Becoming a Mother

I saw someone wrote a few days ago that “If being a mother means one thing, it means sacrifice”

One of the greatest most rewarding sacrifices of all time is bearing a child and becoming a mother.

Becoming a mother has been the best blessing I have ever received.

Being able to conceive a child is a miracle in its self and having the ability to carry a child that my husband and I created is one of the best feelings in the world.

Going through pregnancy wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies.

In fact, the reason I found out I was pregnant all started from acne.

I never had acne growing up (blessed, I know) so when I noticed a few pimples on my face I knew something was up.

Then from acne was night sickness (morning sickness just at night, duh!) but most days it was more day + night sickness (that sucked). I couldn’t hold anything down, I lost my appetite, and you know when you throw up so much your abs hurt (like the nonexistent abs… the ones you wish you had… yeah those things!). It seriously was the worst nausea I have ever experienced.

Although the nausea went away by the 2nd trimester it was a rough few weeks, loosing a total of 14 lbs while growing a whole human inside of me.

I was sure to gain it back fairly quick though so don’t you worry!

Although my struggles may seem small to someone else, they were big to me! They were big until I got diagnosed with PUPPPS….

If you don’t know what PUPPPS stands for…

PUPPPS: Pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy (PUPPP) rash is an itchy rash that appears in stretch marks of the stomach during late pregnancy.

U G H !

This made the last few weeks of my pregnancy M I S E R A B L E!

I was constantly itching, like I had the chicken pox. I would itch my belly on one side, then the other side would itch, then my legs would itch then my entire body would just crave the sensation of being itched… terrible I know.

They say don’t scratch, it makes it worse..

VERY TRUE!

But at that moment in time there was literally no way on Gods earth I wasn’t going to scratch, it felt like I was paralyzed until I itched. It was the worst!

Along with that my body felt like it couldn’t be stretched anymore, the stretch marks were growing, my confidence was gone, my belly pictures were no more..

If you notice, I never took a 39 week photo… simply because I was ashamed of my body. I look back now and wish I would’ve, GOD created a miracle inside of me! Who cares what others think! However at that point in time I did, I cared. I didn’t even recognize my body, somethings got W E I R D and others just got big!

Now looking back at the pictures I took while pregnant I cut off a lot of the “real me”, I edited out my stretch marks in some photos, we had professional pictures taken and I was so upset when our photographer posted the pictures without editing my stretch marks out..

But now looking back, I know perfection is impossible. If having PUPPPS was the only way to get my daughter into this world I would do it over and over again. I regret not taking more photos of my belly, simply because it grew my beautiful daughter.

As she grows up I want her to know that she is beautiful, it doesn’t matter what society says you do or look like that being her own person is the most important person to be.

Although I lost sight of that for a short time, I am starting to break that shell and share more of the real.

So today, mommas…

BE CONFIDENT
TAKE THOSE PICTURES
CHERISH YOUR MOMENTS
LOVE YOUR LITTLES (inside and outside of that belly of yours!)

Today I’m thankful for every single stretch mark, every single acne scar, but most importantly I’m thankful for a healthy baby girl.

-Ivy Lowery