My Mommy Body...

Last night a friend was at our house that just found out she is pregnant for the first time. We were talking about pregnancy and she told me that she was scared of what it would do to her body. I really thought alot about it last night so I wanted to write today about my thoughts on it.
I am 29 years old, I have no where near the body that I had 9 years ago. I in a way traded my body for three of the greatest things in the world, my children. My kids are my world and although I still have fits sometimes when they do stuff like squirt all of my Bath and Body Works soap into my bathtub (this happened today) I would not trade them for anything.
When I was pregnant with W.W. I clearly remember the morning I got out of the shower and looked in the mirror only to see my first stretch mark, I pulled up on my stomach and it was like a run in panty hose. That was the first of many many stretch marks to come but I was honestly not that bothered by it. Stretch marks are a very small sacrifice to make for my wonderful kids. By the time I was ready to give birth Michael was showing off my stretch marks like he was proud of them, it was pretty cute looking back.
Another thing that happened to my body while pregnant was my hips spreading. When I watch the video of my baby shower I am in shock at how much wider my hips were. I am here to tell you though, three kids later and I am so grateful. How easy would it be to carry kids around sometimes one on each hip if I had narrow hips? I am proud to say that I can hold a child on my hips for hours.
And the last one, I gained weight, my stomach is squishy and just not what it used to be....now take note I was never a tiny girl but still. I don't know how many times my kids have laid their heads on my squishy overweight belly for comfort. I am literally a soft place for them to land.
I am not making excuses for being overweight and out of shape but if I had to stay this way for the rest of my life every bit of it would be totally worth it to me. I hope some of this made sense because it is really just rambling but I wish the world would focus more on how amazing it is that a womans body can carry a child and transform in the ways it does instead of focusing on being model pretty. I am proud of my body and what it has done.