body, beautiful
by elizabeth m. browne

My body never betrayed me.

As a teenager I was fashionably thin in spite of the usual teen diet of junk food. In college, my varied careers, even in pregnancy, my body did me proud. Apart from a touch of morning sickness at the beginning and a bit of heartburn at the end, I had none of the troubles of pregnancy, no high blood pressure, no blood sugar trouble. I ate whatever I wanted and reveled in the swelling of my belly. My baby grew strong and healthy. I just grew. In nine months I watched the midwife’s scale climb from 135 lbs to 185 lbs. I was huge. And I was happy.

I spent my labor in a trance. My body did all the work without any real effort from me. In just three hours, my beautiful daughter was born, caught by a midwife on our living room floor. She loves to hear the story of how she came out “like greased lightning”, so fast that the midwife dropped her and she slid across the newspapers lining the carpet beside the birthing stool.

My body had no trouble providing for her after birth either. Just two days after she was born I was blessed with two massive cannonballs on my chest where my boobs had been. Nursing was not easy, the first six weeks were a misery of exhaustion and sore nipples, but my body knew what to do. My precious baby had all the milk she needed and after a few weeks my body learned to adjust to her needs and the cannonballs receded back into something resembling the boobs I once knew. I learned to stay awake and position her properly and my nipple soreness went away.

When my son was born, after another easy pregnancy and five hours of labor at home, he became ill and spent nearly three weeks in the NICU. I pumped my precious milk for him every two hours around the clock. By the time he was released from the hospital, my amazing body was producing over 16 ounces of milk at every pumping, every two hours, much more than he could consume with his little 7 lb body. The freezer was full of my body’s bounty.

I was a tiny bit disappointed that all that breastfeeding did not produce the promised magical weight loss. I tried not to look at the mirror, or the scale, as my weight hovered at a previously unthinkable 165 lbs and my nipples sagged alarmingly close to my navel. I certainly did my best to ignore the ravages of stretch marks on top of stretch marks, purple and red, that covered my once-smooth lower abdomen.

I was avoiding the mirror as usual one day as I was getting out of the shower. My daughter, who had magically grown to be a tall, long-limbed six-year-old, came in to the bathroom and considered my familiar hulking form. As I was toweling off, she pointed to my stretch marks, now mostly faded to a silvery white, but just as plentiful as ever. “What’s that?” She wanted to know. I explained how she had grown in my tummy and stretched the skin, leaving those marks.

She gave me one of those I-am-your-amazing-guru looks and said, “I’m so glad I was born. I love this life!” Yes, indeed. And I hope with all my heart that her body treats her as well as mine has treated me. I know, all too well, that many women are not so lucky. That 95 pound figure I had in college is long gone now, but I have gained an appreciation for what my body can do and all it has given me. My children’s strong beautiful bodies are a reflection of the beauty and grace that are still mine, and always will be.

Elizabeth M. Browne is a part-time writer and full time teacher at Two Trees Resource for Experiential Education (T.T.R.E.E.). Her two students are completing kindergarten and first grade and enjoy their unschooling curriculum of reading, swimming and making mud pies, spending most of their time educating their teachers. She lives with her husband in the tiny community of Linville Falls, NC.