It was the first year of being a teenager and going to middle school. When I was in middle school you had to wear a gym strip, which was a pair of shorts and a t-shirt for gym class that everyone had to wear.
I remember not wanting to wear my gym strip the way my girlfriends did in my class because they were all athletic and had great bodies. I know "How could a thirteen year old have those kind of thoughts right?". Well like everyone else we had been exposed to magazines , movies and any sort of media which then it was a lot of the you have to be thin to be beautiful. So instead of rolling my shorts up short and getting a tighter t-shirt like all the other girls, I decided I would get a bigger size and wear them baggy like the boys did to cover up my body. This way of dressing did not stop at my gym strip, I remember wearing baggy pants and hoodie's a lot to hide my body. I wasn't fat at all, quit the opposite actually but in my mind I could not compete with all these other athletic girls.
As the years past this did not change, when I got to high school it actually got a lot worse. I decided to join the dance program at my high school and with that came leotard's and tights, not the most flattering or best way to hide my figure. Also with that came the girls with the tall thin ballet dancer bodies. In grade ten I thought it was a good idea to become bulimic. I hardly ate but when I did, I would eat a lot at once and then feel so guilty about it I would cry in the bathroom until I could make myself throw up. In my mind I had to be thin like all the other girls, because thin equals beautiful right?
By time I graduated from high school I was only 98lbs. As much as I would miss my friends, I loved that high school was finally finished. It meant not having to compete with any of them anymore. People say most gain that freshman 15, well I gained the freshman 30. I gave up the binge eating and vomiting up all my food but I also gave up any physical activity. I did this because I kept telling myself that I was beautiful and it was healthy for me to gain weight. As the pounds kept adding up, a different pattern started. I would start to feel bad about myself again, so I would eat away my feelings like a lot of people do. By time I was 24 I weighed in at 155lbs and being that much weight for only being 5'2" tall, it is considered overweight.
My partner and I had been trying to conceive for about a month and then it finally happened. At the age of 24 I had found out that I was expecting to have a baby. So many thoughts and feelings came to me. How happy I was but also the thought of “I'm going to be huge”. I was already 155lbs and now that I was pregnant I would be gaining more weight! I started to freak out!
Around 6 weeks I started getting morning sickness, but with my experience it was all day, every day. Anything I ate would just make me sick. I lived off of the bare minimum till I was 22 weeks, even though I was pregnant I lost 20lbs from not eating very much and vomiting. It was like I was right back to where I was growing up but this time I was creating and responsible for another human being inside my body so I knew it wasn’t a good thing.
That’s when I decided to change my way of thinking. I was happy I lost the weight but i wanted to nourish my body and my baby. I decided to start eating healthier than I had before. I also started doing more physical activities such as walking and swimming nothing that would be too stressful for my pregnant body. As pregnancy went on I gained my weight back. I had a different outlook about it this time.
I was becoming a women, a mother and I was healthy! Being pregnant I felt very empowered and felt that I could do anything, so I decided to do a home water birth. All my girlfriends thought I was crazy but it was the most incredible experience. When I gave birth to my daughter it was the first moment in my life that I felt beautiful and strong. I was the one who grew a human being inside of MY body, which was perfect for my baby. I was the one who birthed my baby girl into this world with no drugs, completely natural and in the comfort of my home.
I was the one who this baby girl looked up at and loved instantly not caring about what I looked like or how much I weighed.
It was then that I no longer cared about the way I looked anymore, stretch marks, squishy belly and all. My only concern was making this baby girls life as amazing as it could be. I am grateful for everything I have had to go through in my life and being able to learn from all of it because when my baby girl comes to me with any of her body issues I can relate and tell her my story and help her too know she is beautiful no matter what.
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