The body of a mother

"When a woman is twenty, a child deforms her; when she is thirty, he preserves her; and when forty, he makes her young again."

Leon Blum

I was twenty years old when a child deformed me. I stared at the little pink lines that confirmed my pregnancy and read the instructions over and over, convinced I had read it wrong. And from that moment, my body has never been the same. An even stronger confirmation than the pink lines were the waves of nausea, the exhaustion, the mood swings. Then the tightening waistbands and the baby bump. My son's Christmas gift to me was purple stripes across my belly. Pregnancy is a complete transformation. It is the first way that a child changes you. Pregnancy and birth quite literally scar your once perfect body. At times I look in the mirror with contempt for my new body, but today, I honor it. I am grateful for the little extra tummy flab that proves that I made the ultimate sacrifice of sharing my body with another. I am grateful for every stretch mark that bears witness to the child that grew inside me. I am even grateful for the way my chest sags giving proof that my body can sustain life from within and from without. I am grateful for the width of my hips that allowed me to bring a child out into the world and to hold him at my side as he grows. I respect and honor every inch of my new body.
Before my son, the moments that held the title "the best" were few and far between. No other moment can hold a candle to birth. Now I am blessed with moments almost daily that I can call "the best." All my baby has to do is lay his sweet, sleepy head on my shoulder and I melt into a puddle. Every time he reaches out to touch my face or gives me one of those cheesy, toothless grins my heart swells. I was twenty years old when a child deformed me. I was also twenty years old when I learned the meaning of life. When have you ever heard a mother question why she is on this earth? We don't ask, because each time we look into the eyes of our child, we know. Even after my son is grown and gone, I will remember. He has tatooed himself on my heart and on my body. And I will never resent the fact that skinny jeans might not fit, because I brought a child into the world. And no accomplishment, no weight, no perfect body could ever eclipse that joy.