Imperfect Catholic Mama

Like many women, I’ve struggled with body image on and off through most of my life, but post birth has brought on a new struggle.

People say I look great and have “bounced back.” But they don’t see underneath the clothes.

I felt the most beautiful ever when I was engaged, newlywed, and pregnant. So for about two whole years I had great body image! I felt beautiful, I knew I was beautiful, and I didn’t feel pressured to change anything.

Then I had a baby. Suddenly, the progress I thought I made on self-image, vanished. My belly, sides, legs, and breasts were covered in stretch marks. My skin was shaggy and loose. There was more weight, especially around my once trim and curvy waist. My once perky, firm breasts, turned into milk machines, becoming stretched and saggy. I lost 2/3 of my hair (the shower drain was not happy). Most of my clothes no longer fit. I needed something that was easy to breastfeed in, and breastfeeding friendly clothes tend to be ugly; Especially for bustier women. I had nothing to wear, especially nothing to feel beautiful in.

Then one day everything changed.

I was lying in bed, slowly dozing off, when something from a theology class came back to me.

We were talking about the resurrection of the dead and how we will receive our glorified bodies. Our glorified body does not necessarily mean the “prime of our youth” body. St. Thomas Aquinas said that our bodies will take the form most glorifying to God. Thus in the Gospels, Christ’s resurrected body still maintains the marks of a pierced side and nails.

From this we can muse that perhaps the martyrs will have the marks of their martyrdom on their resurrected bodies, and saints have marks which show the journey of their sanctity. This isn’t doctrine, but we know that Christ’s resurrected body has his five wounds from the crucifixion, and from this we can muse that perhaps our own resurrected bodies may have marks from this world on them too.

Our glorified bodies will not necessarily be the ones from the prime of our youth, with perfect weight, flawless skin, thick, luxurious hair, and clear bright eyes. Rather, we may have marks on our body from this life which glorify God more than that “youthful perfection” would.

The marks of motherhood seem to fit in this category. My life is dedicated to bearing and nurturing all the children God grants to my husband and I, and I intend to attain sanctity through this way of life. It seems fitting that my stretched and flabby skin will show forth God’s glory much more than the body from the “prime of my youth.”

Since realizing this, I look at my stretch marks, saggy skin, and all the other marks of motherhood, differently. If God may see fit to place these stretch marks on my glorified and resurrected body, then who am I to see them as hideous?

Body image. Two little words, and for many people, especially women, so much weight. From the time we are little girls we are bombarded by our culture by what we look like and how we should look. From skinny waisted, large busted, Barbie dolls, to magazines we see everytime we go to the grocery store. TV, internet, Social media; we are constantly affronted by other women and other bodies, which we see as more beautiful than our own. Then our culture puts pressure on mother’s to “bounce back” to their previous body.

We live in a society that glorifies the female bikini body as the epitome of womanhood. But it’s not.

The woman’s body was not designed to look great in a bikini. A woman’s body was designed to bear and nurture children. It’s the reason we have breasts, curves (fat stores for baby), and why the body is able to make room and remarkably stretch for another person!

And it was not designed to return to what it was before, but rather to carry those marks of love, the marks of opening up and nurturing another life, from then on.

I’d like to give a big thank you and shout out to my friend Destiny Legreid for helping make this post happen in sharing her own postpartum photos. Check out her blog and instagram page @destiny_raine_