This probably won’t sound like a big deal to anyone else, but I did something today… I actually wore a bathing suit to the beach… Without something over it. One may ask why this is a noteworthy thing, but it is, it just is. Grief has made something so small, so seemingly insignificant, a big deal to me.

Since I started this grief journey, my body image and opinion of myself have plummeted. I blame it on grief. Grief rocks your world, it changes you. It magnifies your insecurities and steals away your confidence because it goes hand in hand with vulnerability. I believe that grief from infant loss is an even more menacing monster, at least when it comes to view of oneself. It has been that way for me. As a woman and mother of an infant that is no longer here, I have struggled with my body image. (I’ve talked about this in a previous blog, which you can find here) Since I carried Lucy to full-term, I have ALL of the physical evidence of being pregnant and giving birth. Even a year later, the stretch marks and extra weight hang on. Things haven’t shrunk back to their original places, and everything looks a little different. Totally normal, but it doesn’t feel normal when there’s no beautiful baby on your hip after a pregnancy. I think that many (or most) moms are probably hard on themselves and their postpartum bodies, but in my experience as a loss mom, I think this has been amplified about a thousand times. It may sound like a mere excuse, but this grief has made it extraordinarily difficult to whip my body back into shape. The depression has been so intense and it’s been tough to motivate myself to “get my body back”. I have tried to remain active over the past year, but it’s not always consistent. Sometimes, I have a hard time even getting out of bed, so a workout doesn’t always feel feasible. I have decided to quit giving myself so much crap over this and give myself a little bit of grace. I will eventually get back “in shape”, whatever that new shape is.

I have been so cruel to myself. I’ve insulted my character and my body on a daily basis. I have sneered at my reflection in the mirror. I have said the crummiest things to myself, things that, if spoken by another person, would have been absolutely unacceptable. I’ve even been saying these things aloud, where Chris can hear them. You’d think it would have been a wake-up call when my husband told me that he’d kick someone’s ass if they talked to me like that, but no, I still continue to verbally abuse myself. Somewhere deep down, a part of me still blames myself for Lucy’s death. The abruption happed inside my body, so it must be my fault, right? That’s what I have been telling myself. That resentment of my own body manifested into the awful self-loathing I’ve been engaging in for a year now. I know that I’m doing it, yet I cannot stop. It’s truly a terrible thing, and something I am having a rough time overcoming.

This is another piece of this that may sound weird, but I am sharing it nonetheless. On Lucy’s birthday, I was doing an ordinary task when this routine of self-loathing I’ve been engaging in took a positive turn. I was drying my hair with the hairdryer, just thinking to myself. I was thinking specifically about how I do need to listen to Chris and my therapist Julie. They both keep telling me, “BE NICER TO YOURSELF”. I know they’re right, and I know that what I’ve been doing to myself is not okay. I was pondering that when, somewhere from another part of my mind I heard, “Do that for my birthday, Mommy”. I know this sounds crazy, and maybe it was just something that was working on a subconscious level, but it felt like something Lucy was trying to say to me. To be kinder to myself, that she would want that. I won’t do this for me alone, but when the added idea of doing that for Lucy becomes part of the equation, well… how can I ignore it? Back when I first realized I was pregnant with a little girl, I remember trying to have a pep talk with myself about how my daughter would be learning from me. If I couldn’t say kind things to myself and my daughter heard those unkind things, how might she talk to herself? I tried to tell myself that I would eliminate all of the negative self-talk for my daughter. When she died, I guess somehow that promise to myself changed, even though it shouldn’t have. I feel now that I am working toward more self-acceptance, because that’s what I’d want to teach my daughter if she were here. So now I am bound to it. I have to try.

Today, when we decided we’d take our dog Waggs to the lake, Chris encouraged me to put my bathing suit on so I could go in the water. Typically, I’d say no; today, I hesitated and thought I’d try doing what’s difficult instead. And you know what? No one cared! No one judged me, no one thought I was disgusting, no one gave it a second thought. It was all fine. I wore my bathing suit in public, and none of those people looked at me and said, “Eww”, or “Oh wow, that woman is obviously a loss mom”. No one at that beach knew anything other than that there was a nice couple on the beach throwing a Frisbee for their dog enjoying the summer day. There it is… one more step toward self-acceptance. I can wear a bathing suit at a public beach. I can talk kindly to myself. I can accept that I’ve been through hell and am still going strong. I can change the way I view myself. I can be a loss mom and still feel good about myself. It all probably seems simple to someone looking in upon my situation who’s never lost a baby, but to me, it’s been a year of trying to accept and love myself again.

I am one step closer. One step closer to being my own best friend again.

A squinty-eyed sun photo, but proof that I am working on accepting myself for who I am now, even in a bathing suit!