Christina

Seeing Christina Aguilera au natural and au baby bumpy made me think of something.

No, not the artistry and “bravery” of Demi Moore’s 1991 Vanity Fair cover to which Ms. Aguilera paid homage.

It made me think how fucking hard it is to be a woman.

Thanks to the magazine/advertising/media/entertainment industry, we’re told that not only should we look amazing and be impossibly thin during normal, non-stressful times in our lives; but we should also be preternaturally good-looking and poised when we’re carrying another human being inside of our bodies.

Pregnancy is hard.

And not just because now you have to chuck your cinched-in-the-middle -coats to find empire-waisted clothing to wear 24/7. But because your body is being taken over by another living creature.

I think in that delicate time, women should be forgiven their stretch marks, bad hair and swollen feet.

But far be it from these magazines to celebrate the true beauty of the miracle of life. Instead, they airbrush out lines on the skin, acne caused by hormonal changes, stray hairs caused by the same and probably even make the smile a little smilier when asking someone carrying an extra 20 pounds in front of them to pose sweetly.

The magazines have something right, though. Pregnancy is beautiful. But not because you can hide the flaws that occur on the body while you’re incubating life.

Pregnancy is beautiful because of what it signifies. The joining of two people into one person. A clean slate for them both.

Closer than sex, are mother and child in the womb. Though a man may be inside his lover; he never lives there. He stops by for a while and leaves. But the womb is a child’s home. The mother’s blood is their blood. The mother’s breath, the child’s breath. An intimate nine-month hug between mother and child. A connection that no one else will experience or understand.

It’s a fucking miracle.

Pregnancy is beautiful because it signifies hope. Hope that the new child will be unmarred. Hope that the parents can correct the wrongs done to them and give a new life a better chance at life. The chance at life at all. Hope that even though in this age of 50-percent-divorce rates and wild amounts of phychotheraputic medication, that maybe this time, with this child, it’ll be okay.

This is not to say that the magazines should highlight the physical manifestations of the stress of pregnancy. But ignoring them insults us all. It cheapens the amazing, wondrous, miraculous moments it took to get us all here. The moments it took to give us the chance to give someone else the chance and hope they make the most of it.