Pregnancy is a funny beast. Some women wear their pregnancies casually, like a fab new Michael Kors belt and barely gain a pound. Others work out and eat great during their pregnancies and still easily gain 75 pounds (yup, I was one of those).
Some women never need to “get back” to their pre-baby bodies — because they never really lost their pre-baby bodies. Others, like Abagail Wedlake, are opting to celebrate the lasting effects of pushing a human out of their bodies and into the world — with zero shame. Amen!
Wedlake posted a fantastic photo of herself holding her 4-month-old daughter, Aubrey — right next to the tiger-worthy stretch marks on her belly.
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Her caption is a total beauty:
“A mark for every breath you took, every blink, every sleepy yawn. One for every time you sucked your thumb and slept in perfect darkness. One for every dream you dreamt. It was your home and where I grew to love you. I’ve earned my stripes and am embracing them more and more everyday. postpartum bodies are different but show the beauty of being given the chance to bring life into this world,” Wedlake wrote. Swoon.
More:Why you’re going to miss your pregnancy stretch marks — really
We love this idea of earning (and embracing) our mom stripes. And not surprisingly, plenty of other women loved the post — and the message — as much as we did. Wedlake’s post has fetched more than 15,000 likes. So she posted again with a caption reading: “Let us make pregnancy an occasion when we appreciate our female bodies during and after, not hide them.”
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Abagail, we adore your attitude.
“I wanted other mothers to see that they are not alone ? that the loose skin and stretch marks are nothing to be ashamed of,” Wedlake explained to the Huffington Post of her motivation to post the photos. “I got my stretch marks at about 36 weeks pregnant and was devastated, thinking I’d never be able to wear a bikini out in public. That morning before I posted that picture, staring at the mirror holding my daughter, I realized that these are earned. I carried her for nine months and earned these stretch marks and the Cesarean scar below them.”
She continued, “If that is not the most beautiful thing, I don’t know what is.”
Damn straight. We couldn’t have said it better.
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