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I in no way anticipated the body-image issues and challenges that I would face as my body transformed through pregnancy. I love my body, but I was surprised to gain as much weight as I did. I’m 5'2" and usually weigh somewhere between 117 and 124 pounds. By the time I was in labor, I was tipping the scales at 180.
My mother had gained 50 pounds with each of her two pregnancies, and I thought to myself, “That won’t be me.” I walk a minimum of five miles a day just commuting, I exercise, and I’m vegan. There was no way I thought I’d gain as much as my mother…but I did. And my lines of work as both a body-based performance artist and adult performer didn’t allow me to hide my figure under maternity garments.
I vividly remember my last trip to Los Angeles before the birth of my child. I was performing in a MILF film—the first MILF film in which I was going to be the MILF. I was playing the role of an expectant mother interviewing babysitters for her child-to-be. During the interview, I ended up seducing the sitter. I was more than 170 pounds, 30 years old, and 37 weeks pregnant—paired up with a 100-pound, 19-year-old girl.
Before the film shoot, I took a luxurious shower. For the first time in well over a decade, I found myself nervous about a shoot. In front of the camera was where I felt at home, but I didn’t recognize my body anymore. I dried off and stared at my naked body in the mirror, large and round. My butt, for the first time in my life, looked flat in the mirror in comparison to the roundness of my belly and my swollen legs and ankles beneath me.
