Changing Body Image

There is nothing like pregnancy and labor to change one's body image. Prior to conceiving and giving birth to a child I had a very one dimensional sense of my body. A sense that was very much influenced by the media and common notions of the body as something to be used primarily as a way to attract the opposite sex. Enter carrying another human being inside you and bringing that person into the world and that view is turned on its head. This is not to say that I no longer consider myself a sexual being. But now I have a whole new respect for my body. Pregnancy was a window on this new view. But giving birth just blew the window out of the wall and opened up a completely different vista. I remember writing in this blog about how it was dawning on me that the baby inside of me was going to have to come out one way or another and neither of the ways were particularly attractive. Well, obviously, given the arrival of Harry, he used one of those entrances/exits. The fact that my body was able to transform itself to allow that entrance/exit is mind blowing. It is a little bit like the mental equivalent of watching the transformation of a character in a scifi movie when they have been infested by an alien and are now turning into one. But what I have come to realize over the last few months is that my body continues to amaze. Breasts have come to take on a whole new meaning. Prior to Harry, they were appendages. Decoration. Now they are the sole means of nourishing my child. In this plastic wrapped-pasteurized-grocery store world that we live in, we generally are very much removed from so up close and personal a view of nature and the cycle of life. Some people are uncomfortable with being reminded sometimes. For me, there was the woman at the National Gallery who rolled her eyes as I quietly and demurely (I might add) sat on a bench breastfeeding Harry under a blanket. What is sad about those types of reactions is that they are closing themselves off from the miracle of it all. As a society we have become so caught up in technological advances and trying to control our environment that it is easy to loose sight of the wonder of nature and how we are a part of it. Everytime Harry nuzzles in for his next meal, I am reminded and I am amazed at my body's ability to nourish my child. It isn't an experience I would trade for the world. It also puts into perspective the little bits of flab here and there left over from the pregnancy or times prior. It all becomes like rings on a tree - vestiges of times past and wonderful reminders of what the body can do.