What a Difference a Month Makes!

If you thought this was going to be a post of adorable Rafaela pictures, I'm sorry to disappoint you.  This is a post about me.

I've struggled with body-image for a long time - probably since I was 9 and first got glasses.  Then it got progressively worse during the adolescent years.  (Doesn't it always?)  The college years showed a little improvement - at least by that time I could pretend I didn't care how I looked, but I always did.  I was finally happy with my body for the first time that I could remember at my wedding.  I remember trying on my wedding dress at the store and then ordering one size smaller.  It was a daring thing to do, but I had about six months to get my weight down and I did.

Then marriage and life happened and the weight slowly came back - again, doesn't it always??  My body-image slowly dropped again.  I was teaching junior high students and believe it or not, probably felt worse about the way I looked than many of them did.  I know that I looked dowdy much of the time, but it was easier to hide the less-than-stellar-looking parts that way.  By the time Ed graduated from Seminary and we moved to Colorado, I was about 45-50 pounds heavier than at our wedding five years earlier.  I continued to be embarrassed by my own body.

And then one day, everything changed - August 17, 2008.

In that instant, how my body looked didn't matter to me any more.  It had a purpose.

This rambling took a different path than I originally intended.  In fact, I have not yet used a single picture that I originally uploaded to this post.  I'll get to it, though, if you stick with me a bit longer.

I guess the point that I was getting to with all of this, is that I no longer care what anyone else thinks about my body.  Even though after our third child I made it down nearly to my wedding weight, my body is very different than it was then.  My weight is distributed differently and my shape will  never be what it was - and that's okay.  I no longer have a girl's body, but the body of a woman.  It has carried and nourished four children inside it (luckily not at the same time) and been stretched to its limits time and time again with new marks added each time.

Just a few years ago I would have been very uncomfortable with my intended post which was to chronicle my body (specifically my belly) in the month after Rafaela was born.  Now, I can simply enjoy seeing one more change that my body is making.

 An hour prior to Rafa's arrival.

 Four hours post-birth

One day

Three days

 One Week

 Two Weeks

One Month

I still have a long way to go to get back down to pre-pregnancy weight, but I'm not rushing it.  It will happen when it happens.  In the mean time, I'm going to keep wearing my maternity pants because they're the ones that fit.  I don't have time to worry about how I look or what anyone else thinks about my body.  I'd rather focus on the four beautiful children that it feeds, carries, and snuggles.  I give up a lot for my children - time, energy, freedom - why not give up the body-image issues too?

And now I'm off to feed a sweet, fussy baby with this perfectly imperfect body.