Stretchmarks

It has happened. I now have stretchmarks. They're not just some silvery stretchmarks that no one can notice, they're very apparent red stretchmarks that if I lifted my top, people would see and scream for the hills.

Or would they understand that I'm carrying a little person inside of me and stretchmarks just come with the territory of being pregnant? Since the great insult of May 2008 (if you do not know what I'm referring to...I will just say that I was greatly insulted about my body that month) I sometimes question if I am a beautiful pregnant woman or person. It's a little heartbreaking since pregnancy is supposed to be a beautiful thing that a woman and ONLY a woman can go through. 95% of the time I feel like a beautiful sacred vessel. The 5% only hit me when I pass by another pregnant woman who is as far along as I am but looks so much cuter and smaller than I. During those times I remind myself that every woman is different but still beautiful in her own way.

When I go to my OB appointments I am amazed by the abundance of beautiful woman who are going through the same thing as I and how each of them are enraptured by their new and lovely figures. Some women can be 8 months along and look as though they're only 5 months, those petite beauties can still deliver healthy infants. Other women can be amazons (glamazons) and totally rule the waiting room and they too can deliver a strong baby. I also notice some women who are not so happily involved with their bodies; those women I wish that I could hold their hands and tell them that they are even more beautiful for carrying another life. These women perhaps are not only in the same boat as I but in the same section; un-attending biological father - the person who aided you in getting to this situation but for some reason of their own choose not be present. Or they just were never happy with their own body image, whatever the reason they are gorgeous beings - yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

So - the thing about stretchmarks is that most parturients get them; it's all in the genetics. Those blessed enough to not get them full throttle, please do not disclose this with anyone but your daughter who might one day be in the same boat as you.....she will be thankful but your friends and neighbors will not.

I'm not sure if I want to try cocoa butter to help them slightly disappear since the damage has been done but it is a consideration. This goes with my whole, "trying not to be vein," method. A woman's vanity is already bad enough, I don't need mine to worsen during this special time. I'm doing my best to enjoy the fact that the new love of my life is growing inside of me and will soon join me and everyone else. Seriously though, how can any woman be fixated on her amour-prope when there's love to be shared with the person inside of her? Much bigger things are happening. And I don't know how to express how excited I am to greet the little man in 2 months; each time I write in my journal I'm scribbling about the thrill of his arrival. Count down is seriously going on.