Belly Beauty

So there is a commercial on tv that drives me crazy. It’s for some stretch mark cream and begins saying, “pregnancy is a beautiful thing.” Enter tone change. “But it can leave ugly stretch marks.” Ugly? Did I hear that right?

I beg to differ, or at least I want to anyways.

My lower abdomen is covered with marks and the days of the two-piece suit are quite over. If I do a sit-up it looks like there’s a little man smiling at me with my belly button as his open mouth. But I’m trying not to see them as ugly. They are a part of my history and they tell a story. With Lucy, my 28 week appointment showed her growth as below the 10th percentile and the doctors worried they would need to take her early. I began going to weekly appointments with ultrasounds and non-stress tests to make sure she was okay. It goes without saying that we were anxious and we wanted so badly to be able to just relax and enjoy the pregnancy. But at 36 weeks, Lucy jumped in growth, going from the 9th to 38th percentile. We were estatic and relieved. And that quick growth left behind bright red stretch marks that looked like I’d been clawed by a wild cat. But honestly, I really didn’t care at that point.

Now that swimsuit season is in full swing, I find myself caring. And it makes me angry that I struggle with caring. Really, shouldn’t these lines be embraced? They tell of story of love, of loss, of sacrifice, of beauty, and pain. They are a reminder of my identity, my history, and my present responsibilty. But sadly, their story can be easily negated by the desire to fit into our culture’s understanding of beauty. The fact that many would make unheard of sacrifices to see these marks on their own bodies is forgotten in the quest to make them disappear. And although it’s certainly liberating to be honest about having stretch marks and wanting them to less visible, it’s even more liberating to question the cultural aestethic from which these thoughts arise and attempt to evaluate beauty from a perspective that might not be informed by a culture that values youth over age. Yes, it’s quite unlikely that I’ll be showing off my belly again in this lifetime, even if I come to terms with my marks. But hopefully I can learn to see these lines as something beautitful because of what they represent and the nature in which they can bring me to a place of gratitude and thankfulness.

As I humbly embark on the journey of teaching my daughter the values of beauty, these ‘flaws’ can remind me to challenge our culture’s ideals in the hope that she will embrace an aesthetic that is informed by what is true and noble, rather than one informed by marketers making millions on the hope that she will feel insecure about the inherent beauty of her body. Yes, easier said than done. But I certainly want to give it a shot.