Elizabeth Zeh (42 - she/her), Jacob (18), Nathan (15), Charlotte (6), Katherine (stillborn) and Samuel (1)
Indiana
“I don't even know how to write about Kit. We expected our fourth baby, girl number two, in the heat of July. I fretted that she might be born on her brothers’ birthday- already the long-suffering middle child- that some of his thunder would be stolen by the baby of the family. Instead she came in April, an unseasonably warm and impossibly sunny day. Memories of this day are cloudy and murky and others so crisp. Like when my OB told me how incredibly perfect she was and how the 24th week was the absolute worst time for something to go wrong. Something did go wrong, although we will never know what, her heart just stopped before she was born.
How has parenthood impacted your body image?
I can’t tell if parenthood hasn’t shaped my body image much or I’ve just been a parent so long I don’t remember. Seeing my body reflected in my children, features that may be annoying or pesky to me, has helped me love and appreciate my body even more.
What was your postpartum experience?
All of my children are spaced out—I think because after pregnancy and infanthood I always need a time to reclaim my body for me. Postpartum is a sweet, beautiful, primal type of servitude where I feel like I’ve donated my body to the cause. Everything dedicated to the care, feeding, nurturing of another. I love it and yet I am grateful for milestones of growth as my body becomes more mine again.
Postpartum after a pregnancy loss can be summed up by the word worthless. I had milk, but no baby. No oxytocin, the love hormone, for this loss mama. Instead there is a lot of anger for this body that failed her and me, the one that still doesn’t know she is gone. This anger made me long for the days where I felt like my body was able extend the cocooning in safety of my child through endless hours of nursing and holding.
Here in my 19th year of parenting, I am wrapping up one last postpartum journey savoring this last bit as I know it will be over so quick.
What is your truth?
Most of this shit doesn’t matter. Even the things that seem like they really matter, don’t matter. Love matters. I have to remind my past, current, and future self of this often.
Why did you choose to participate in this movement and share your story?
Before my daughter died, I read that carrying a child makes changes a mother in that the mother always carries her child’s DNA. This thought was comforting after her loss, to know she is always a part of me. And not in a philosophical way of her living on in my heart, but a literal sense. Her cells with her imprint – right here. I have so few pictures of my daughter, and am looking forward to her presence in this shoot through those last living cells that are held in this body of mine.