A New Love

I have never loved my body.  Over the years I have come to appreciate my body -- how I am healthy, strong, fit, able-bodied, etc... but no matter my size or shape, I have never loved my body.

Even in recent years, I have come to really understand and identify with the joke, 

"I'd love to be the weight I was when I thought I was fat." 

Even at my most fit, I have never looked in the mirror or tried on clothes and been satisfied with my size and shape... I have always wanted a flatter stomach, fitter legs -- all in all, a more slender shape.

Now, for the first time in my life, I have a new love for my body.  Now, I do not look in the mirror and love what I see -- especially with many postpartum changes still occurring, but for the first time in my life I love my body.

In the past two years, I have grown, nourished, carried, and birthed three children.  

My body has housed them safely... and for one pregnancy, it safely grew two at at time.

My body produced the breast milk nourishment for my first child for well over a year.

My body is now producing breast milk nourishment enough for both the twins.

My body not only carried all three children to a safe pregnancy gestation, but it spontaneously went into labor and allowed me to labor and birth all three children without pain medication.

Although I had a little pitocin to help begin my labor with Tracey Ann, my labor and birth of the twins was completely unmedicated.

My body was able to do its job and deliver both Tracey Ann, and twins, Howard and Caroline the way it was designed to do and without anesthesia.

My body has recovered beautifully and very quickly from childbirth with the twins.  My body did its job -- it grew the twins, labored and birthed the twins, now is producing milk for the twins... and yet it has bounced back to the physical endurance I had before pregnancy.

Physically, I do not look in the mirror and see a body that I love or think is beautiful and perfect... but for the first time in my life, I look in the mirror with great love and appreciation for what my body has been able to do.  My body has produced my dreams come true -- my children.  My body, as of now (thankfully), is working the way God designed the female body to work, and, for the first time, I look in the mirror and appreciate what I see -- beauty and love. 

I look in the mirror and do not love what I see -- my size and shape, but I look at my children and I fiercly love what I see, and my body was instrumental in their existance, and this I love.