Before the pregnancy, I felt disgustingly fat. I wasn’t fat but I felt fat. I would always wear big sweaters or t-shirts five times my size to disguise the healthy “pudge” I had on my torso. During pregnancy, I swelled. Then I was actually fat. Granted, it was *mostly* baby. The “Pregnancy Glow” that people rave about did not affect me. The only glow I got was my sweat from walking up the stairs. Everyone told me how small I was for being six months even though I felt fat. When I was days from labor, nobody believed me that I was due in a matter of days. It didn’t matter. I felt like a whale that was pregnant with octuplets. I was dreading my post-pregnancy body. Everyone said that your boobs will forever sag, the stretch marks will never fade, and your skin will always hang where you don’t want it to. And don’t even get me started on baby weight! Basically, I was terrified.
However, after giving birth to my beautiful son and a well-deserved (or needed) shower, I could never have felt more beautiful. My body was in recovery mode and I was still swollen. My feet inflated like water balloons and ached whenever I walked, but I felt beautiful.
After all the swelling went down and my body returned back to normal, I felt even better. I have never loved my body as much as I do now. I don’t cringe when I look in the mirror but I embrace my body. Each stretch mark that society has deemed “ugly” has become my strength. They are friendly reminders of what my body can do and the miracle that it carried and delivered. I am in love with my “tiger stripes” and with my body. I never knew the joy of loving one’s own body until now. I strut my stuff, for lack of better words. I walk with confidence. Shoulders back and head up. Every step that I take feels like it could move mountains.
Before this entire journey, I wanted to hide my body away. I never took good care of it because I didn’t see its value. In retrospect, I realize that I wasted so much of my time hating my body. My body can do so much. It has incomparable value. I no longer want to hide it away but I want to show it off. I only have one body and I have to take care of it for life. It is unique and beautiful and deserves to be treasured by me. By embracing every scar, stretch mark, birthmark, pudge, and other “blemishes,” I have become weightless.
