant well, and he was merely making a
physiological statement about my anatomy, but that one statement has plenty of
social-emotional ramifications; as I lay awake last night, hungry with
heartburn, I began to wonder about what we imply when both men (who’ve never
actually experienced pregnancy) and even women (who have) gloss over the icky
details of it all.
In trying to unpack my personal reaction to my
well-intentioned OB, I realize a statement as simple as “you have the perfect
body for pregnancy” makes me feel that my sacrifice, my endless list of
physical symptoms, and my emotionally-conflicted sentiment around pregnancy is trivial,
unwarranted, exaggerated, or any combination thereof.
In essence, this is what
I hear being conveyed: “No complaining, dear, you could have it much worse!”
And so we miserably pregnant women cope in uncomfortable silence (or feel
guilty when we “complain”), assuming others must surely be more miserable than
we. And coincidently, depression is a
very real thing in the life of many pregnant women, even those who may be given
empty assurance that health is on their side.
Still the question remains: what makes a body perfect for
pregnancy? If it’s one that doesn’t get rippling varicose veins, throbbing
pools of blood in the ankles when standing, sharp back pain after sitting for
too long, and pain from a sciatic nerve that spasms whenever it jolly well
feels like it…then let me assure you, my body is NOT perfect for pregnancy.
Need more verification? So far into these thirty-two weeks
of pregnancy, I’ve had a stomach bug or food poisoning 6 times, nausea
(seriously for 18 weeks, less seriously for the remainder), headaches,
backaches, leg aches, endless sinus infections, heart burn, extreme exhaustion,
multiple urinary tract infections, emotional volatility, feelings of emptiness,
and probably hundreds of other more minor issues. Why air all my pregnant dirty
laundry? Because if I don’t, and if more women don’t, we continue to live under
the assumption that surely our suffering isn’t worth talking about.
If our OB wants to gloss over the details, society doesn’t
want to hear what’s negative about pregnancy, and even our spouses can only handle
so much of it before they reach sensory overload…how else will we start to
appreciate a pregnant woman’s need for honest, non-judgmental spaces in which
our struggles are validated and taken seriously?
And so I share my pregnant body story with you as an attempt
to break the uncomfortable silence that we women often feel burdened to keep
due to societal pressure to “glow,” the un-ladylike (or some may even say
unholy) nature of calling something as sacred as child-bearing “miserable,” and
the undeniable reality that some women struggle to simply get pregnant (and
thus know pain of a very different sort).
I can say that it’s been liberating
for me to hear the stories of other women who have dealt with difficult
pregnancies, especially with their second child, and so I hope the same for
anyone who hears mine. Each of our
stories is unique and needed to paint a more realistic picture of the struggles
associated with (both absent and present) pregnancies.
Most significantly for this pastor mom, I believe Jesus affirms my struggle, because in struggle we relate a little more
closely to the man who knew there is no resurrection without a crucifixion. New
life comes at a price- and I believe we can appreciate new life even better
when the struggle beforehand is appropriately known.
Now excuse me as I attempt to find something to satisfy my simultaneous hunger, nausea, and heartburn. Cheesecake: that ought to make me glow!
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