I remember standing in front of the mirror one morning after Aiko was born and thinking...
Whose body is this... My stomach is still so big and squishy... my hips were wider. My boobs felt different. Even my face looked older somehow (tired?).
Everyone kept telling me how amazing my body was for creating life but inside I felt lost. Grateful yes. But also disconnected.
No one really talks about that part. The part where you love your child deeply but quietly miss the body you used to live in.
What surprised me most was not the physical changes. It was how fast I stopped being kind to myself.... I stopped dressing up. I stopped being in photos. I told myself I would do things again when my body went back. It never fully did. And I'm learning that this is okay.
What I have learned after photographing hundreds of mothers across New Zealand and the world is this: your body does not need to go back, you need to come back to it.
A Goddess Shoot is not about pretending nothing changed.
It is about honouring what did. The strength. The softness.
The woman who carried life and is still learning how to carry herself again, I see you.
If this resonates with you even a little please know you are not alone.
And you deserve to be seen in this season exactly as you are.
