Baby bumps come in all shapes and sizes, all of them beautiful.
That is the simple, but profound message of endurance athlete Brittany Raven’s Instagram post – and photo comparison – that has gone viral.
When Raven was 39 weeks pregnant (above, right, seriously) she was inundated with online comments about her belly being too small.
Somewhere, Sarah Stage is nodding. Been there, girl.
“I am nearly six-feet tall with a long torso and brutally strong abs, so I didn’t show until around my 30th week,” Raven said of the photo.
The Washington-based mountain runner and alpine climber says “a lot of people expressed unsolicited concern over my baby’s health.”
“One local healthcare professional,” she adds, “even tried to scare me by telling me my baby would be too small and [sick].”
This experience got her thinking … about Tess Holliday.
Having seen a photo of the plus-size model, who also received criticism for her bump (being too large in Tess’ case), Raven had an epiphany.
“In this image these two women are at about the same stage in their pregnancies – 39 weeks,” Raven wrote in a post that has gone viral.
“That is the gorgeous @tessholliday looking boss on the left and me with the defined abs on the right. She is a voluptuous model.”
“I am a sinewy mountain athlete. Both of us are shamed for our size … she for her roundness and me for my smallness.”
She added: “Why does our society shame women whose bodies do not adhere to some narrow notion of false normalcy?”
“Pregnancy is tough enough,” the blogger added, echoing the sentiments of millions, “without also being body shamed.”
Of the side-by-side post-partum photos of herself above, she says, “I am sharing not to brag, to make others feel bad about their journeys.”
“I share,” she says, “to dispel fear other pregnant athletes might hold about their own post-pregnancy bodies.”
“Please allow these images to broaden your idea of what a ‘normal’ pregnant and postpartum body looks like.”
“Once again I feel at home in my body – except this body just got done blood doping for ten months while wearing a progressive weight vest.”
“I’m coming for you, Bust tha Move! #pregnantathlete”
She’s an extreme athlete, so her results aren’t typical. But that’s half of her point – no results are typical when it comes to this.
At least that’s not how the public should view pregnancy.
That’s a big reason Brittany, who welcomed healthy baby girl named Rumi Wren with her husband, Ryan, is a huge fan of Holliday.
“As I followed Tess’ journey through her second pregnancy, I realized that the dialogue around my athletic body was very similar.”
“The dialogue around her voluptuous body,” Raven said, is highly relatable, and “just as fear-based, just as inappropriate.”
“With that comparison,” the first time mom hopes women of “all sizes can heal together and stop judging one another’s bodies.”
Whether big (Holliday, Revie Jane Schulz) or small (Raven, Hannah Polites below), all babies and bumps and physiques should be celebrated.
Amen to that.
