I can remember looking at the other girls in middle school and feeling embarrassed or unhappy my body didn't look like theirs. I grew up a gymnast so my build was not the teensie weensie type and I had no boobs at all. It really gave me a complex and a low self esteem. No one, at the time, was telling me I looked good or I was beautiful at all. My parents would dote over my athletic build but inside I just longed to be different.

I would suck in my gut or hold my abs tight so my belly didn't giggle through my shirt. At pool parties in a suit, or anytime wore shorts, I would try really hard to stand in a way that didn't make my thunder thighs so.....thundery. All the way through highschool and into early adulthood I felt this unhappiness about my body.

Until I became a mother.

When I became a mother I fell in love with my growing belly and the precious life it contained. I fell in love with my thundering thighs as they carried around the weight of another human being. I fell in love with my body that was letting me feel a baby in my womb kicking and dancing and becoming. During birth I fell in love with the powerful way my body brought a life into this world. It just knew what to do; how the hips adjusted and body prepared for delivery. My body made milk and it knew how much my new bundle of joy needed and the exact mixture of nutrition.

Edie with toddler & baby 6

I fell in love with my body when I became a mother.

My baby grew and my body acclimated itself back to somewhat normal. But some memories were left behind. For me and for my babies to see. Stretch marks and scars, boobs that have fed, and a little extra jiggle from where I carried a few lives.

My body doesn't look like it does before. But I am more in love with my body than I ever was before and it's not because of my size or my shape. It's because of the babies it brought and the memories it left behind for me.

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