The true beauty of motherhood

Yesterday, a newspaper photographer happened across our playgroup in the park and asked to shoot some candid photos. The playgroup consists of myself and three other new moms with babies close to the same age. The whole time she was taking photos, I had a knot in my stomach because I knew how I would feel once I saw the results.

Discouraged. Judgmental. Sad. And that's not how I want to feel.

I gained 60 pounds while I was pregnant. I've shed only 30--20 right away, and 10 slowly and with much effort. I still have a double chin. My belly looks like a misshapen, deflated balloon. I have cellulite all over. There's a lot more of me than before, and the feeling makes me want to jump out of my body and hide. I feel ashamed of all the extra space I'm taking up. When I see pictures of myself, the inner critic becomes merciless. You're fat. You're gross. What happened to you? You used to be pretty. You shouldn't have let yourself go like that. Lose the weight NOW.

But failing extreme, eating-disorder-like dieting, I won't be losing the weight that quickly. My body has proved reluctant to let go of the extra weight, especially while I'm breastfeeding. (That thing that everyone tells you--"the weight will fall off while breastfeeding"--LIE.) So every day, here I am, weighing more than that critic says I'm allowed to weigh. Still taking up too much space, including in photographs.

Meanwhile, my playgroup friends are slender and beautiful, in my opinion, aglow with love for their babies and seeming to have lost any pregnancy weight they might have gained. They're better than me. Worth more. I'm a failure. (Yeah, that critic is brutal).

But I doubt that's the way they see themselves. I have yet to meet a fellow new mom who feels good about what pregnancy and new motherhood has done to her physically. Sometimes all we can see is the pregnancy paunch, the stretch marks, the extra weight. And we judge ourselves so harshly that we're blinded to everything but our supposed flaws.

But there's so much more to see.

Take this picture, for example. In it, my son and I are looking at each other adoringly (well, maybe I'm adoring and he's just squinting in the sun). My inner critic wants me to focus on the double chin, on the zit visible on my cheek, on my unkempt hair. But there's more to see. The glow on my face, the laughter, the crinkles under my eyes showing that I'm smiling for real, not for a camera. In that moment, captured through the lens, I'm admiring my baby's crystalline blue eyes, the hints of a smile at the corners of his mouth, the flash of a dimple in his cheek. I'm awash with love, and it shows on my face. And it really is beautiful.

I struggle so much with remembering that I am more than a body, more than what people think of my appearance. Chalk it up to many things, including being bullied as a child for being "fat" (I wasn't really). Whatever has happened or will happen to my body, my soul has become more beautiful since becoming a mother.

And I'm willing to bet yours has too.

So let's study those pictures of us with our children--not to criticize or focus on our flaws, but to see beyond. We are more than what we let ourselves see.