The mom uploaded the image with the intention of showing the pregnancy without Photoshop. However, her followers discovered something surprising in her belly.
A mom shared photos of her stretch mark-covered belly on Instagram to show that a woman shouldn’t be ashamed of her body. She instead proposes to abandon unrealistic expectations, ditch Photoshop, and share these precious moments of life with pride. However, beyond her good intentions, her followers discovered a surprising detail.
The mother’s name is Kristin Niemi, and she shared on Instagram a photo of her belly when she was 40 weeks pregnant. In her image, you can see her huge belly covered in stretch marks.
Stretch marks are marks that many pregnant women hide almost instinctively, but Kristin decided not to share this image with a nice message.
“This is #40weekspregnant #unfiltered. It’s impatience. It’s the overwhelming desire to finally meet him after 10 long months… It’s an emotional rollercoaster. And yet, it’s still pretty darn beautiful.”
The mother recently commented that social networks do not help much with accepting our bodies because they show retouched images. She herself says that she has published photos like this many times. However, this time she wanted to give it a new approach and upload a real image of her belly.
“I wanted to show what REAL women experience in pregnancy,” Kristin said. “It is not photoshopped; not everything is a smile, and not all have flat bellies. For many moms, it means pain, stretch marks, and hard days that don’t include smiles,” the mom added.
But beyond Kristin’s initial attempt to redefine the beauty of pregnancy itself, many of her followers discovered something surprising in her belly. In her stretch marks, many people discovered what no one had seen at first: the stretch marks formed a tree. A tree of life!
Finally, the mother gave birth to her second child, and a week later she reposted an image showing how her belly had turned out compared to the previous one. The tree remained there, somewhat faded but testifying, since it was autumn, to the fruit that she had already borne.
“#40weekspregnant and #1weekpostpartum (without and with #yogababy!). My stretch marks are fading, my belly is shrinking, and my love for my boys is overwhelming!”
Many mothers worry about their stretch marks and how their belly will look after childbirth, trying all kinds of treatments to prevent them. For some women, they fade, but for most, they stay for life. This can go a long way towards acceptance. However, when these types of testimonials appear on social networks, they help us to rethink socially accepted beauty standards and give a new point of view from which to see those life-creating bellies from a more positive and true side.
