“I’ve always had body image issues (who hasn’t?). I was thinner for a few years in my late teens and early 20’s but gained 60lbs in nursing school. I was so ashamed of my body that I would avoid cameras like the plague. I even begged my best friend to have her mother in law take down a photo of me fixing her veil as the matron of honor in her wedding because I was so mortified of what I looked like. It was only after making memory photo boards for that friend’s brother’s funeral a few years later that I realized that I was being ridiculous and if I were to die young that nobody would have photos of me, or if they did I’d not be happy in them or be trying to duck out of them. That was also when my husband and I decided to start trying to get pregnant.”

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