I’ve been through a lot in my short 21 years and 10 months here on earth. The good, the bad, the unexpected… In high school I was a 5’3, 117 pound cheerleader with an eating disorder. I was teased when I was younger for being chubby, so I made up for it during my adolescence. I hid the memories of my broken childhood with alcohol, prescription pills, and eventually hard drugs. All of which helped me to maintain my thin frame. When I was 16, I met who would one day become my husband. Fast forward to college, by the time I was a Junior I was 130 lbs. I was okay with this, I had grown out of my self-destructive behavior for the most part, but my weight was still a burden on my mind every day. I was living with my high school sweetheart when we found out we were pregnant on Thanksgiving of 2007. Three semesters away from attaining my degree and suddenly it seemed so far away. I took a year off from school, sat at home and ate, and ate, ate… Over the course of my pregnancy I gained 73 lbs. The day I went into labor I weighed a whopping 203 lbs, most of which I gained in the last 3 months of my pregnancy, leaving me with numerous stretch marks on my hips, my breasts, thighs and calves. Thirty hours of labor and six hours of pushing later, my baby boy was born at 8 lbs 9 oz. and 21 inches. A week later what I was left with was 180 lbs, nearly a hundred stretch marks and some saggy skin. Despite my previous obsession over my body image, I became less concerned with it, and instead focused my attention on my new son. With the help of breastfeeding, I lost nearly 40 lbs in the first two months. My weight loss began to slow, so when I stopped breastfeeding at 3 months post-partum, I began eating healthier. I am proud to say that today, on my son’s 4 month birthday, I weighed in at 145 lbs. I am still overweight for my height; however I have never been more content with or proud of my body. I look at my son everyday with pride, and when I look at my stretch marks they remind me of that precious little face. I am going back to school in January to finish my degree, and thanks to my beautiful little interruption, I have all the motivation I need. The attached pictures are, in order: my pre-pregnancy body, my 38 week pregnant body, my one week pp body, my 1 month pp body, my present body, and my baby boy…





