We met Emily in 2024 when she was 34 weeks pregnant, creating a sculpture of her bump was for her not only to have a beautiful keepsake but also a way to remind herself about her recovery after eating disorders and disordered eating. Read below her own story:
“A year ago today we found out we were pregnant with Harvey, it feels like yesterday! It feels like a good day to share my thoughts on my year of complete transformation, nearly 4 months postpartum.
For someone with a history of eating disorders and disordered eating, pregnancy should have been a real challenge. But instead it was the greatest gift my recovery could have given me and fixed parts of me I never knew existed. For the first time in my 30 years of existing to be smaller, I experienced the body positivity I never thought I could have. Not only was I proud of what my body was doing, I was beyond happy in my own skin.
After all I put my body through, the years of anorexia and disordered eating, pounding away at her at the gym and the awful, awful thoughts and words spoken to her, she was growing this gift. She was changing and adapting to make room for this little miracle baby. The starvation and self-hatred forgiven and forgotten as she moved through pregnancy, growing this perfect tiny human. For once in her life, receiving an ounce of grace, trust and understanding that she knew what she was doing. She was protecting this little life inside of me and protecting me.
Pregnancy has healed my inner child who was told she needed to shrink herself to be accepted, working to correct the damage I had inflicted in my pursuit of perfection. What’s more, pregnancy connected me to my body, and taught me to value that connection. As I am working my way through this post-partum period, I am still able to give my body the grace that she knows what she needs to do to recover from this life-changing experience and sever abdominal surgery.
My tummy for so long was a the centre of so much hate, the thing I was most ashamed of. My never ending mission was targeted at that part of my body. With pregnancy, that changed in an instant. My tummy was the centre of so much love and adoration. Both from other people and more importantly, from myself. Everyday, I stroked, loved and held onto my growing tummy. It wasn’t this thing I hated but my son’s home.
How can I not have anything but respect for this soft, warm, nurturing place. While it won’t receive the same level of adoration and kindness from the world in the post-partum world, I will do my best to continue to respect this part of myself, giving myself the space to accept that my belly will forever be changed by this season.
I know it wont always be this “easy” to remember this feeling of trust and understanding for my body as I have done during my pregnancy. I am not naive to think this is not an ongoing journey and recovery is never linear. But I will always have my pregnant body to ground me again in that connection.
That is why I had Milestonable capture my pregnant self at 34 weeks pregnant, a physical reminder that even after all I had put myself through, even when I still hadn’t found the body neutrality I had been searching for in my recovery, my body did the thing. It gave me the greatest gift I could have ever dreamed of in Harvey.
And I will do my best to honour her with grace, compassion and understanding as I move forward through this post-partum world. I will work hard to make sure my son see’s his mother. growing up, proud of the body that made him and gave him his first home to feel safe in. I will remember how my recovery and body image is worth every second of working for it and choosing it. The reward on the other side is something you could never imagine.”
