First off, let me say a GIANT thank you to all the beautiful mothers that helped me create this. Your are all absolutely amazing and so incredibly beautiful both inside and out. I have had this vision for a very long time and without you, I could not have created this. I seriously hope you know how so very beautiful each and everyone of you are. Looking through these images brings me to such complete peace to see how beautiful Motherhood really is, and it’s because of each of you gorgeous women!
Now……remember, the next time you see your mom, tell her how much you love her and give her a big ol hug cause she deserves it!
Here’s a bit of background to this. My reason why I want to share this story. I actually have a couple…………and the truth is almost like a dark hidden secret that no one wants to talk about. Probably because some jerk is going to judge them. So next time you judge someone else (mothers or not), for anything……remember, the @sshole is probably you.
Here goes,
I grew up in a house with 2 sisters. They both had babies and they both breastfed them, I was 9 years younger than my middle sister and 11 years younger than my oldest. I was always around kids. Didn’t think anything of them getting breastfed. I did however not have a clue how many hours they had to spend feeding their children, or how they had to “hide” when we had visitors over (especially if dad’s friends were over), or if god forbid, those babies got hungry when they had to go get groceries how judgemental people are. People are completely oblivious about how breastfeeding a child works unfortunately, even I was, and I was always around it and thought I had a pretty good idea. Babies get hungry, some every hour. Some babies literally need to feed for an hour. Trust me when I say a woman is NOT trying to get attention when she whips out a breast to feed her child. She would actually prefer if you don’t stare at her with a shitty glare on your face because your so disgusted, if I am being honest, she would probably appreciate if you actually maybe ignore her or even better, give her a nice sympathetic smile, because she is going through so much craziness and just needs to know some people are actually aware of the stress she is under……She’s just trying to survive going out in public with a new baby. Which is sooooo hard! I have stood in a bathroom stall in a Costco feeding my baby because I have been glared at. I had no choice but to breastfeed, my baby wouldn’t take a bottle, but instead of dealing with some ass hat making rude comments, because of my choice to feed my child the most healthy, natural way I knew how, I took my baby into a bathroom stall. My baby was hungry. My alternative was to starve my baby and let it scream bloody murder (and THEN you should see the glares us moms get if our babies cry like that for whatever reason it may be! haha). Someday, my wish is for everyone to realize the shear unselfishness this gift to a child is from their mothers. Someday my wish is for every woman to be able to feed their baby, anyway they choose, whether that be by a bottle of formula or should that be breastfeeding, without judgement from ANYONE EVER.
When I became pregnant with my first child, I realized with my mother severely ill in the hospital (and I was unable to ask these questions to her), I really didn’t have a CLUE what having a baby was about to be like. I was fully aware the birth would be miserable and pain like no one could ever describe (I was NOT aware however the number of people that would be in the delivery room with you staring down at your girl parts or involved with getting babies out of there hahaha). And I had NO idea about the rest of what being a mom would involve. NONE. I had no idea when you have a baby the amount of blood you lose, nor for how many WEEKS/MONTHS you would lose that blood. I had no idea you have to wear a maxi pad the size of Vancouver for weeks on end. Literally, mortifying. How do you even find pants to wear over that? I had no idea how incredibly painful it was to breastfeed a child and to deal with the complications that can come along with it. I had no idea you could get severely sick (and even get life threatening complications) from nursing a child. I have never had toe-curling pain like that before, nor did I know it even existed. I had no idea you could spend months taking pain killers non-stop because otherwise you couldn’t handle the pain of just trying to feed your child. And you couldn’t dare miss a dose or you would suffer like you didn’t know was possible. I had no idea when they said you will never sleep again that they actually MEANT it. Or waking up to breastfeed a baby ALL NIGHT LONG and then getting up with your other children in the morning. I have been awake for 4 and a half days, literally shaking legs hardly able to stand anymore I’ve been so exhausted, in tears, thinking there was no possible way I could stay awake for even one more minute, desperate for my child to sleep only to have my second child get sick and then STILL not get to sleep for another 21 hours after that. I literally have not had a solid, uninterrupted nights sleep in over 6 years. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but I do wish I had of had some sort of idea the complete sense of giving you do once you become a mother. Every single second of every single day you don’t think about yourself, you now think about what your kids need, what time they have to be at school, what they need to bring to school, how they will get home and everything else you know need to remember for them. Every minute I am not with them, the feeling I get in my chest that doesn’t go away. My entire life is now theirs. I never once had anxiety before having children, but the worry a mother has about her child is paralyzing in itself. Don’t get me wrong, now that mine are a bit older, I definitely have to take the time to breath and have “me time”, but everything has changed. I remember those days when I would just grab my keys and run to the store and be back in 10 minutes. We still haven’t even got our coats on in 10 mins, let alone shoes and breaking up fights! Now I worry about what they will touch, if they are going to catch someone’s flu from touching the shopping cart we are about to use, if they are safe while walking across the parking lot to the store (I have enough small kids, it’s impossible to know that one won’t bolt at any second in front of a car, a fear that comes from having a brother that was hit by a car and paralyzed when he was only 4 years old). I had SEVERE worry about my kids for probably the first 4 years of becoming a mother. I bet your mom worried like you have no idea.
It is the single best thing that ever happened to me. The love you feel the second those babies are born, that everyone tried to tell you about, but you actually could never ever possibly come close to understanding until those babies arrive and your heart wants to explode. And only then do you REALLY know how much your own mother and father love you and it makes you so sad you missed it all those years but so very thankful you finally know now. No one told me to take a million photos of my pre-baby body either. Do you know what I would give for more photos from back then??? Again, I had NO idea the change my body would make. I had no idea once you breastfed a child your boobs would resemble the photos in a national geographic magazine! No idea they wouldn’t be as great as they were before having children. And I grew up in a house with three other women! (apparently chatting with your much younger sister about saggy boobs after breast feeding wasn’t something they all thought should be important to tell me, @ssholes! haha). Bras really do amazing things now! haha So to all you out there that don’t have children yet and plan to breastfeed, TAKE A PHOTO of your amazing boobs. No bra too, just naked boobs. Cause trust me when I say they will change, and NOT for the better. ALL of it. And you will want that photo to see how they once looked! haha (sorry if this next part is too much, but seriously if I can warn even one person about how drastic this will be then I have done my job cause I wish someone had of told me!) The size, yes they will get giant when your baby is born, huge actually. Your nipples will turn crazy dark colors, and be hideously huge too! (This is natures way of making sure baby can find their food). Until your done breastfeeding that baby and next thing you know those boobs are forever probably way SMALLER, saggy as sh*t and not at all pretty like you once thought they were, still dark nipples and probably different sizes now too. And probably covered in stretch marks. If your mother breastfed you, you sure as sh*t need to go thank her because her body is destroyed because of you (hahaha basically true!) I haven’t even touched on the birth, nor living with the stretch marks, C-section recovery, scars, bed rest, being pregnant (oh wow that’s a whole different story!) the pain you feel every future period…………….THIS IS THE REAL stuff your mom has been through, and I am guessing she tried to leave most of that out. And until you live through it, you will never ever be able to appreciate it at the level it should be appreciated, but needless to say, go, call your mom and tell her thank you for sacrificing her life, her body and her entire soul for you. Because I am guessing she too probably didn’t have a clue what was about to happen when she found out she was pregnant. Cause those are not really things everyone wants to talk about.
However, after spending my life never happy with my body, I can say once I grew a tiny human inside of it, beating heart and all, it was the very first time in my life I wasn’t ashamed of it anymore. It’s not “pretty” anymore, but I have never ever been more proud of this body (even after three children later). The appreciation I feel is amazing. jiggles and all. And when I was pregnant with my first, my mom was hospitalized as she recently became quadriplegic just as I found out. The control over her body literally was taken from her, she couldn’t use it anymore, not even to breath air into her own lungs. I realized extra weight on a tummy or saggy boobs means nothing when you can walk, or chase after your kids. I love my new mom body, because I know what every stretch mark was caused from and how every new imperfection meant I got to grow a tiny little one in my body and it just knew how to do it all by itself. It grew fingers, and toes and eyelashes, eyeballs, lungs, liver, and a beating heart inside that little baby. Mothers are way more amazing than any superhero I know.
But then why is it, millions of women are too ashamed to wear a bathing suit? I’ll tell you why, it’s because us friggen photographers photoshop the crap out of our images. I have NEVER seen a body without dimples, pimples, rolls or some sort of stretch marks or imperfections. Even the girls with the “perfect bodies”. FACT. That smooth gorgeous skin in magazines isn’t real. Perfect example, I photoshop brand new perfect little babies skin. I remove rashes, baby acne……. Even babies have rashes and diaper marks, and stork bites. It’s all photoshop. Every woman in the world almost is afraid of doing boudoir photos because of their bodies. Well let me tell you, I don’t care if your 400 pounds, when you do your hair and makeup, pose properly and we use some photoshop magic, you too can look like the models in the magazines. It’s NOT Real unfortunately. This is real though, the exhaustion, the cellulite, the rolls, the dimples, the scars, the pain of (or the sheer beauty) in how each one of those appeared on these bodies………this is the real side you don’t see when you look at your mothers or the mothers in our world. This is real, and this is what every mother in the world almost tries to hide, because our society kind of makes us feel like we need to hide it. And it’s crap. We as women are scared to go to the pool to put on a bathing suit, because we have to hide. Hide the cellulite, the razor burn and hide our imperfections. Those same imperfections that make us who we are. That tells the story of our life. It’s crap. Cause there is NOTHING more beautiful or thankless than this right here. You Mommies are seriously incredible.
Now go, give your mom a phone call. Tell her thank you. Give her the biggest hug you can.
To my mom, I don’t know what I could have ever done without you. I had no idea the number of times you would have had to eat “crusts” for lunch because it was easier than making your own toast because frankly you were probably just exhausted from all the meals and snacks you had to prepare, or the hours you spent awake taking care of me each and every night for years on end. I didn’t have a clue. The stress of it. The worry you had every time I was sick. The money you spent. I know the sacrifices you made for me to be where I am today, and I am forever grateful. I love you more and more every single day of my life. I could go on an on forever, but I hope you know my heart is full for you. There is no love like a child has for their mother, and its even stronger once we become parents ourselves and realize the amount of love there was for us. You have always ensured we were loved and that we felt love, even in those moments of motherhood when I am sure you didn’t have much love (or more the energy it took) to give that love, but you did always and for that I am forever grateful. I love you mom <3
Motherhood is incredible. It is PURE love. It is PURE happiness. It is PURE sadness. It is PURE selflessness and sacrifice. It is PURE laughter. It is PURE tiredness. It is PURE hard. It is PURE amazing. It is everything I could have ever dreamed and sooooo much more. But what you see isn’t always what you get. Remember that mother you see in the grocery store with the screaming child, probably hasn’t slept, or had a proper meal or even had time to shower today. But I bet her child has. And lord knows what else she has sacrificed today for that little one. But she’s a PURE superhero. Thank you Mothers <3
And lets make this Mothers Day extra special for the mothers in our lives. They deserve that day! And to all the rest of you mothers out there, I hope your mothers day this year is extra amazing. I hope you get a day for YOU, where you don’t have to sacrifice yourself for just one day.
And I will do this again. As a matter of fact, I will do this RAW session every single year I am a photographer. Because it is that important to me. To show the real. The real that takes place in our homes, the real that takes place in our everyday lives. Maybe that’s making breakfast or all those damn meals we make all day long, or at the beach, or the pool, the park or at school each day. I will capture that. And I would love for you to be apart of it! And although I will go back to photoshopping babies and children and pregnant woman tomorrow, I promise I will do what I can to help show the world what is real. That breastfeeding a baby is normal. And bottle feeding a baby is normal. Stretch marks and cellulite is REAL. On all of us. Because REAL is beautiful. And everyone has their insecurities and we don’t have to look at others and think they have it better than us, cause our lives, right here, right now are pretty darn amazing.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, I hope you love them as much as I do. #normalizebreastfeeding PLEASE LIKE, SHARE and LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW to show your support. And if you don’t support it, then piss off.
Love you all,
~Bobbi~
Bobbi Sloan Photography has MOVED to Penticton!!!!!
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Bobbi Sloan Photography is a Professional custom portrait Newborn, Baby and Maternity Photographer and has a studio in Penticton BC, serving the south Okanagan area of BC, specializing in Newborn and Baby Portraiture, Maternity, Family and Child photography. She is a studio light and natural light photographer covering the South Okanagan (Penticton BC and surrounding areas including Oliver, Osoyoos, OK Falls, Penticton, Summerland, Peachland, West Kelowna, Kelowna and the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia). Bobbi is an accredited Professional Photographer in Canada. Booking 2017 Newborn and Maternity Sessions, and we currently have a discounted “My First Year Package” which is a huge savings!!! Book as early as 20 weeks and pay only $100/month for Maternity, Newborn, 6 Month and 1 year Cake smash! It’s never too early to book your session, if your pregnant, then its time to book! Prices subject to change without notice.
