Self-Consciousness

Welcome to the story of our life! 

I've wanted to share my story of pregnancy for the longest time but never knew how to share it. Finding out I was pregnant at 17 weeks, which is about 4 1/2 months pregnant, was the biggest curveball I could ever imagine. My previous blog post explains us finding out we were expecting but the biggest change was learning to love my body at such a fast rate. 

I was lifting weights, exercising frequently, eating healthy and doing everything that I needed to be doing. For some reason, I never felt comfortable being pregnant. I was incredibly self-conscious, felt awkward, and felt like a burden to those around me by being pregnant. My husband would say that I have no reason to feel that way but I could never shake that feeling. I wore big baggy clothes all the time and couldn't accept the way I looked. I saw all these other moms who were pregnant at the same time as I was and could see them posting pictures of their pregnancy and I couldn't stand to see myself in pictures.

I had a hard time knowing that even though my body was doing incredible things and I should be proud of it, but I was self-conscious. It took until my son was over a year old before I could finally accept what my body had done and not feel weird about it. I know that is terrible to say but I had never experienced such change in my life and was honestly scared of what was happening because of how we found out we were pregnant. 

 This is the last picture I have of me being pregnant with our son but our son was born 4 days later and I felt the weight drop off my shoulders that I was no longer pregnant. It then became a challenge to adjust to postpartum looks and how I felt in that period. There was a time when I specifically remember telling my husband to stop putting his hands on my hips and stomach when he would hug me because it made me feel self-conscious having him feel those areas of my body. I can proudly say now that I have accepted my body and am so proud of what it has accomplished that it is hard to look back and see how terrible my mindset was through the entire pregnancy.