Beautiful Mommy Blog Post - "Babies Ruin Bodies"

My Mom just sent me the link to this post from a fellow Mom blogger and it brought me to tears. It is a beautiful way to describe the incredible transformations our bodies go through as mothers and a positive way at looking at the evidence left behind after the miracle of birth. There are things about my body that will never be the same after carrying the twins but I wouldn't trade those beautiful little boys for any body in the world and they certainly bring me more joy than a six pack. Enjoy this beautiful post from a young mother...

28 December 2013

"Babies Ruin Bodies"

An Ode to my Postpartum Body.

Before I became pregnant, someone told me, "don't have a baby, babies ruin your body."

It has been over a year since Anabel began her life. This time last year she was a 

microscopic speck inside of me, and we were announcing our pregnancy. Between then 

and now, I have gained and lost fifty pounds. Four months after her birth, and my body 

still carries proof of her existence. 

I have dark pools under my eyes. A valley where my belly button once was. Hips with a new 

amplitude that my teenage self wouldn't recognize. I have lines mapped across the 

mountainsof stretched skin left over on my midsection. Lightening bolts on my sides proving 

I once was too small to contain all of the love that filled me. Lines indicating that my 

daughter once lived inside of me. 

Do you realize the significance in that? Every limb, finger, toe...her heart, even, 

developed near the very place my own heart beats inside of my chest. Those mountains of 

skin are all I have left to prove that we were once one and not two. 

How can I be ashamed of that? 

I have so much to say about seeing my grandfather's eyes embedded into the sockets, and 

under the brows and lashes of her father's. I see the seventeen year old boy I fell in love 

with, and my grandpa as a child all at once every time she looks up at me. She even 

wears my ears and my chin. The two very things I cursed having the most growing up. Not 

much makes me feel more beautiful than seeing tiny renditions of those same features on 

Anabel, and realizing just how special they are. 

My body grew that. 
Not everybody has that privilege. 

Sure my belly is a bit softer nowadays, but the way it moves when I jump up and down 

sends my girl into fits of giggles. And yeah, my hips are hardly as narrow as they used to 

be, but they sure know the perfect figure-8 motion to sway her to sleep. My twenty-one 

year old hair is even beginning to gray, but not much soothes her more than my hair 

between her little fingers.

I am not something flawless in the eyes of society, or even close to what I once was 

physically, but my perfect girl sees me for who I am. 

To her, I hang the moon. 

She knows my heart - she knew it long before we met.

And she loves me for it.

I cannot tell you how much worth and validation I feel because of that truth. 

My body is only a vessel for my spirit. An incredible vessel. It is strong, well, abled, and 

undefeated. 

My body is full of life. 

My body is powerful. 

My body made me a mother. 

If anything, I was ruined by the world before I knew her, and she made me whole again.

- From the blog "We Seek Joy"

Now don't get me wrong - if someone was handing out tummy tucks, boob jobs and butt 

implants on the corner I'd take all three... but for those of us that have to live with the

"birth marks" that building our little blessings has left us with, let the words of wisdom 

in this post remind us that there are much more important things to focus on.

                                

                                                                      ~xoB