Take Those Photos!

This is a little of an emotional day for me.

I am looking through photos of my girls.... As I look through them and remember all of those amazing times watching them grow, giggle, smile, crawl, walk my heart breaks a little.

Now yes there are a couple of reasons I am sad looking back on these photos.  One is because I really really miss the baby stages and would love to live them all over again.... and the most important reason I am sad.... I am not in hardly any of the photos. There are a couple, some from the day they were born, and then again about a month later..... Then NOTHING.

I want to share this with as many of you as possible that are going through the emotions I had gone through after the birth of babies.

Looking back now, I want a do over. I want to re-live those baby days again, not only because they are the most treasured memories I have but because I would give anything to go back and TAKE THOSE PHOTOS with my babies!!

When my girls were born, I went into a state of depression. This is more common than most would think. My depression came to a point that I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror. We even took the mirrors down in the house...

Some say that women who have twins are more susceptible to postpartum depression.  Now personally I may have had a little baby blues with our first daughter (singleton) but after the twins it was so strong.  I really didn't even realize I was depressed at all, didn't think anything was wrong with me.  The state of mind I was going through was like a haze, I was stuck in a cloud and just laid around doing nothing that I can remember.  The schedule with newborn twins was one woke up, changed their bum, breastfeed, bottle feed, lay her down, wake the next one up, change bum, breastfeed, bottle feed, lay her down, pump (because I didn't produce enough) and the cycle went around and around.

My depression got to the point of being put off of work, onto medication, going to therapy...

(First selfie together - May 31, 2014)

(African lion safari - August 2015)

My oldest is now 7 and our twins are 5.  I regret that I and they now do not have any photos of us together for the first few years of their lives, it looks like I wasn't even around.  2 years ago I started to get more comfortable with myself. My confidence started to rise. I no longer run from photos, in fact, I am now a huge selfie fan! We do family snapshots and selfies as much as possible and my girls and I now have a big supply of photos with each other of our day to day lives!

What changed for me?

There came a point when I finally realized I WAS WORTH IT!  There is a moment that I thought if I don't change something, my life is seriously going to change (not in a good way). So I spoke with my husband and jumped into a new adventure. I started to work on me, because we all hear that if mom isn't happy no one is happy and I truly believe my moods were rubbing off on my children in a negative way.  I noticed my oldest was becoming more self conscious each day.  Our children look up to us, they think we hung the stars and the moon.

(Nature walk - August 2015)

(Father's day nature walk - June 2016)

So it was time for me to try to live to my best self. I started an at home program because I knew with 3 children and a full time job that took me away from the house 12 hours a day, time wasn't really on my side. In doing this not only did I start eating better and exercising, I joined a team of women who uplifted me and inspired me to be and do more. We work on ourselves and each other by doing personal development. Yes it sounds really weird, I didn't want to do it at first BUT when I started it I learned so much about myself and became much more confident in who I was and now am! Every morning I get up before the girls and listen to something uplifting, it starts my day off on the right foot!

(My workout buddies)

My biggest regret was running away and hiding from photos when the cameras came out.  I want all moms to know that our babies don't stay babies forever. I know it is hard to overcome your body image you have of yourself but your kids love you!  Your family loves you!  You will one day again learn to love yourself, I promise!  It isn't an easy task but try your best to jump into those photos with your babies because years down the road you may feel the regret I feel for not sharing the lasting still moments of being in the photos with my babies.

(Was a tough workout)

(Even my husband is getting used to the selfies all the time lol)

If any of you learn anything from this PLEASE please be it to get into those photos!  Even when you don't want to because years down the road you will want those memories. Go out, have fun, smile, laugh and get into those photos!

If you are like me and would like to talk about anything at all or learn more about how I overcame, please do not hesitate to reach out to me!  Find me on Facebook or send me an email I would love to connect with you!

~ Love yourself right now wherever you may be ~
-Mandy

(Fun times at an event - May 2016)