So…maybe you have not heard but Oprah has gained forty pounds. She appears on the cover of her magazine - her thinner self looking at her fatter self. It is kind of like Oprah’s walk of shame. My first reaction as someone who has dealt with weight issues my entire life was relief. Okay - if Oprah can’t do it - how could I? After all, who has the resources to put towards this the way Oprah has? She has the best of the best. Oprah has Dr. Oz! She has trainers and personal chefs! She lives in beautiful places where no doubt she can take long walks. She probably has beautiful places to meditate!  Let’s face it - Oprah has money to throw at this problem - way more than the usual fatty.  Way more than…well me!!! And I was struggling too. I had recently lost forty pounds - and I too was having issues in keeping to the plan. So, it was also rather comforting to know that I was not weak  - that this is hard.

But I also wonder about the premise - that fat is bad.  Leonard Nimoy of Spock Fame is also a photographer who made news this time last year when he photographed FAT women! And not just fat women….but fat naked women!!!! Oh My!!! Can you imagine that? He had the nerve to do something as controversial as see women who were fat as beautiful? Through Leonard Nimoy’s lens….you see beautiful…sexy….women of size…dancing! Smiling into the camera…almost daring us to truly see them! They seem to be saying to us….that they exist…that they are not invisible…and more than that…that they feel beautiful….and what is more…they are.

It made me wonder about Oprah’s walk of shame. Did she really need to feel shameful about her body size? Did I?

So much of how we feel as sexual beings does not come from the inside…we are so badly influenced by the media of our times…that we often do not see what is before our eyes….in “The Full Body Project”….Mr. Nimoy challenges us to do just that…simply see…simply feel…and I challenge you not to see beauty and wanton sexuality in these images….

When was the last time you felt sexy? I mean really sexy? It’s not just weight that can bring us down….it also can be life struggles.

One of the hardest consequences of trying to conceive…and having our efforts not work… is what it does to your own sense of femaleness or maleness.

I am not just talking about the general depression that can come from dealing with a chronic illness like unresolved infertility. But rather, about what the inability to fulfill your sexual role in reproduction can do to your feelings of personal beauty and your own body image. Not to be ignored are the very real body changes that can come from hormone therapy and surgery to repair or explore.

When I was in treatment, I put on twenty pounds in a year of intensive hormone therapy. I did a cycle of fertility drugs…every other month for one year. With each cycle, my body reacted strongly. My breasts would enlarge (I had to have bras for alternate months), my stomach would swell as my ovaries did overtime, and I would gain as much as ten pounds at the peak of each cycle.

I clearly remember one day, trying to look pretty, going into my doctor’s office with my husband for an insemination. My doctor looked up at me and smiled. I smiled back. And then she said to me, “Gee, Pam, you sure look puffy.” Okay, I was already emotionally fragile and sensitive about my weight. But I was devastated. Not only was I infertile, but I was also “puffy”.

Often times, even our actual clinical diagnoses can actually alter how we feel about our bodies. My diagnosis, “hostile cervical mucus”, doesn’t do much for making a woman feel very sexy. Sometimes, when my husband and I made love, I used to have to consciously erase the picture in my mind of his healthy and virile sperm being knocked unconscious by my inhospitable and rather nasty cervical mucus. My mental imagery probably wasn’t helped by viewing his motile sperm before a post coital test and then after. As the doctor put it as she looked up from the microscope, “it looks like Bunker Hill”.

I was able to combat these negative mental images about my body by consciously telling myself in a firm voice to cut it out! That my cervical mucus was not representative of myself as a woman. But it took some time.

Several years later, when I went for my second IVF cycle, my doctor found my left tube was now adhered to some other internal organs with scar tissue. My tubes, that were once perfect and a source of pride for this infertile person, who was trying not to feel defective as a woman, were no longer perfect.

The feelings that accompanied this news were not just upsetting for what they meant to the outcome of the cycle, but it was upsetting again to my self-image.

Now, not only did I have “funky mucus”, but my left tube had decided to redecorate! Still groggy from the effects of the anaesthesia, I remember feeling ugly. In retrospect, this sounds silly. Obviously, no one but my doctor saw this less than perfect tube, and even in the best of conditions, my left tube held no physical beauty.

It is actually a little embarrassing talking about these feelings. They sound ridiculous and self indulgent on paper. But if I have learned anything about my experience with infertility, it is that there is very little I have felt, that someone else hasn’t also felt or isn’t presently feeling.

The feelings I had, before I found out that I had Hostile Mucus… of a free flowing sexuality were over. They were taken with my diagnosis. And it took years to get it back….

I want to say to you, that you are not your diagnosis nor your treatment. You are a sexy man whether you have sperm in your testicles or not. You are a beautiful woman whether your eggs are in low reserve or your tubes are closed (yes, even if your mucus is a little unfriendly!) We have to stop punishing ourselves with ugly mental images of our bodies. And you are beautiful even if think you are too fat or too thin.

I am not a therapist. But I have felt the pain and have tried to deal with it on my own terms. My terms were to stop the negative images and replace them with positive images. Perhaps we should invite Oprah, and we should all be like the women in “The Full Body Project” and dance naked!!! For the joy in ourselves…comes from a place deep inside of us….it is there….just look at their faces. None of us are broken.

Until Tomorrow,
Pamela

Posted under "Full Body Project", Body Image, Dr. Oz, Infertility, Leonard Nimoy, Oprah, Oprah's weight gain, Self Image, Weight Gain, sexual dyfunction, sexual health, sexuality