Body Image - Getting Over It

My inspiring friend Hobo Mama posted about getting comfortable with your body, most specifically the way it looks. She talks about being fat and pregnant. She links to some posts about feeling / being fat and pregnant. I always have a hard time figuring out how to be supportive of such posts because I'm not fat. I worry that anything I say will somehow be less valid or come off as patronizing.

But something in her post caught my eye. It was a request for other fat pregnant women to post bare belly photos. One picture came to mind. It is a photo I requested my husband take because of how funny Sasha was in it. However, when I later saw the photo I was mortified. My one month postpartum belly disgusted me in the photo. So I haven't shared it. The photo isn't really about my body but my sharing it has more to do with refusing to censor ourselves based on our appearance. This is what some (at least *my*) postpartum bellies look like. I hope you enjoy this photo and I hope my post... reads as supportive as it is meant to be.

Sasha, having nursed herself to sleep, wiggled down into a comfy spot on Mommy's squishy belly. This is roughly one month postpartum.

Full Term Bare Pregnant Belly
Photo was taken the day before Sasha was born.

Be proud of your body! It does amazing things! Mommas, be proud of the fact that your body created, labored, and delivered a human being! Wear those stretch marks like badges of honor, battle scars. I know I'm proud of mine and I have them EVERYwhere!