I am not a mom. I know you all will tell me that’s really not true, but it feels true to me. I don’t have a baby to hold, bathe, feed, or read good night. I don’t have a baby who wants only their mama. I watch my friends and sister-in-law with their kids and its not the same. I birthed a baby boy, but he’s not here in my arms. I don’t get to mother him, to be a mom, have a baby call me mama or only want me and no one else. I was pregnant, I was in labor, I gained the weight, but I don’t have my baby.
That part is still a struggle. I still have the weight. I don’t look or feel like myself. My grief is physical as much as it is emotional. There was a baby inside me, I felt him with every part of my being. He was part of me. Now he’s not here to share his life with me. My whole body aches from this loss. My body still has the hormones coursing through. My belly still has those unnatural curves and rolls that were not there before. My hips are wider, my clothes don’t fit. I am uncomfortable in my own skin. I walk down the street a different person. People look at me and they don’t know what happened which makes me so uncomfortable. There is no baby slung close to my body or in a stroller. When others look at me, they don’t see a mom who is carrying extra weight from carrying that cute baby she’s pushing along. They see an unhappy woman who is not herself.
As a yoga teacher for kids- I know better. I know this extra weight doesn’t change the person I am inside. I know that it doesn’t really matter. But it kinda does. It does because it symbolizes so much more then just extra weight. It’s there for a reason, and doesn’t want to leave. I’m working at it, working hard at losing it, but its still there. Somehow movie stars lose the weight and look perfect a month after their baby is born. Almost 5 months out and I look the same. I don’t have breastfeeding to help, I have to motivate myself to do this, to make the changes, to stay active, to eat well and to take care of myself. Its such an uphill battle, one I sometimes don’t know if I have the strength for.
Everyone says I’m so hard on myself, but really, do any of you women like being 20 lbs overweight? Not really. It just makes getting dressed a really unpleasant experience. Try getting into a bathing suit in the middle of winter. Yeah, that really sucked. But I work hard to not let it matter. I try to focus on my mental health, on just getting through my day in one piece. But I’m just uneasy. Everything in my life is making me uneasy and I feel it in my whole body.
Part of me believes that getting pregnant again will make some of that uneasiness go away. The other part of me believes that it will never go away. That getting pregnant is only a band aid that can’t heal the real pain inside. I dream every night of the moment my baby is placed on my chest. Silas being placed on my chest only seconds after he was born seems like a dream. He was there and taken away before I even had a chance to look at his beautiful face, or give him kisses or really feel his skin against mine. My body longs for a new baby to grow inside. My body is obviously still hanging on to that last pregnancy, it doesn’t seem to want to let it go. This part of me that is still hanging on is longing for that baby to hold and kiss and love.
Elm City Dad 
23 comments
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February 23, 2009 at 6:02 am
Lacri
Yes. The last time anyone called me “mom” was the doctors in the hospital, I suppose so that they didn’t have to bother to remember my real name. Everything about how my body looks and feels now – the flabby tummy, the extra weight, the slipping cleavage, the odd extra vein on my legs – screams “mom”, but I’m not. Thank you for describing this so well.
February 23, 2009 at 7:03 am
bir
Almost five months ago I birthed my baby boy. My body, with all it’s extra weight and stretch marks is here to proove it to me. I don’t seem to be able to shake it. Some days I don’t even have the motivation to try and chocolate seems to be the best idea to move forward with. Sometimes I feel like it’s ‘all I have left’. It was where I kept my son safe. Inside his mama.
Every word of your post rings true. We’re like kindred spirits in new skins we don’t want to wear.
xxx
February 23, 2009 at 8:53 am
Tamara
Thinking of you, Lani — always.
February 23, 2009 at 8:53 am
Poppy
The extra weight is truly(to me) an extra, bonus, unfair thing on top of all other lost things with having been pregnant, and then not. It is hard to come back to yourself when you don’t look/feel like yourself.
I really relate. Thanks for writing.
February 23, 2009 at 9:17 am
Ezra's Mommy
Yes, yes and yes…so much of what you say I could have written myself. My body is forever changed by Ezra, and despite the intent, a new baby doesn’t seem ready to join us.
February 23, 2009 at 10:55 am
tash
I was just about to comment on Gal’s piece, same topic, about how I’m still 20 lbs overweight 2 years later and what gets me is not so much the weight or the look (I’m kinda used to it now) but the deep-seeded anger. I fight it. I’ve never fought my body on anything, this hard. And I hate that Maddy is somehow wrapped up and responsible directly for this anger I have toward what I carry around. It’s really awful.
February 23, 2009 at 11:16 am
mrs.spit
I had only gained 7 pounds at 25 weeks. And then, from the swelling, in the last 5 days, I gained about 40.
It was horrible to come home in maternity clothes. I went to the store as soon as I could, bought everything new. Packed up mat clothes with an unholy fire.
I understand the not a mum feeling. We define motherhood by doing, not being. That makes it such an empty experience for the likes of you and I.
February 23, 2009 at 12:29 pm
mamaliza
oh lani, i feel exactly the same, every word of what you write i feel too.
and i think i have an extra 30lbs still. i gained 50. it was unbelievable then, laughable, but all for a good cause and i believed that breastfeeding would take it all away. now i too am so uncomfortable in my body, i look in the mirror and don’t recognize myself.
i long for my baby too. we went through it all and have none of the goodness of having our sons alive in our arms. i too feel like i’m not a mom- i was and now i’m not and that is really hard and awful.
February 23, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Nuwie
Lani I’m sorry your body is still missing Silas so much, just as you are in your heart. A tough thing to reckon with every day, real weight to match the heavy feelings inside. Everyone loves you as is. but I am confident your commitment to fitness and good nutrition will carry you through in the long run. I hope we can help you dance off a few pounds this June! xoxoxo
February 23, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Kristina
((HUGS))
February 23, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Cara
It is true that we don’t share the world’s version of motherhood. It is only now – many years later – that I feel like parenting a child in heaven is almost possible.
A yoga teacher for kids, huh? I love that – I really do!
February 23, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Molly
Yep, i feel like i could have written every word. i don’t really feel like a mother. i feel like i’m in some limbo state in between motherhood and not. and the weight is just an awful reminder of the middle ground. i feel that if my son was here, i would feel like i look pretty good, considering i just had a baby. now i have to consider having another baby sooner than i ever would have if colden were here and the weight just clings to me. hang in there…
February 23, 2009 at 9:12 pm
mom
my sweet darling daughter…..i remember the day i found out that i was pregnant with you ….i didnt know it was YOU ….but i was pregnant and the happiest girl on earth……i remember feeling you roll over inside me….sticking your elbow or your foot into my insides,…..i remember almost having you in our apartment….not by choice or design….just because at the last moments of my pregnancy you were so anxious to come into this world.
these are the memories i held and then i got to hold YOU…
my heart is so sad for what you and our family has lost…..
after reading the responses of all of the people who wrote their replies to you it just punctuates to me how special you are…..they are still reeling from the pain of loss and they seem to be stuck ……which is very understandable ……but you my special daughter…..you are working towards the goal of becoming ……becoming thin again and in charge of your body…….of becoming a strong and steadfast woman who can deal with whatever life brings her way……you are not a mom…..and it breaks my heart to even think those words…..but you are a superstar….a hero to us all….a wonderful daughter…..caring and thoughtful sister….extraordinary friend…..and the light that shines in your husbands eyes….
seems to me that you have alot to feel good about amidst the pain and anguish that surrounds you.
if i could change what happened i would ….but all i can tell you is that your day will come…..no one deserves it more….
i love you.
February 23, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Gal
Weight is so emotional… at least it always has been for me. Both when I’ve been overweight and underweight. If I’m doing well, I could eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and nothing would happen. But if there is something huge that I am holding inside… that is so much harder to shed. Be gentle with yourself, Lani, as much as you can. Big hugs.
February 24, 2009 at 10:45 am
Tracy
Lani-
I know the changes in your body are a painful reminder of what you have lost. You are taking all the rights steps move forward and heal yourself inside and out. Keep looking forward and go easy on yourself. You will get there. Love you…
February 24, 2009 at 10:45 am
kalakly
You are a mom. You are not mothering a live child but you are mothering your Silas. You remember him, you protect that memory, shield him and bring him to the world in your writing about his life. I don’t think anyone who has lost a child, no matter the age or circumstance knows how to explain or make others understand the concept of mothering a dead child.
Yes, if he had lived a hundred years you would have more of him to remember, more life experiences to share of him but I can assure you, you would not have loved him more or less than you do right now. That love, that bond you forged with him while he was with you, when you bore him into this world, that is what makes you a mother. That will last forever, as motherhood does.
For anyone to tell you that you are not a mother, not a mom, is to deny his life, his existence, his impact and importance to you and your life. Only a mother can grieve the loss you know. Only a mother can love her child as you do. And I can tell you, having crossed over to the world of having a live baby after having a stillborn, that the love you have, the grief you have for Silas will not change. Just as happened when my other two living children were born before the nightmare, when my fourth child was born after the nightmare and loss of my third child, my heart expanded to love another, it did not replace or fill the void left in his absence, because that would be impossible. No, it made room to allow for a new love for a new baby and the love for all of the others was constant. And that is a mothers love, it is infinate and boundless and it lasts forever.
Thinking of you and Silas. A mother and her son. Always.
xxoo
February 25, 2009 at 5:48 pm
MoDLin
Yes, you are a mother. Whether Silas were to be with you now, in another room, or in another space all together, he is your son and always will be. I know how it pains you not to have him with you in body, but you are with him in the love you carry, in the real feelings you have. Thank you for sharing him with us.
Eventually you will lose the weight, but you will never lose the love you have for your son.
February 26, 2009 at 9:08 am
Shalini White
It hurts to acknowledge that yes, we ARE mothers. But we don’t have live babies to parent, we hold memories deep inside, intangible memories of pain and love and hurt all entwined in a bittersweet mindf**k. This is not visible to anyone else. We hold our babies inside like ‘the deepest secret nobody knows’ (cummings). Its difficult to deal with the physical and mental aftermath of having a baby… but with no live baby in our arms.
If I may share one of my favorite poems with you, because it moved me so much, and explains this primal instinct to mother – without an infant.
You haven’t left me empty but too full
of children, every possible of you.
to love each one could make my heart go dull,
but still I try and sing each night to lull
shut eyes of green and black and gray and blue.
You haven’t left me empty but too full
of singing (my throat burns). I feel the pull
of tiny nursing mouths. I’m hungry, too,
to love each one. what makes a heart go dull
as sunstruck eyes? (I’ve learned the sun can fool:
it rises and we think the day is new).
You haven’t left me empty but too full
of mornings, all my infants’ wakings, all
their cries. My arms can only lift a few.
To love each one will make my heart go dull.
In not becoming one, you now are all.
I wish (a think I know I shouldn’t do)
you hadn’t left me. Empty and too full,
my love, my heart refuses to go dull
by Marisa de los Santos
in “From the Bones Out”
I hope you feel some peace in knowing you are not alone and you will always be Silas’s mom. Come what may. I know you don’t want peace. You want chaos, sleeplessness, bottle sterilising, Silas screaming, you feeding him, buying toys, painful nipples. I wanted all this too with my baby girl. But we have to survive on what is left…and peace.
February 26, 2009 at 10:36 am
Meg
Love and Hugs to you Lani!!!
February 26, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Dalene
The weight and marks of pregnancy that are left behind are so very unjust and unfair. I do hope that you are able to find some peace with your body.
I was thinking of you yesterday on the 25th. Silas’ Orion was bright in our sky last night, and this morning Baker’s sunrise greeted me with a beautiful pink and red sky.
February 26, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Cs
Thinking of you, your husband and of course sweet Silas. I have no words of great insight or wisdom but know you are in my thoughts each day.
February 27, 2009 at 4:11 pm
ilostaworld
Reading what you wrote here, I just kept thinking, yes. And I’m so grateful to you for writing this. I see the starlets bounce back from their pregnancies in record time (with their trainers, nutritionists, and no shortage of funds and help), and its all too easy to look at my belly, six months out, and despair that I’m a freak of nature. It’s a struggle to like myself, my physical self, again, and I hate the way that struggle can affect my marriage, my daily life, my way of seeing the world. As if the grief weren’t enough.
Most days, I don’t feel like a mom, either. Kate of sweet | salty and glow in the woods sometimes uses the term “spirit-baby motherhood,” and I’ve taken a lot of comfort in that idea. Because I’m not a mom like other moms, but I’m not not a mom, either.
March 2, 2009 at 8:47 am
Auntie Lis
Lani,
It has never once crossed my mind that you are not a mother. You don’t stop being a mother just because your child is no longer with you. You mothered Silas for 9 long months in the womb, and you have have mourned and grieved his passing as only a mother who lost her child could.
As much as you pour your heart into loving our little Oren, and being the incredible auntie that you are, I ache each time I pick him up and hold him in your presence. I want that so badly for you. It fills me with such a sorrow to think of how little Silas would have absorbed all of the love and devotion you and Chris were preparing to shine upon him.
I love you and think of you everyday.