I am certain I am not the only one who has had a negative script in my mind that says "of course they've had fertility success because they are a healthy weight" In my early years of infertility, I equated fertility to their appearance. I really abhorred those thoughts when they crept in, hated that I was reducing everything to factors that (should) have no bearing, especially because I know that's been done to me in reverse because I am overweight.
Body Negativity
A lot of us actually have this same script about different areas of success, not just fertility. I know these thoughts are really projections of how we feel about ourselves and nothing to do with the people we are judging, it's actually a twisted way of judging ourselves. But with infertility, almost all success is connected to our bodies, and often our weight as well. It's nearly impossible to separate how we feel about our body from how we feel about our body not producing a baby. This is only amplified for women like me who have struggled with weight & body image every year since puberty, and/or those who like me are of an older generation where our minds were born & raised through years of messaging that never properly balanced body health with mental health & self-love.
What I have been raised with is the message that a woman's body is supposed to take up as little space as possible (at least in my part of the world). It's been overwhelmingly the mainstream message for more than 3/4's of my life, layered into my conscious and subconscious for decades. The foundation for all my beliefs about my body was that my value was determined by the appearance my body was able to offer the world, and that only shifted slightly in my child-bearing years to the belief my body's value was determined by the ability to function normally and produce children for the world.
Is it any wonder I had no other view of my body other than that it was broken?
Nearly a dozen years ago, I was feeling my 'appearance shame' and 'infertility shame' colliding intensely, and I cried out to God, angry about the body He had given me. When my sobbing finally grew silent I heard Him whisper to me, "I didn't create you to have a bikini body." That wasn't what I wanted to hear though. And it is so hard to hold on to a whisper when those messages scream at me daily. Like Lauren Daigle croons, "I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I'm not enough."
I cried out again...."I need more than that, why am I not skinny?! Why don't you just fix me?" However, He wasn't focused on giving me truth to help fix the outside, He was giving me truth to fix the inside. He did in fact whisper more...."I gave you a mother's body, it's designed to be comforting, soft, welcoming....to feel like home." In a way, that thought brought some solace. In a way it was also confusing, because hello, infertility! Regardless of the fact I never became a biological mother, I eventually allowed this to become a truth I would come back to throughout the years, when the negative self-talk gets to be too much. To focus on the fact God sees me as a wonderfully made masterpiece, made intentionally with ample curves & cellulite. And that He made me that way intentionally, externalizing my heart and making it physically tangible to those I care for.
Yet, accepting my larger frame was God's design...that was just one battle won, but the war raged on. I'd feel like I was taking ground but then I'd find myself under fire again, it felt like too much to fight at times. I had thought I was in a bloody battle with my body before, but with further miscarriages, increased treatments, and incredible stress at work, the hormone hell I was going through just wounded my body all the more. It was one step forward, two steps back and I wondered if my body would ever experience wholeness. Or even just peace.
Body Positivity
I could only handle that constant fight for so long until I waved a white flag. We decided to not actively try anything to get pregnant, and give my body a rest. It came at a time when my purpose in other areas were becoming much clearer, and I was pursuing education that would lead me to understand wholeness in a much more helpful way. I had already begun walking in my purpose to support women in their self-care & self-love through various struggles, but it was an incomplete kind of health if I did not also encourage and support care & love for our bodies as well. I learned so much about the inter-connectedness of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, especially the crucial reality that when one area is unhealthy they all suffer. For the sake of my whole self, I needed to love my body better.
Still, it was just another piece of the puzzle, not the full picture. I still saw my body as something that needed to be fixed. Sure my sole aim was no longer to be skinny, but I was still defensive of my (non) mom bod, and how I looked pregnant when I never would be. I was still very aware of my comparative size within any grouping of people. I still saw body through the lens of how I appeared to other people. Positive body culture began to filter into my perspective around this time as well and it was a shocking revelation for me to see the main purpose of my body as supporting a healthy life, not being attractive.
I was finally beginning to understand I had a choice in how I feel about my body based on what I choose to think about my body. It's a choice to believe my body has failed me, but it certainly isn't healthy to burden my body with that blame. With healthier perspectives entering the mainstream, I eagerly studied how to exist (and hopefully thrive!) in this new body culture. I was now equipped with enough weapons that gave me a fighting chance in this war! Which, it turns out, was not a war of me against my body, it was a war of the world against my body.
On the other side of infertility now, in the realm of childlessness, this knowledge goes beyond my appearance. I know now that my body isn't broken because it wasn't ever meant to carry & birth a child. That was another external expectation it took far too long for healthier perspectives to enter mainstream culture. I was always meant to be who I am today, if that meant never giving birth, then my body didn't fail.
I wish that I could say I haven't had to fight the old paradigms one more day since those revelations. Even after months have gone by without a body judgement, now and then one creeps in. Thankfully, God is still trying to reach me with His message through the smallest of voices. Like the one I heard when a tiny toddler voice asked to sit in my lap. At first there wasn't room the way I was sitting on a stool, so I tried to explain that, and she replied, "but you are bigger than mommy and daddy." Of course, at first all I could hear was my own offense. But then, the inner whisper revealed, this little cherub-look-a-like was merely trying to make a case for me to make room for her. All she wanted was to sit on my comforting, soft, welcoming....motherly lap.
And so I continue to work at silencing all the other voices, because then I can hear the truth.
"I will offer You my grateful heart, for I am Your unique creation, filled with wonder and awe. You have approached even the smallest details with excellence; Your works are wonderful; I carry this knowledge deep within my soul." Psalm 139:14 (VOICE)
As Lauren Daigle's song continues, "The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me. And I believe, oh I believe what You say of me. I believe."
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