Pregnancy
Hot, naked and pregnant
How a nude photo shoot at nine months changed the way I see my own body -- and my role as a "mommy"
(Credit: Loskutnikov via Shutterstock) I’m standing in front of my house in a light rain, in the altogether, eight-and-a-half months pregnant, while a photographer snaps photos. I’m tucked into the hedge, hoping the neighbors don’t have a view from their windows. I’ve never been so happy to be naked.
A year earlier, I had tumbled into a mid-life crisis. I had one child who was nearly three, and my husband and I were planning for a second. This had always been our intention, and I approached this second foray without much anxiety. But when my younger sister called to tell me she and her boyfriend were going to London, something inside my head was knocked loose. “Damn,” I thought. “I’m going to be a MOMMY.”
Yes, I know what you’re thinking: You’ve been a mommy for three years. Get over it.
But it wasn’t the prospect of becoming a parent that freaked me out. I loved my little boy and wanted to add another goofball to the family. What threw me into a tizzy was the prospect of being a mommy and all the cultural baggage that came along with it. With one child, you could be that interesting woman with the cute kid who still retained a modicum of cool. But the second child would define you. This is faulty logic, I know, but I believed it nonetheless: A mommy is invisible. A mommy has bad jeans and a minivan. Twenty-five-year-old boys would never check me out. I would never take off to London on a whim.
Our culture certainly didn’t help these insecurities. “Mommy” is used to denigrate female parents. Professional women planning to have children are on the “Mommy track.” When we write about our experiences, we are “Mommy bloggers.” When we differ about parenting, we engage in “Mommy wars.” When we get into a little erotica, it becomes “Mommy porn.” Once identified as a “mommy,” we’re identified as little else.
No matter that I was never that cool or adventurous in the first place. I was the high school valedictorian, the Goody Two-Shoes. I’d had two boyfriends and married one of them. I always win “I’ve Never” because, really, I’ve never. But now I had no chance to be cool. Any possibility was off the table. I considered getting a tattoo or tarting up my wardrobe, but then I realized that doing these things to avoid being a mommy cliché was a cliché in and of itself.
Eventually, I realized I needed to get over myself. The demands of parenting a small child did not leave time to wallow, and at lucid moments I recognized that I would not have young kids forever. I would be able to go to London someday, and I didn’t have to drive a minivan. But my mommy fears still nagged.
A year later — pregnant as can be and irreversibly a mommy — I learned that a favorite local photographer was looking for models for a project on pregnant women. It was an appealing proposition, but there was a catch: She wanted nudes. I dismissed the idea; I couldn’t do a nude photo shoot. But I also realized I did not want to be the type of person who would say no to this.
This is how I found myself in my yard in the nude. I had spent an hour posing with my clothes on — the black bike shorts and black tank that had become my uniform in those sweltering final weeks. The photographer, Ellen, posed shots of me contemplating my belly on the back deck, family portraits in front of a nearby dilapidated barn, and shots of my boy and me frolicking in the neighboring cemetery. We chatted while she clicked away: about pregnancy, our kids, our town, and her work, and I tried not to think about where this was leading.
Eventually it started to rain and we ducked into the front yard, sheltered by a tall hedge. I ignored my misgivings, summoned a little confidence, and shed my clothes.
All along, I hadn’t been sure I could strip. I may not be the person so neurotic she changes in the bathroom at the gym, but I’m also not the woman who wanders around the locker room stark naked. I’ve often struggled with my weight, and I fight the urge to hide my body: too much belly, too much breast, flab and curves where I don’t want them.
But pregnancy gave me a freedom with my body that I didn’t have before and haven’t had since. At nearly nine months, my body was supposed to look like this. I was supposed to have an enormous belly, giant breasts, and a little something extra in the back. I could have done without the tree-trunk thighs, but I could live with those, too. Much to my surprise, revealing this body felt fine. So did the rain on my skin — it was awfully hot being pregnant in June.
Once Ellen began shooting, I adopted a strategy of “don’t look down.” It was best to ignore the absurdity of standing in our tiny front yard, separated from the sidewalk and street by only a hedge. As the shoot progressed, I felt an amazement that I could do this, that I was doing this. I can still see it in the small, pleased smile I’m wearing in the photos. It is equal parts relief, surprise and satisfaction.
Looking at the photos now, years later, I feel a bittersweet pang for those last few days when we were just three, before we became something new. I’m gobsmacked not only by the size of my belly and breasts but also by my nerve.
Later that day, after Ellen left and I had dressed, my husband observed, “Now you’ll never have to get a tattoo.” I’m grateful for that. And I’m grateful that the postman didn’t choose that moment to deliver the mail.
Megan Rubiner Zinn lives in Western Massachusetts with her husband and two sons. Her work has appeared in Jezebel, the Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, MA), VisualThesauraus, and her blog, life in the little city. More Megan Rubiner Zinn.
Hell-bent on natural pregnancy
I wanted to solve my fertility issues without hormones or high-tech meds. I had no idea how unnatural this would be
I’m not exactly the woo-woo type. I eat meat, shave my armpits, and Birkenstocks don’t fit my feet. But the year I turned 35, I went a little nuts in the New Age department. My husband, Ron, and I had crossed the three-year mark of trying to conceive. So far, our fertility journey had amounted to one miscarriage and countless trips to the doctor. Tests all showed the same thing: Ron had Super Sperm; I had a luteal phase defect. Every month, my period started too early and lasted too long. It’s difficult for a fertilized egg to implant in a uterus that’s constantly shedding its lining.
Continue Reading CloseJenny Rough is a writer living in Alexandria, Virginia. Follow her on Twitter @jennyrough. More Jenny Rough.
I’ve got “baby fever”
Could there be real science behind the old cliche of a woman's biological clock? I didn't believe it -- until now
(Credit: erikreis/iStockphoto) It started with a TV commercial. I can’t remember what was being advertised. All I know is that it showed a father holding a newborn baby, and I started to cry — not out of sadness, but awe. A baby, a beautiful baby!
Look, I’m human, and as such, I’ve always found babies cute — but, suddenly, right around my 28th birthday earlier this year, crossing paths with them caused me to grab the arm of my acquaintance as though I’d seen a celebrity. Reactions formerly reserved for baby animals began to apply to human infants. Noticing this shift, a friend who hadn’t seen me for a while remarked, “Since when are you baby crazy?” The real question is: Since when did I become such a cliché?
Continue Reading Close
Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter. More Tracy Clark-Flory.
I’m smoking too much pot
I know I'm going to have to quit once I get pregnant, but I need it for the stress relief
(Credit: Zach Trenholm/Salon) Dear Cary,
I’m a 25-year-old female, I work two jobs, I’m engaged to a great guy.
Right now, both of our full-time jobs suck. We’re stuck with bosses who don’t appreciate us, even though we are both inherently hard workers. So we are trying to support each other and have jointly decided to move 2,000 miles away to another city where there are more jobs, and where we both have some family.
We like the city we’re going to move to no more than the one we are in, except for more opportunities, cheaper taxes, and great access to the mountains. I have moved cities several times in my life and I enjoy the thrill of the change, and this move does feel right. So, hopefully our job issues will be resolved in a few months in a new setting.
Continue Reading Close
Cary Tennis writes Salon's advice column, leads writing workshops and creative getaways, publishes books, writes an occasional newsletter and tweets as @carytennis.
- Send me a letter! Ask for advice! Letter writers please note: By sending a letter to advice@salon.com, you are giving Salon permission to publish it. Once you submit it, it may not be possible to rescind it. So be sure.
- Make a comment to Cary Tennis not for publication.
- Send a letter to Salon's editors not for publication.
More Cary Tennis.
Was I selfish to have fertility treatments?
As the mother of twins, I know people suspect I had help getting pregnant. But why am I so self-conscious about it?
(Credit: Franz Pfluegl via Shutterstock) When I found out I was pregnant with twins, one of my first thoughts was, “Great. Now everyone’s going to wonder if I had fertility treatments.”
And they do: People ask all kinds of probing questions — from the sometimes innocent, “Do twins run in your family?” to the blatant, “Was it natural?”
And it wasn’t. Our twins were the result of ovulation stimulation drugs and an IUI (intrauterine insemination).
But the question I started asking myself was: Why should I care if people suspected or knew I needed “help” getting pregnant? Especially in an age in which so many women seek medical intervention when they have trouble conceiving. And especially at a time when twins are becoming the new normal: Recently, the CDC reported that 1 in every 30 babies born in the United States today is a twin.
Continue Reading CloseJane Roper’s memoir of twin pregnancy, parenting and clinical depression, "Double Time," will be published in May by St. Martin’s Press. She blogs at Baby Squared on Babble, and lives in the Boston area. More Jane Roper.
What do you mean, I’m giving birth the wrong way?
My friends arrogantly insist I should have my next child at home
(Credit: Zach Trenholm/Salon) Dear Cary,
A sort of continental drift between my friends and me over parenting suffered an earthquake last month, and now the chasm between us seems impossibly wide. I need advice about friendship and forgiveness, or maybe I need advice about staying strong and letting “friends” go, at least until the kids are grown. All I know is that I’m sad and resentful, and possibly overreacting.
The drift: 10 years ago, my now-husband and I lived across the street from one of my best college friends and his now-wife. Then we got married within two months of each other, had our first children within nine months of each other, and generally supported each other through these two very big and wonderful experiences. Then the last four years happened.
Continue Reading Close
Cary Tennis writes Salon's advice column, leads writing workshops and creative getaways, publishes books, writes an occasional newsletter and tweets as @carytennis.
- Send me a letter! Ask for advice! Letter writers please note: By sending a letter to advice@salon.com, you are giving Salon permission to publish it. Once you submit it, it may not be possible to rescind it. So be sure.
- Make a comment to Cary Tennis not for publication.
- Send a letter to Salon's editors not for publication.
More Cary Tennis.
Page 1 of 42 in Pregnancy