Motherhood Is Beautiful

So, I've never felt this way. I guess it's weird when you grow up and you're surrounded by examples of "manufactured" beauty. Models, celebs, even just the women around you who cake on the makeup and always look their best. But it was funny when I looked at myself one day and realized just how beautiful I feel because of one little baby-to-be.

I grew up in a nice town called Trondheim, in southwest Norway. It was just my mother, my four older brothers and I in a small three-bedroom house. And I always felt left out. My brothers were so boyish, always playing soccer and wrestling. They found fun in teasing me, basically because I was a girl. So there was really no way I could confide in them. And my mother, a slave to her job as a tram driver. So when we needed clothes she would give my oldest brother money and he would go grocery and clothing shopping. Basically I was stuck with either really ill-fitting clothes from the boys section or just old hand-me-downs. Growing up I dreamed of walking around the schoolyard in a pretty dresses and shiny new shoes like the other girls.

As I grew older this desire just disappointed me. I turned thirteen and got a small job helping my aunt and uncle keep up with their house. She was pregnant with her first child and her husband was a fisherman, so he was out most of the day. I cleaned and helped cook, and got paid a bit. But it wasn't the money the money that delighted me. It was the chore like things I helped her out with. She always came down stairs as I was preparing breakfast and said, "One day you will make a wonderful wife and mother, I can already tell!"

I just giggled it off, but I took it to heart. I looked at my aunt and everything she did and found beauty in it. For some reason it awed me, it made me think "I'd love to bee like her one day." Loved, happy glowing, expecting, and pretty.

Now the idea of my own looks always loomed in the back of my mind. I scrounged up enough money and before school started I snuck out of the house one day and went on my own little shopping spree. I went to the nearby shopping square and bough about five of the prettiest dresses I saw and bought lip gloss, eyeliner, eye shadow, and mascara.

The morning of the first day of school I slipped on one of the dresses and headed to the bathroom. I looked at the makeup and thought "Well this can't be hard." About half an hour later I came out feeling OK. I walked into the kitchen and my brothers stopped eating and looked at me as if I were from another planet ... after a moment or two they busted out into a fit of laughter. I shrugged it off as just another way to tease me. Boy was I fooled.

I went to school and sat in my first class. As the teacher was getting his things together girls and boys just stared and giggled. To sum it up, school was a drag that day, the makeup, the un-flattering dress, just a full on BAD idea.

So I gave up and let my thoughts engulf me.

Then a few years later I got a call from my aunt, the same one I helped. She was planning on moving to America, it was always somewhere she wanted to live. I was filled with envy. I asked her "Can I go with you!?" her answer surprised me. "I would love it if you could come!" After weeks of convincing my mother she said yes.

I spent the next month preparing. I packed up what I had and brushed up on my basic English and United States history and before I knew it I was with my aunt, uncle and young cousin on a long flight to Houston.

It was so beautiful, so warm and so different! We quickly found a new home and my aunt found a nice school for me to attend. Boy was I excited!

But those feelings subsided and I slowly was reminded of how ugly I felt. While the girls had perfect skin, lovely clothes, boobs, and curves, I was just, little and skinny with big hair and a funny accent that nobody understood.

A few years went on and I just didn't care. I fell into my homework and music and the few close friends I had. I never looked at my reflection for longer than three seconds, and my clothes were just T-shirts and jeans.

My closest friend Trent had formed a band and they need someone to hold down the merch booth at their local shows. I apparently was the one they needed. So I hung around them often and became close friends with all four of the guys. They were like the nice brothers that I always wanted.

Time passed and me and their drummer Spensir became very close. We both attended a local college as Music Theory Majors and we constantly talked. I was only 18, and he was 23. I figured there was no chance of me and him ever being more than friends, but i was proved wrong. He asked me to be his girlfriend. I was shocked! He? A guy actually likes me? "No, he couldn't I'm not good for him, it's all just a dream!" But no.

Later he and the band got a small record deal with a local label and he ended up quitting college. I did soon after.

We were so in love. That seemed really cliché but I enjoyed being there for him, watching him do what he loved and just making sure he was happy. And he love doing the same for me.

He was constantly telling me not to say "I'm ugly" or "I wish I could be prettier!" but the thoughts still loomed in my mind. I wondered how he could even love me.

Months passed and I started dressing nicer and I looked at my reflection a little more. Before I knew it, 11 months later in an old hotel downtown he held my hand and looked into my eyes and asked, "Will you marry me?"

My heart skipped a beat and my jaw dropped.

About a month later with effortless planning it was just he and I, my mother, aunt and uncle, and his parents, as they watched us say our I Do's and begin our new life together. He wore a thrown together tux and I wore a creme silk tea-length dress I made myself. I felt pretty.

Another year full of fun and good times passed. October 2008 came and we were informed about something that would change our lives.

I was expecting.

I was 19 and he was 24 and we felt ... happy. Of course we had our naysayers but it just felt right, we felt prepared. I began sewing up dresses and coats and outfits and sold them to resale shops and boutiques for good money and Spensir took up a part time job at a guitar/instrument shop. We started saving up good money for our new addition.

My husband took every chance to tell me I was beautiful, and that I was perfect to him. I was taken back t the days when I helped my aunt. How I felt. And all those days i spent hating myself for the way I looked. Years and years spent thinking i wasn't good enough or pretty enough.

It blew my mind the day I realized how beautiful I was. I was 16 weeks pregnant when I saw my reflection in the floor length mirror in our bedroom. I was still short, I still had that big head full of hair, I had no makeup, and I still had my odd accent. But it was my stomach. It was already bulging out and I felt a little fluttering inside there. And I knew it.

I felt so beautiful that moment.

I am creating life; I'm creating our baby.

I felt my heart sink and my eyes water up as I realized just how different I was from that little awkward girl. I was shocked when I realized how long it took me to see the real beauty I had within. I didn't know it would take a baby to help me achieve what I always wanted. I couldn't stop looking at myself. I knew that my life was going to be different from now on, no matter what.

I thought, "Motherhood really is beautiful, so am I."