⚪️⚪️ SELF REVEAL ⚪️⚪️
I’m kind of an open book. Too many things were kept from me by society about motherhood, so I am a proponent of transparency. I think many women can relate to this statement, because how many women can honestly say that they knew much about pregnancy, labor, birth and post partum BEFORE they had their first child? Unless you’re a labor and delivery nurse, a labor doula or post partum doula, a midwife or an OBGYN, chances are, you, similarly to me, didn’t have much of an education about motherhood before you became a mom for the first time to your own child.
A few weeks ago I finally took a deep breath and I went to see a revered specialist (who I still highly admire btw) in the plastic surgery field because I wanted to be “fixed”
Going from being somebody who easily fit into any piece of clothing, never worrying about size labels, never second-guessing my health, to suddenly finding myself with pretty serious self-body image issues after polyhydramnios with two pregnancies... This picture is my body TODAY (btw I’m not underweight! ❌ I’m just inhaling and my ribs say hello!)
Here I have been taking pictures of women in the most compelling moment of their motherhood experiences, truly believing and telling them they are radiantly gorgeous — never did any of their bodies ever make me feel they weren’t stunning. I never looked at weight as a negative. I always saw radiant beauty.
But here I was with a self-body image problem.
I hated my body. Well, my stomach. What polyhydramnios did to it, it became unrecognizable to me. It didn’t matter how much weight I lost after my second pregnancy, the stomach was still there. So I went to a plastic surgeon asking them what they would need to do to “fix me” so I could go back to being beautiful
what I didn’t expect was for that visit to be the moment I would fall in love with my postpartum body.
Someone telling me that they would take away the skin I’ve lived in for 33 years, the stupid dragon tattoo I got when I was 21 that over these years became a symbol of my badass motherhood that I didn’t even realize — until they were telling me that with a tummy tuck, it would have to go. 99% of my abdominal dragon tattoo would have to go.
I walked out of the office a changed woman.
I never in a million years thought I would want to keep this skin, find my pp body beautiful & attractive.
Fast forward a few weeks, I’m laying on my living room floor this morning, taking a photograph specifically to share with women out there who might have body image issues after their pregnancy.
POSTPARTUM IS THE DIVINE FEMININE.
It took me 6 years, and I finally believ
