Since the moment I fell pregnant with my first born, the feelings I had and continue to have about my body have completely shifted. It’s like I was able to see my body in it’s complete being for the first time. I used to fixate on the negatives and the way my body didn’t meet whatever ideal I had in my head at the time; be it size, shape, colour or physical ability. Don’t get me wrong… I was not a down-in-the-mouth type person, but my body was never something I felt comfortable with. An early miscarriage after my first pregnancy reinforced this negativity even further, leaving me to ask questions like… Will I ever fall pregnant again? Is there something wrong with me? Will I not ever be able to carry a baby? And then I eventually got pregnant again and it was like something shifted in my whole being.
My body wasn’t just mine anymore. My body (and obvs my husband had something pretty major to do with it too!) had created a life. And it was doing all the necessary things required to create a home for that life. It literally blew my mind. I think I had about three different apps which told me everything that was going on inside my uterus pretty much to the day and I was transfixed by it all. I mean MY body was doing all this – the same body that I’ve predominantly grimaced at in what in so many ways now feels like my ‘previous life’.
You hear so many people say ‘I’m not going to let motherhood change me’, but I can honestly say that it has changed me, in a way that I was just not expecting. My body carried, birthed and fed a baby and now looks after that baby each and every day. I know I can function on such little sleep and am a survivor of a two year battle of baby silent reflux and glue ear – if you’ve been there, you know what I mean! And for all those things I am truly grateful. The list almost feels flippant just writing it like that, but each one of those… carrying, birthing and feeding a baby are absolute game changers for me, I mean you can’t get more sensational than that in my eyes. Our bodies absolutely rock and I appreciate mine every day for what it’s given me.
Birth Mother Me 