Me and my Pregnant BodyHere I was in a pregnant body - pregnant with twins. And no kidding, I was almost as round as I was tall. I felt E-N-O-R-M-O-U-S, a heffalump in a woman's body! My body image during pregnancy hit an all time low. Now you see all the happy pictures further down on this page? I felt like none of those! No instead I felt more like this ....
But for someone with huge body image problems (even before I fell pregnant), this my body image during pregnancy was a disaster. My pregnant body with it's swelling circumference filled me with fear. I felt the size of an elephant... gross and huge. In shop windows I saw a waddling wobbly woman dressed in a tent. Mirrors arrested me either in awe at the miracle or revulsion at my size. As for sex... well I have to fess up to using my pregnant body as my excuse for, “Sorry, darling not tonight”. But really - it had far more to do with my body image during pregnancy and the resultant images that my body critic was giving me day in and day out. Seriously, all I could envision was crash, crash, splinter, splinter as the bed collapsed under my hugeness. So sex was out! In fact, touching me was out! And the idea of getting naked in front of my husband terrified me. I couldn't help thinking if he saw me, he'd take off at a run, and um not towards me either. Unlike this happy couple - I had no desire to be desired.
Years later we had a conversation and I said something to him along the lines of: "But you hated me when I was big." He didn't hesitate for one moment before letting me have the truth: "No, YOU hated YOU when you thought you were big. What I hated was how you changed at these times!" He hit the nail squarely on the head! I was a misfit in a pregnant bodyOh... and what to wear??? My breasts had grown so much - it was like walking around with my own personal airbags up front. Buttons straining, and um sometimes popping. This did absolutely nothing for my body image during pregnancy, except shred it.I desperately wanted to lose that weight my hormones were packing on so fast. In addition, I felt as if I was a misfit in my own body, like I was a failed expectant mother because I hated every bit of pregnancy. (Sorry it's true... I feel almost traitorish even saying that because I've had people look at me with total shock and horror as they proclaim with wide-eyed wonder that they "LOVED it"!) I hated: • the nausea and tiredness that came with the first trimester, • that I couldn't shave my own legs, • waddling when I walked • people petting my stomach • and then I hated every growing centimeter .... except for those most incredible magical moments when I’d feel life kicking and temporarily (but alas only very temporarily) develop amnesia about my body-hatred. I worried constantly: • How am I going to loose all this weight? • Will my stomach ever be normal again? • When will I ever fit into my normal clothes again? I constantly tested hubby's perceptions of my changing body, wanting his reassurance. But, this was a minefield for the poor man. I was sooo ultra sensitive that there wasn't much he could say about my pregnant body without an emotional outburst.
What I wish I'd knownYears later I was writing an article for FitPregnancy magazine on body image during pregnancy and interviewed a few gynecologists. By the way, if you're struggling, get our fabulous self-esteem building exercises here.Dr. Carol Thomas, said she often sees women undergoing a transition she thinks of as ‘The Madonna Syndrome’. First she’s the slut, the sexual symbol and the icon on stage and eventually she becomes the Madonna with child. Oh my, how I wish I'd spoken to her years before... just knowing that how I was feeling wasn't so abnormal would have made me feel better. And here's what Irene Borquin child-birth and postnatal educator and author of ‘The New Practical Pregnancy and Birth Book (Maskew Millar Longman) said that I wish I'd known about my pregnant body: "pregnant women need to know what is ‘baby building’ versus ‘fat building’." I mean let's face it, your body has to go through some pretty awesome changes. Your clothing has to change, your ideas about yourself have to change... it's a pretty big transition to make. Now intellectually I knew that I was carrying twins and that a lot of what I was carrying was 'babies' but emotionally it was as if I couldn't access that knowledge - so my body critic just convinced me it was all fat I was growing. (Yes - I know sounds pretty dumb doesn't it?)
• the amniotic fluid, As a rough guide, shorter and taller women with single pregnancies should expect to gain between 10-12 kg and 12-15kg of ‘baby’ respectively with a single pregnancy. And to find out more about what specific parts of the above amount to, take a peek here. While I don't ever encourage calorie counting, I think I would have felt reassured to know that: • during my first two trimesters I needed to eat approximately 630 additional kilojoules (150 kcal) per day and • about 1260 kilojoules (300 kcal per day) during the third trimester. • that these figures would need to be even higher if I was exercising as well and needed to eat more complex carbohydrates to replace the glycogen found in muscle which might be lost during exercise. Return from Pregnant Body to Body Image
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Part of me was excited at the miracle going on in my body... I'd been converted into an incredibly sophisticated incubator, nourishing my growing twins. 
