Pregnancy & Body Image (by Sarah)

Every pregnancy is different...or so you hear about 2,000 times when you're pregnant with a baby who's not your first:) This pregnancy has definitely thrown me for a loop in at least one area: body image. I just don't remember struggling this much with Ava's pregnancy. I think that's because I knew I was doing everything 'to a T' with hers. I ate exactly what the medical world says to eat. I exercised. So I felt that it didn't quite matter as much, or factor in as much, how my body looked. I knew I was doing exactly what I should, so I was healthy.
This pregnancy, though, has been quite different. I didn't start out with my lists and charts of what I should eat. I didn't make sure I had a certain amount of 'yellow or orange vegetables' or 'leafy greens' or to the ounce right amount of protein each day. I just ate what I felt like eating and tried to fit in veggies and fruit. I'm finding out that what I thought would be a blast--lack of structure and discipline--opens a whole other realm of difficulty. I've found myself stressing about how much weight I've gained. To the point that as I've tried to work through it, one motivating factor was thinking, "I don't want to look back on this pregnancy and only be able to remember being afraid of gaining too much weight."
So I've worried alot about how I look this time around. And I've delved into the depths of working out issues of beauty and body image again.
Some of the things that have helped me this time around are:

• I already mentioned that I don't want to look back on this pregnancy and only remember obsessing about weight fears
• I've tried to take on a mentality of sacrificial love. My struggle mostly comes that I want to eat foods that are comforting, instead of disciplining myself to eat what's the very best for development of our baby. So then I worry that because I didn't eat the very best, that I'm gaining too much, or I look 'fat.' One principle that has helped me in this battle between comforting and loving, is to realize this idea that love is sacrificial. So instead of indulging in a momentary pleasure, I can sacrificially love my unborn baby by eating what would be best for her development.
• I have to keep reminding myself to operate in love when I eat, though...because that 'eating what's right for the baby' mentality can easily slip into a 'eating to keep my body skinny' mentality. It's a slippery slope for me because it's about discipline. So I've been trying to eat not to glorify my own self, but to glorify God. I eat disciplined to honor God and the gift He's given me, not to live up to the world's standards.
• Speaking of the world's standards, One train of thought that has meant alot to me is the idea that there is a physical beauty that is displayed in pregnancy that's not able to be displayed in a non-pregnant woman. I'm not saying a pregnant woman is more beautiful per se, or that women who aren't pregnant or can't get pregnant aren't beautiful. I'm saying that God Himself designed pregnancy. He also designed femininity. And one essential part of femininity is beauty. Pregnant or not, I might not feel pretty, but I just am, because God made the femininity of women to be that way. So since God made femininity with innate beauty, and He made pregnancy, I can pretty much conclude that there's something beautiful about being pregnant! Moreover, if you just look at a pregnant woman, you can visibly see that there's something uniquely beautiful about pregnancy because the beauty doesn't have to do with the world's rules about beauty. It doesn't have to do with striving or perfection, if that makes sense. It is there in extra weight, in swollen ankles, in a rounded face, in a distended tummy, and not even in spite of these things. It's almost because of these things. You can see it if you look closely. Sadly though, it's really hard for me to see it in myself because the world, with all it's rules and definitions of beauty, has trained my mind to believe that beauty is only found in being skinny. But it's not! There's a unique beauty in the pregnant body.

Having My Own Story (by Sarah)

My husband & I are reading through the Bible in a year. We're doing it in chronological order, so that means sometimes we're reading from different passages each day instead of simply reading straight through.

We read some of Genesis and then jumped to reading the whole book of Job before we came back to Genesis again. I really got into the story of Job by the end (although I really didn't like the first 30-some chapters). It gets really interesting because God enters into the dialogue. He interacts with Job! It was amazing for to get to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

Tonight I started reading in Genesis again, the part where God makes some covenant promises to Abram. It struck me, after reading about God's story with Job, and now God's story with Abram, that God really does interact with us as individuals. He has a specific way He's interacting with each of us.

As a mom this really speaks to me...there's SO many opportunities for comparing myself to other moms, to their stories. For example, just spend some time in a room full of women discussing their labor and deliveries. There's always that subtle comparison aspect. The one-up feel. The nonchalant asking of whether you had an epidural or a C-section. Or talk to that same group of women about their newborn parenting philosophy. Did they let their baby 'CIO'? How long does their baby sleep at night? At what age did they achieve the illusive sleeping through the night phenomenon?

Don't get me wrong, I love knowing the details of my friend's lives. It's often even hysterical to compare notes. Talking about women stuff is a blast. However, under the surface, women are also always trying to decide if there's something wrong with them, with their story, with how they did it. They're defending the validity of what they experienced. And that's where this God with Job/God with Abram things speaks to me. God orchestrating each one's life experiences to have a unique God-encounter with each of them. It's totally different how He expounds on the magnificence of His creation to Job and how He promises Abram an heir when he's an old man and makes him wait even longer for the promise to materialize.

The connection for me is that God interacts with ME uniquely. And with each of my mom friends uniquely. So maybe it's not so much about whether or not I had the epidural or if my birth was completely natural or not. Maybe my labor was tailored specifically for me and what God wanted to work in me, what He wanted to lead ME through? What if how my newborn acts is less about how perfect of a parent I am, and more about what God is needing to teach me? If my friend's baby sleeps 12 hours straight at 3 weeks old, and mine wakes up after 45 minutes every stinking time, maybe it's not about whether I'm a good mom or not...but about God and the things He is working into me, ways He's stretching me to learn to hope in Him in a new way. Maybe my friend with the easy labor and the easy baby needs grace from God. Maybe I need to be challenged.

The thing about this Job/Genesis story is that I think I routinely give God less credit than He deserves. I forget He's even in the equation. And I tend to give myself too much credit (either for ruining my life or excelling in life). I think He's way more present than I let myself see.