Guest post: On the beauty of bearing children

Perhaps it is because I have yet to be able to bear children that I am so grateful for positive (albeit realistic) perspectives on pregnancy, childbirth, and the much more time consuming task of child-rearing. I have a friend with a wonderful blog:

http://livinginthemotherhood.blogspot.com/, called "Motherhood Mayhem". She is the mother of a beautiful, clever one-year-old girl. She is also surprisingly quirky. When I met Melissa, I'm ashamed to say, I judged her to be your average, cookie-cutter, stay-at-home Mormon Mommy. I quickly discovered I was wrong. Perhaps it was when she said, "Even though I have conservative morals, and I stay home with my daughter, I am a raging feminist." Yeah, that's what she said, a "raging feminist". I thought, "Are you sure?" Since then, I have discovered that Melissa is thoughtful, candid, daring, and genuinely kind. And she is bold and brave. She makes me glad to know her. And this is what she has to say.

"I was recently saddened by a status update from a pseudo friend of mine who is 25 weeks pregnant. She said “_____ told me today that cocoa butter doesn’t work on stretch marks... sad face.” I can’t fully blame her for her dismay. I admit that I, too, had qualms about my post-baby body while I was pregnant, as my body was distorting to epic proportions. But I also recognize that I’ve never felt more beautiful than when I was pregnant. If pregnancy is wonderful and beautiful, then post-pregnancy is a mess.Before I had Hannah, I had a pretty average body. I weighed in at about 130 pounds; my boobs were small, but firm; and my skin was all around smooth and stretch free. Naturally as my body changed I became a little self conscious. While I’ve never had to really watch what I eat, I confess it took a while for me to eat fast food in public because I didn’t want to be the girl with the pudgy tummy eating a Big Mac. I didn’t even enter the building to buy any food until I had an obvious baby bump that was obviously not just an extra flab of fat.

My friends told me that it was the coolest thing to give birth and watch your stomach go flat (in reality it is the coolest thing to actually give birth and watch a human come out of you… a human you already love so completely). I was intrigued by this, as I could no longer remember what it was like to NOT have a pregnant body. About thirty minutes after I gave birth (I was a little too occupied with my new daughter to care about my body) I finally looked down to notice my stomach. To my amazement it WAS flat. Hallelujah! Unfortunately, to touch it felt like kneading dough but who could have time to care about that (TOES! HOW I MISSED YOU!) when my body was so small. Well... not quite. I stood up for the first time and my flat stomach became a replica of 4 month pregnant me. Did I miss something? Twins perhaps? Alas, I still looked pregnant when I stood up and let it all hang loose--literally. Not only that, but my body continued to change drastically over the next few weeks. My small but firm boobs had become large and voluptuous during pregnancy. I couldn’t wait to try those babies out after the stomach was gone. Unfortunately, they were still NOT sexy. They were leaking all the time and when they were not large and in charge, they were shriveled and resembled old man breasts.

I have to admit for about a month I didn’t want my husband to see me naked EVER. I didn’t even want to see me naked. The boob situation got worse as I’d lie down and they would flop to their respective sides of my ribcage (lovely), and I had long circular marks stretching across my once taunt stomach. I was not an attractive sight. Then something happened that changed my whole perspective…

I went to church two months after Hannah was born and a woman stood up to the pulpit. She introduced herself and her husband. She talked about how they had been married for five years and had been very blessed in the beginning. They managed to buy a house in a time when the sellers had the upper hand, and decided to start a family in their new home. While they were blessed in almost every aspect in life, they were not conceiving a child--and after over a year of trying they were told that the woman would never carry a baby conceived naturally. They started on fertility treatments. Nothing worked. They went into debt to try costly alternatives and still nothing worked. Finally, they gave up their house in order to do invitro fertilization, and happily, she is expecting a baby girl in February. [Note: That baby girl was born healthy and beautiful last February. Congrats!]

I sat there and listened to her story, sobbing as I held my baby close to my imperfect body. That imperfect body had created, carried, and delivered the perfect little angel who now lights up my life. My unattractive breasts now sustain that life through the milk my imperfect body creates. I went home, bound and determined to be grateful for a body that was so perfectly able to conceive with hardly a thought and have a successful, comparatively easy pregnancy. A month after that life changing moment, I still am in awe at my beautiful stretch marks swirling around a body that obviously has accomplished something miraculous. I roll out of bed, pick up my boobs off the floor, and face each day feeling more beautiful than ever, and grateful for the opportunity to be a woman. Grateful to carry the scars of childbirth, the dark circles from a lack of sleep, the lines on my eyes from smiling too much; and grateful for the perspective that I may now share with my daughter when she is feeling less than perfect."

Profile of a Beautiful Woman: Emily Savage

Most of the words of profiles are going to be those of the beautiful woman herself. In this case, Emily Savage. But first, I want you to know what I know about her. Emily is one of the kindest people I've ever met - and I've met a lot of kind people in my life. She and I sang together in the Alto II section of BYU Singers. She was my section leader, but she was never harsh or critical in her comments to us. She is married to an equally kind man and just became a mother. She has a lovely sense of humor - her married name is "Savage" and her wedding album is entitled "The Day I Became a Savage". :) She has a skin condition that she will tell you more about, but she handles it with true grace. She is a beautiful woman.

Q: Have you always thought of yourself as beautiful? Why or why not?

A: Absolutely not! I was born with a rare skin condition called “ichthyosis”, which makes my skin dry and flaky, as well as extremely temperamental. Some days I would look completely normal, and other days I would look like I hadn’t bathed in weeks. Sometimes my skin would be so red that people would ask if I had been scalded or if I suffered from skin cancer. This was especially difficult for me as a child, because I could see how other kids stared at my skin and avoided touching me even though they didn’t realize they were doing it. Not to mention all the kids who openly made fun of my skin, calling me “turkey hands”, “bathtub girl”, or “brown elbows”. On top of this skin condition, I had all the other awkward characteristics of a growing girl, namely coke-bottle glasses, big hips, crooked teeth, stretch marks, and clumsy feet.

Q: What physical features do you have that make you feel beautiful?

A: Ironically enough, my complexion! Despite all my struggles with beautiful skin, my face has never been affected by ichthyosis. In fact, I can count on two hands how many pimples I have had in my entire life.

I have also been blessed with lovely, naturally platinum blonde hair. I have never felt the need to change my look or color my hair, and my husband loves that the hair I do have (arms, eyebrows, legs etc) is so fair that you can hardly even see it.

Even though I LOVE food, and hardly ever watch what I eat, I simply don’t struggle with my weight. I have always been naturally slender, and nothing I do seems to change that (except pregnancy!).

My smile has also been a source of beauty in my life. I know that my teeth and smile aren’t perfect, in fact I sometimes have an awkwardly crooked smile, I know that my smile brings joy into my friends’ and family’s lives.

As a baby, my father blessed me that I would be graceful during my entire life. Though I have had my fair share of clumsiness, that blessing has turned out to be true. I don’t try to be graceful per se, but it is definitely a part of me that makes me more beautiful.

Q: Are there any physical features you have that sometimes keep you from feeling beautiful?

A: Definitely anywhere I have skin problems… especially my hands, feet, knees and elbows. Because of this, summertime is a difficult season for me. I would love nothing more than to feel confident in a swimsuit, shorts, capris, flip-flops, or knee-length skirts. When I was in middle school, I really wanted to be a cheerleader. I knew I would be good at it, too! But when auditions came, I couldn’t bring myself to wear shorts in front of the coach. I regretted that decision for many years. I wish I had had the confidence to be myself and be proud of it!

I even felt self-conscious during our engagement pictures when my hands were on constant display. My ring was beautiful, but my hands were not. Luckily the pictures turned out beautiful regardless of my funny skin.

Q: What circumstances in your life have helped you feel beautiful?

A: I was blessed with a wonderful father, who took every opportunity to help me feel beautiful. My mom also suffers from ichthyosis, and whenever I started to doubt whether I would ever find someone who loved me for me, he assured me that he thinks my mom is the most beautiful person in the world, and that someday I would find someone who feels the same way about me. And he was right!

My parents have also helped me realize that my skin wasn’t keeping me from doing anything I wanted to accomplish – the only thing holding me back was me! I’m not the only child in our family with ichthyosis… in fact 5 out of 6 of us have varying versions of it. Since it affects some areas of our body more than others, we have started calling ourselves “mermaids” – or people who are half scaly, half normal. Having their constant support helped me realize that my skin wasn’t as bad as it could be, and that most of me was actually pretty beautiful! After all, have you ever heard of an ugly mermaid??

I will never forget an experience I had with my now husband that helped me realize my true beauty. Soon after I started dating my husband, we went outside to play frisbee on the first warm day of the year. We went barefoot so we could feel the grass between our toes. Unfortunately, since I have to wear so much lotion, my feet soon got so dirty I looked like a hobbit. I was extremely embarrassed, especially because his feet were still smooth and white as snow. How unladylike! When we went inside, I tried to discreetly run off to the bathroom to wash my feet in privacy, but not noticing my embarrassment he followed me right up to the bathtub. A few minutes later, he was still smiling and making conversation while he scrubbed my feet clean! I couldn’t help but think of the Savior and the beautiful moment it was when he washed his disciples’ feet. What a sign of love and humility! I didn’t ask him to wash my feet, nor did I have to explain my embarrassment or why my skin looked the way it did. He just picked up my feet like they were another beautiful part of my body and started washing them. I knew at that moment that I had finally found someone who loved me for all the right reasons. I felt so beautiful at that moment.

Q: Are there any circumstances in your life that have kept you from feeling beautiful?

A: Most recently, my biggest struggle with beauty has been the past nine months of my life – pregnancy! It was so difficult for me to sacrifice my body (in every way) for the health of my child. The emotions that accompany pregnancy are difficult to describe. At times I have felt so fat and unattractive to my husband, even though he thought I was more beautiful than ever! There are many other reasons to feel unattractive during pregnancy – many of which are too private to blog about. It just seems so unfair that women must undergo so many humbling experiences and embarrassing indecencies to have a baby, while men don’t experience any of it! But there are so many other reasons to feel beautiful because you are a mother (great hair and a bigger chest are just a few reasons!) It is true that women are never more beautiful than when they are pregnant because of their “pregnancy glow”. I think the “glow” is more accurately described as the light of Christ shining through, so we can actually say women are never more beautiful than when they are experiencing some of their greatest trials, because that is when the light of Christ shines the most. And what can be more beautiful than that?

Q: How would you define beauty?

A: I think beauty is a collection of attributes, qualities, and characteristics that inspire love, respect and affection. Something or someone is beautiful when you find yourself loving it for one reason or another.

Beautiful Emily

Canaries with Gray on Their Wings

“The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”

(1 Samuel 16:7)

This article I'm going to post is from the monthly publication of my church. It may seem contrary to what I have been saying - that we are, each of us, beautiful. But I have been thinking this weekend about how beauty is something holistic. It is neither just superficial nor is it just a matter of the heart. I used to think that when someone said that, "It's what's on the inside that counts", they were really saying, "Well, you're not very pretty, but you are a nice girl." That didn't really make me feel better. Like all women, I want to be beautiful. But I think this weekend I realized what they mean. Society's idea of beauty is constantly in flux. Random fashion elites decide what is "in" and what is "not", and lots and lots of people make lots and lots of money convincing women that they are never good enough until they buy this product. But real beauty is something much more stable than that. One girl who responded to my request for pictures sent me one of her, not in a moment when she felt well-primped, but in a moment when she felt triumphant, victorious, in a word - beautiful. This article I think hits on that idea - real, true beauty.

By Thomas S. Monson*:

"Nearly 60 years ago, while I was serving as a young bishop, Kathleen McKee, a widow in my ward, passed away. Among her things were three pet canaries. Two, with perfect yellow coloring, were to be given to her friends. The third, Billie, had yellow coloring marred by gray on his wings. Sister McKee had written in a note to me: 'Will you and your family make a home for him? He isn’t the prettiest, but his song is the best.'

"Sister McKee was much like her yellow canary with gray on its wings. She was not blessed with beauty, gifted with poise, or honored by posterity. Yet her song helped others to more willingly bear their burdens and more ably shoulder their tasks.

"The world is filled with yellow canaries with gray on their wings. The pity is that so precious few have learned to sing. Some are young people who don’t know who they are, what they can be or even want to be; all they want is to be somebody. Others are stooped with age, burdened with care, or filled with doubt—living lives far below the level of their capabilities.

"To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility. You ask, “How might we achieve these goals?” I answer, “By gaining a true perspective of who we really are!” We are sons and daughters of a living God, in whose image we have been created. Think of that: created in the image of God. We cannot sincerely hold this conviction without experiencing a profound new sense of strength and power. [and beauty!!!]"

"To live greatly" - wouldn't that make you feel beautiful?

Amy (and Brennan)

Chelsea

~ With this picture, Chelsea said, "I guess most pregnant women just feel ugly and fat at this stage. Thinking back to that time, that's exactly how I flet, but looking at this picture now I feel like I can appreciate more how I looked by knowing that my beautiful (almost 5 year old) baby girl was growing inside of me."

Rachel (and a friend)

Diana

Kelsey

*Just a few notes for friends of other faiths. A bishop is a leader of a congregation (like a pastor) and Thomas Monson (the author) currently serves as the President of The Church of Jesus Christ, our prophet.

Defining beauty

Sariah (and Rachel)

I have been a little worried about starting this blog. I have been worried that I have had the wrong motivations (ie make people like me) for starting it. But in spite of that unfortunately valid concern, I knew this was something I needed. I want to thank those of you who have shared some of yourselves with me through pictures and stories. And I want to assure you that you are beautiful.

Some of you have asked if it's okay to follow the blog or suggest it to friends. I say, absolutely!! We need each other very much.

But on to today's topic - what is beauty? I think we could all really easily define the media's definition of beautiful... and exactly the ways in which we don't live up to it. Too tall, too short, too wide, too curvy, whatever. But I don't think that's actually "beauty". Now, I don't intend to define beauty completely today (can we really define it?), but I would like to get us all thinking. I hope that in our thinking we might start to include definitions that society does not. Why can't a short woman be beautiful? Or a tall one? Why not a curvy and round body? I mean, Ruben seemed to like them.

We'll start with more "internal" definitions and move our way into more "external" ones. I think you may find that there is room for you in all of these definitions.

From the song "Beautiful" by Cherie Call

"Look at all the signs, Look at all the shows

All the glamorous people who claim to know

What perfection is and what makes beauty stay

But when all the styles go out and the labels fade away

It's what you give that makes you beautiful

It's how you live that makes your dreams come true

Keep your faith in this world,

And let the light of the Lord shine through.

That's what makes you beautiful.

Nothing burns as bright, nothing shimmers so

As the smile of a friend when hope is running low

And how your hand feels warm when you dry a tear

Love is still in fashion at the end of every year."

Jenelle

Jeffery R. Holland in his talk "To Young Women", quoted a woman who "wrote something to the effect that in her years of working with beautiful women she had seen several things they all had in common... a glow of health, a warm personality, a love of learning, stability of character, and integrity."

Cherie

dictionary.com defines beauty as - "the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest)"

On the website embodyingwomanhood.com, the January 2010 issue is devoted to beauty. In the article, "In Defense of Beauty" by Elizabeth, she writes, "I believe that when women view beauty as a gift from God, it is something less intimidating, less of an unattainable endowment preserved for a fortunate few." She also quotes Elaine Scarry's "On Beauty":

“Beauty brings copies of itself into being. It makes us draw it, take photographs of it, or describe it to other people….Beauty, as both Plato’s Symposium and everyday life confirm, prompts the begetting of children: when the eye sees someone beautiful, the whole body wants to reproduce the person. But it also – as Diotima tells Socrates – prompts the begetting of poems and laws, the works of Homer, Hesiod, and Lycurgus. The poem and the law may then prompt descriptions of themselves, — literary and legal commentaries — that seek to make the beauty of the prior thing more evident, to make, in other words, the poem’s of law’s ‘clear descernibility’ even more ‘clearly discernable.’

“[B]eauty is lifesaving. Homer is not alone in seeing beauty as lifesaving. Augustine described it as ‘a plank amid the waves of the sea.’ Proust makes a version of this claim over and over again. Beauty quickens. It adrenalizes. It makes the heart beat faster. It makes life more vivid, animated, living, worth living…”

Mary

Please leave your comments about how you define beauty - I truly would like to learn from you. I think as we begin to see through each other's eyes, we expand ourselves, and we find that there is a lot more beauty to go around.

Kelsey (and Brent)

Beautiful In My Own Skin

Beautiful is not a word I have often used to describe myself. To describe nature, other women, music, feelings - sure. But myself - well, let's just say that the adjectives that go through my mind to describe myself are generally far, far away from "beautiful". Of course, there have been moments. Looking at pictures of my wedding, for example. Maybe trying on a new piece of clothing that actually fits! Lately, I've been applying it to myself purposefully because... well, because I know I'm beautiful. Now, today - not ten or twenty pounds from now. Not next hair cut. Not next shopping trip. Today. In my own skin. My own imperfect, too curvy, too stretch-marked skin. The thing is, I know that my body is just as much a part of creation as a flower or a mountain or a moving sunset. I know that my body is a gift from a loving Heavenly Father, not to mention an earthly mother who went through a whole lot to give it to me. My body can run and jump and dance. It can show me the world. It can work and play and breathe. It is a miracle. A true wonder of creation. And it's mine. My beautiful body - a work of God to admire every day. The problem is I'm normally talking to it and about it as though it were some hideous concrete structure obscuring a beautiful view. Ever felt this way? Yeah, I thought you might. Deep down inside myself, I believe that I am beautiful. And I believe that beauty is not just on the inside of me - it's on the outside, too. And you know what, I think you're beautiful, too. I know that might be harder for you to believe than believing that someone else is beautiful, but it's just as true. I hope you will stop in and join me in my journey to discover the beauty of God's crowning creation - woman.

Every week I will post a profile of a beautiful woman, or a review of a book that has helped me on my journey to finding my outer beauty, or some other tidbit relating to true outer beauty and how to find it in ourselves. I will also post pictures of women I think are beautiful. In some of these women, you will immediately see beauty, maybe not in others, but I think if you look often enough, with an eye to find their beauty, you will find it. If you would like to be included in the beautiful woman gallery, or if you would like to include a photo of someone you love (with their permission), please send it to beautiful.in.my.own.skin@gmail.com.

I call this a journey because I still struggle to believe I'm beautiful - just about every day. Since it is relatively easy for me to see the beauty in my friends or to call others beautiful, I am going to challenge myself to find a picture of myself in which I feel beautiful and include it in every week's gallery. I really hope you will join me because, after all, you are a beautiful woman.

Kelsey (and Brent)

Andrea (and Elsie)

(and Josh)

(And new little one)

Stacy

(and nieces/nephews)

(and friends)