The Body That Carried Us
By Shelbie Mae
@shelbiemaewrites
Content warning: this essay references an eating disorder.
Age Fifteen
Bright red lockers surround me as I walk the hallways during my freshman year of high school. I see the truth of who I have become in the sideways glances of the students as they try not to look me in the eye. I am the anorexic girl, and they don’t know how to interact with me.
I wear gloves and a hat to class to keep warm. When other girls are changing their pads or tampons during lunch hour, I am dumping my meal-replacement drink down the drain. I haven’t had my period in months.
Babies aren’t at the forefront of my mind at the age of fifteen, but the thought that I may never be able to have children does cross my mind. If I can get into recovery I might get my period back, but who knows how much damage has already been done to my body?
My body.
I care so much about how it looks.
I used to be able to do push-ups with the boys, throw shot-put with the top athletes in my grade, swim in Lake Michigan for hours, and start on the basketball team, but not anymore. I know I should feel sorrow over how I’ve wasted away, how my shoulder blades can be felt with something as simple as a hug, but I don’t.
When I look in the mirror, I can see all my ribs and my collarbone. The sharp angles give me a sense of power. I am strong for doing this to myself, but in the process, I’ve made myself weak.
Although I misuse it, my body carries me.
Age Twenty-Six
My husband and I are living in Florida and I love how the almost year-round sunshine keeps my depression at bay unlike the dark Michigan winters that made me question if I was pretty or capable or worthy or anything good.
Here, in Florida, I am in a good place.
Mostly.
I know there are parts of the eating disorder I am still holding onto even though I’ve been in recovery for ten years. For example, my body is strong and healthy again, but I don’t know the last time I ate three meals a day. I hold on to little pieces of my old ways while telling myself I am healthy. And for the most part, I am.
The Florida sun shines a light not only on my tanned body but also my long-held desire to have a baby. My childhood friends are having babies, one of my sisters had a baby, but here I am, married for four years, and—no baby.
There is a room in the townhouse my husband and I have bought in Florida that I imagine as a nursery. The walls are aqua blue, the curtains are white, the crib will go here, or here, and I will shush my baby to sleep.
Before my husband and I were engaged, we sat in a cold, sterile doctor's office and had a conversation with genetic counselors about his medical condition. After the appointment, we decided that if we ever got married we would adopt a child.
For years, I have been okay with the reality of not having a biological child and adopting instead. I’ve looked forward to it. But somewhere along the way, between Michigan and Florida, my heart has wondered what it would be like to have a biological child.
I want to adopt. I know the limits of my heart are wide and welcoming. I know I can love a child not from my body as fiercely as if they were. But I wonder, what would it be like to carry a baby, to labor, and to nurse them?
Ever since I almost died of anorexia and experienced the miracle of getting a second chance to enjoy life, I have been thankful for my body. I can go on runs, swim for sand dollars in the Gulf of Mexico, and mentor teen girls. But I wonder about the other things it can do. The things only a woman’s body can do, like conceive and bear a child.
I don’t know if my body can physically have babies because of the trauma from the eating disorder but shouldn’t I at least try? I am never unhappy with my husband for the medical condition he was born with. I don’t fault him for this decision we made together. But I want to know if I can have a baby.
There is a fear tucked into the back of my mind that accompanies these thoughts. What if I hate my body after I have the baby I promised I’d never have? What if pregnancy brings back the eating disorder? What if I relapse after all these years? But still … I agreed not to birth babies from my body so these questions are irrelevant, right?
Although I question it, my body carries me.
Age Twenty-Nine
I am in the best shape of my life. I’m still not eating three meals a day because I have convinced myself that I’m not hungry for breakfast, but deep down, it is the fear of extra calories that drives this habit. I love my body. I love running and eating and yoga and hiking on the weekends. Life is good, except when I get a negative pregnancy test.
Again.
And again.
We have temporarily abandoned the adoption paperwork because life has blown us from one move to the next for my husband’s jobs. It’s hard to adopt a baby when you don’t have a permanent—or semi-permanent—address, so we decide to try getting pregnant.
I have a period app on my phone that tells me the perfect days to make a baby, but after four months it turns out those days are not as perfect as I’d hoped. Time and time again I have the sense that I must be pregnant, this month feels different … but I am met with disappointment every time.
Home from a vacation to Michigan, I find myself standing at the bathroom counter with no “maybe” in my mind or heart. Our days enjoying Lake Michigan, and spending time with family around the dinner table and campfires had been full and joyful. We’d broken free of the magical days on my calendar, and stopped living our lives by the app’s schedule, so we couldn’t be pregnant now.
And yet … a package of pregnancy tests sits in my bathroom cabinet. Castoffs from last month when I hoped I would see two pink lines. I know I’m not pregnant so what’s the harm?
My body shakes uncontrollably when I look at the stick and see ‘Yes.’
It can’t be right.
I chug water and go to the store for more tests.
They all give the same result.
Pregnant.
Within weeks I am hit with morning sickness that lasts all day. I feel like a teenager again, out of control with food when the only thing that helps the sickness is to keep my belly full—but not too full. I know I can’t restrict breakfast anymore. I have to eat. I keep a canister of cashews by my bed and I eat, even at 3 a.m..
I stand on the scale backward when the OB appointments start. It took me approximately six years to ditch the scale after recovery and I haven’t known my weight since.
I tell my new OB my concerns about the eating disorder coming back during pregnancy. He tells me he has worked with other eating disorder recovery patients before and is nothing but helpful and resourceful. Since I’m new in town, he recommends me to a primary care doctor.
While at an appointment with the primary care doctor, while talking specifically about my past with an eating disorder, she looks at my chart tells me my weight, and says, “So you really haven’t gained that much weight since getting pregnant.”
I am too dumbfounded to speak after being carelessly told my weight. I’m gaining how much weight? She might not think it’s a lot, but I do. I’m not even twenty weeks pregnant yet. How much weight will I gain? I find myself a new primary care doctor.
My patient and easy-going OB encourages me through my fears as my pregnancy continues and we find out we are having a son.
As my stomach stretches with the body of the boy I carry, something strange happens. I dream of stretch marks. I want them. I’ve waited years to feel this life inside of me and now that he is, I want my body to carry proof of what it’s doing right now. Of him and me.
Every part of my life changes as my body grows. I’m not as scared of the things I thought I would be and I am embracing the growth. I’m eating three meals a day. I’ve quit running but I still walk as much as possible. Slowly, to keep the Braxton Hicks contractions in check. I rub lotion on my belly every night and use it as an excuse to make my husband rub it on my back too. Pregnant women deserve backrubs, right?
When I feel my son kick and wiggle I know that my body is no longer just mine, but his too. I am in awe of the way I am growing, and how this new life is expanding me emotionally as well as physically. I await the day I can meet, name, and hold my son.
Although it hurts, and gains, and stretches, my body carries us.
Age Thirty
Life with my son is everything I hoped for plus a little more exhausting. Many days I am too tired to exercise, but I’ll get back to it—eventually.
I eat more than I did before I was pregnant. Calories don’t worry me like they used to, which is evident in the sugary lactation-boosting drinks I enjoy and the lactation cookies I make from scratch that I eat almost every day.
The crazy thing is, I love my body more now than I did before I was pregnant. I was so scared of what it might look like. Of being “big.” There are days I look in the mirror and dislike that my tummy looks as large as I did when I was six months pregnant, but I know that’s more my perception than reality.
Before I had my son I looked at my body as an object, but now I look at it as a vessel that has carried me and also carried my son. My stretch marks are a reminder of the growth I’ve gone through. The calories I consume are nurturing my child. I don’t think I can ever mistreat my body in the way I did before because I am so grateful for it for giving me the very greatest gift—my son.
Guest essay written by Shelbie Mae. Shelbie lives in Oregon with her husband, son, and mostly blind Boston Terrier where she loves to hike and do other outdoorsy things. She is the author of two books and has been previously published in print and online magazines on the topics of eating disorder recovery and faith. You can find her on Instagram or her website.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.