Beauty

I took my six year old son to MoMA yesterday.  He is growing up in New York and I often forget the amazing cultural resources that are on my door step.  He was initially skeptical but soon he found himself lured in by the dream like jungles of Henri Rousseau, Jasper John's American Flag and Dali's melting clocks.

Lady Rosa of Luxembourg by Sanja Ivekovic 

While we were there, I happened to look down onto one of the most breathtakingly beautiful sculptures I have ever seen.  It is hard to tell if it was the setting, the lighting, or the sheer majesty of golden vision towering up through the atrium in front of me, but I was transfixed.  Then I looked at the sculpture by Sanja Ivekovic more carefully and I realized that it was of a pregnant woman. 

It's not that I needed to be reminded of how beautiful a woman is when she's pregnant, I see it every day, but I think I have started to take it for granted a little.  A life within a life is nothing short of miraculous.  I have experienced it twice before and for every reason under the sun my life will never be the same again because of it.

When I was pregnant, I noticed that people swore less around me, strangers would smile at me (even if they didn't give me their seat on the subway) and strangest of all, my friends would stop discussing their sex lives with me.  It was like I had become almost virginal, even when my pregnancy clearly suggested quite the opposite!

It reminded me when I first moved to New York and I went to see a production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline at the Delacorte theatre in Central Park.  What made the production so memorable to me was that the actress who played Imogene was pregnant, even though the character wasn't. It made everything seem ethereal and I was absolutely transported by her maternal beauty.  

Cymbeline, Public Theater

Even as a bright eyed and bushy tailed twenty three year old who was very far removed from pregnancy, I was captured by it's beauty, just as I was yesterday.

So if you are pregnant and even if you don't feel particularly beautiful or ethereal, trust me - you are.

Bump Appeal

Sometimes I miss being pregnant. I miss it because when I'm pregnant I feel like I have permission to be curvy.

I've been sucking in my tummy for at least 20 years. Every since puberty impacted my body gave me a DD cup, I got the kind of attention I thought I wanted then wished I didn't have. I slouched my shoulders and tried to slink away into the background.

Then at 33 years old with a burgeoning bump housing my first child, I suddenly found myself liberated. No more sucking my tummy in. No more slouching. I found myself walking taller (especially before the final month when I was robbed of my ability to walk city blocks in stilettos), and figure hugging clothes became my new BFF. It was a revelation.

I wish I could say it was because maternal instincts were kicking in, but the reality is it was vanity induced. When you're pregnant people look at your curves with admiration and affection. My bump made me approachable and friendly. My ogle worthy DD cup was now nurturing. By sharing my body with my baby I slowly took ownership of my body and it became something to celebrate.

Post pregnancy everything shifted from nurturing to providing nutrition and there were yet more issues to wrap my head around, but I have noticed a shift in how I feel about my body. I certainly don't wake up every day celebrating it as I did when I was pregnant but it has more character than ever before. I miss wearing figure hugging clothes with abandon and I and exert a lot of energy again sucking in my tummy - but not always.

I will always be grateful for how pregnancy opened up my mind to how I perceive my body. I doubt my tummy sucking in/slouching ways will every be cured forever, but my bump appeal has been replaced by my children appeal, and I have the great fortune to spend my days with unbelievably beautiful bumps at work.

So if you are pregnant, embrace your curves. Throw caution to the wind and learn to celebrate your body. It's liberating.

"Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat" By Claire Mysko and Magali Amadei
Bump Brooklyn