Loving Me: My Journey to Self-Acceptance

I want to love myself.

There. I said it.

Oh, I have a really hard time doing it! I have not been very nice to my body. I am a recovering bulimic/anorexic. I have abused alcohol in my younger days. I had a heart attack and other chronic illnesses. But my body trudged on, getting zero love and all the hate from me, and every time my body “failed” me, I threw it under the bus. It made me feel weak because I always honored my mind. I very much put my worth squarely on my intelligence and my ability to be kind to others. I looked at my body as something that held me back.

On a mental level, I wanted to be the kind of person who radiated love and acceptance but I could never actually accept all of myself. On any given day, I could only appreciate a small piece of who I was and always found lots of great ways to put myself down. And my self-image about my body often bore the hate.

Becoming a mom really put this in focus for me. I spent 2 months on bedrest/ hospital rest to preserve my pregnancy. I had a condition called Incompetent Cervix. What that means is that way before I was due to give birth my cervix, which is the part of the uterus that opens up for the baby to move into the birth canal, began to just get thinner and thinner. Except I didn't know. I went to my 20-week anatomy scan and honestly was just expecting to find out the biological sex of my baby. The technician was so nice. She kept it together very well, calmly stepping out of the room at the end and returning with a doctor.

Looking back, I swear there was a moment that I felt myself sidestep into another timeline. It was the gut-punch sensation that your life has just changed and you are never going to be who you were before that moment again. They returned and explained that the hospital had already been informed I was on my way. That I had, instead of around 4.5 cm of muscle holding my child in safely, that I had .5 cm, a measurement that is only seen during labor. I had to go and be seen immediately and attempt an intervention to stop my baby from being born within days. My otherwise perfectly healthy baby boy who was happily bouncing around was going to disappear.

My doctor at the hospital told me my best chance was a cerclage surgery, where stitches are used to sew the cervix shut to prolong the pregnancy. I was lucky he was on shift because he had during his career performed about 50 of these surgeries and he was the only one at that hospital who had. He explained that my baby had a bit better than 50% chance of not being born that night. My amniotic sack had not dropped to a point it would likely be pierced during the stitching. I sat back stunned and agreed.

The surgery happened at about 1 am. I didn't much sleep that night, but when I did awake the next morning, the sun was rising over the hospital and was reflected directly into my bedroom from the windows of an adjacent building. My bed was bathed in gold light and I gingerly pulled back my sheets, terrified. But my baby was still there. I sat and hugged my belly with both arms.

That morning sparked a change in me. I was thrust into so many situations I just never thought I would survive emotionally. Home bed rest. Giving up my attic apartment because I couldn't climb the stairs. Giving up my job and financial independence. Weekly, then daily hospital check-ins, shots, ultrasounds. Setbacks and hospital admittance. 6 weeks in hospital. Blood tests, 2x daily baby checks. Getting heavier and more sedentary which terrified me. But I did not give up believing that if he made it through that first night, every other setback or problem was going to to be surmountable.

I fell in love with my warrior spirit, facing my fears, getting every shot, blood test, every day isolated and scared. Every moment of terrifying unknown. My water broke the night before my 30th birthday, 3 weeks before I eventually gave birth. I went into labor on a Sunday night and was coached to hold out, with drugs to help that set my body on fire and added to the feeling of my soul being ripped into tiny shreds. I continued to FIGHT labor till Wednesday morning when everyone agreed, the baby is coming today.

Wednesday around lunch when I gave in and agreed to an epidural, I felt dejected. Part of me wanted to punish myself, felt I deserved this. That the body I had always been so harsh to had failed my baby, that I had failed my baby. I felt like more of a woman and more deserving if I hurt through this. But I had no more to give and I felt like I was a failure. So I laid my head back and I finally rested. Days of little sleep and little food left me in a state that harkens to a shaman's trance. I closed my eyes finally as my body felt kind of farther away, except for my IV which burned with a magnesium drip and I kept under an ice pack.

I saw a landscape in red. A huge tree before me was the only thing I could make out. And there, sitting at the base of the tree was my child. I felt myself walk to him, reach out my hand. I remember thinking, It's time, and although he was confused he took my hand and I felt love. I woke and within a couple of hours my tiny baby was born. I watched on a screen on the ceiling as his tiny red body, so swollen, lay in an isolette. The team waiting for him began to insert every lifesaving tube and hose to replicate my body and keep him alive. Finally, his little right foot twitched and I knew he made it.

It was hours before I got to see him in person. Hours I spent just being in shock and pain and secretly hating myself. Why couldn't I just have something normal? Why did my body betray us like this? Why was I not good enough to just do this right? I tortured myself and felt so cold and lonely. I sent my partner to the baby as soon as he was allowed to go and sat alone, hating myself as I shook and patted my legs. I wasn't allowed to go until the epidural wore off and my legs were still so numb and I hated them. Hated me.

I did finally meet him and he was small, red, and swollen. He did not look like a Gerber baby but he was so beautiful and the best thing I had ever seen. The next days were hard to transition from high Risk to NICU. We were entering a new environment. My body had been lying in bed for so long that I was so weak. I hadn't been allowed to walk for 2 months one day; the next day I was told to walk to the NICU and my body shook and stumbled. I dragged myself up the long NICU hallway, hanging off the wooden handrails with gritted teeth and tears down my cheeks. It was a struggle trying to get to the bathroom or the family room but I was determined I was going to be as close to that little boy as I possibly could.

Within 10 days, we had gotten to know him, Junior. I laid across the cot in his room and stood vigil by his little plastic box for hours, scared to touch him but dying to. His skin was so thin that to stroke his little cheek would hurt. After a few days, we were allowed to hold him. I sat topless with a gown around my shoulders and a nurse maneuvered him and his gear onto me. I place my cupped hand around his little back and I sighed. He quivered and melted into me. And we both fell asleep. It was like things were finally like they were supposed to be and we were one again, just for a second.

On the tenth day, we found out he had had 2 stroke-like episodes while in utero, one most likely during my 3-day labor. They explained that he would "probably walk and talk, but would most likely have cerebral palsy." My bones turn to jello in places and iron in others. My ears were deafening. I knew that cerebral palsy is not the end of the world, and his quality of life was going to be determined by us and him. But the guilt choked me and the postpartum depression and anxiety gripped me for a long time.

PPD and PPA are hellish. I suffered as quietly as I could. I sort of drifted. I had a treasured friend who some days I think is my spirit guide. She went out of her way to try to keep my head above water. I poured myself into Junior and in many ways, I was so happy. But when it came to my relationship with me, I hated myself.

A lot of time and life has passed now. My son is now 3. He has officially been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. And he is the coolest f$#@ing human I have ever met. He teaches me so much with every breath and step he takes. He loves trucks and sharks and is gentle and kind. He is innately a wonderful person.

The years have helped me understand a few things and if you have made it this far I hope they help you:

- Junior is here and that is a grace of this universe that I express gratitude for every day.

- My guilt is for a physical process I had no control over. I have to let go of the things I can't control and accept that the way he got here was the way he was supposed to. No other woman could have given birth to that exact kid and gotten him here seamlessly. It was my job and I did my best.

- The things I did have control over, I threw every part of myself into and did a really good job I think. The reality of it all was I had to learn where the line was, between the things I actually can control versus the things that just are how they are and need to be faced with serenity instead of guilt.

- My body is not my enemy. My body is me. I am not some separate thing from my body; I am a spiritual being having a human experience in the body I chose, which is shaped by my choices.

This year, I stood in front of a mirror. And just quietly accepted. I wrapped my arms around myself and looked in my own eyes and said I love you. I know you did your best and will keep doing everything you can. You did so much when faced with so much. You are a fighter, and a sister and a daughter, and a mother. A friend and an artist and a warrior. The battles you fight that no one sees are no less real or less important. Every day, I meet the sun and after a cup of coffee, I whisper how grateful I am for everything in my life.

I had never given myself the kind of love I desperately want to give others. Never turned my light really on my squishy tummy, or my double chin or wiggly legs. All parts of me deserve acceptance, not just the ones that are easy to love. And if something needs to change, it can because I have the power within me to make choices and live them. I want to be the kind of woman that models radical self-acceptance to my son, so maybe he will live with acceptance and love for himself too.

I am working on loving myself today.

I hope you are too.

I love you.