Kudos to Anne Hathaway who recently posted a kandid and fairly un-glamorous photo of her pregnant body in a bikini on social media (although, it’s hard to say anything miss Hathaway does could ever be un-glamorous)! According to Entertainment Weekly the 33 year old actress is at least six months along with her first child.

photo copyright Anne Hathaway as published on Entertainment Weekly, Tuesday, January 4, 2016

And, just to be fair, here’s a photo of your’s truly (although a tad less revealing) from three years ago, when I was about eight months along with my own bundle of joy:

At eight months and NOT feeling too glamorous!

Honestly, I wasn’t really in love with my body with all that extra weight. And maternity clothes are never very stylish…yes, my vanity was having a field day creating reasons NOT to love what my body was doing! Add to that my past life as a professional dancer, and my history with eating disorders, and well, you get the picture.

I wish I had a poster of Anne Hathaway in all her fertile glory to remind me that pregnancy is one of the most beautiful things Mother Nature has blessed us with. Another thing that would have helped my confidence would have been a blessing-way. If you’ve never heard of it, a “blessing-way” is a baby shower but with a very sacred intent: the mother-to-be is decorated by her friends, she often gets henna designs tattooed all over her body, and especially on her belly, she is pampered with candles and incense and massages…aaaaahhhhh.

Creating an atmosphere of peace, love and harmony positively affects the growing fetus, too. An article from Get Fit for Birth emphasizes the best thing a woman can do when she discovers she’s pregnant is not to start exercising a bunch or radically change her diet, but to love herself.  “Thomas Verny says, “Studies show that mothers under extreme and constant stress are more likely to have babies who are premature, lower than average in weight, hyperactive, irritable, and colicky.”

Here’s a creative visualization exercise for expectant mothers to balance emotions, from Verny’s book Nurturing the unborn child:

Imagine your growing baby.
Maybe she is one centimeter or maybe ten centimeters.
Visualize what a healthy child looks like.
Sense what a healthy child feels like.
Hear what a healthy child sounds like.
How does his heart pump blood?
How do her arms move?
How are his cells growing?
See your little one smile in the womb.
Hear her laugh, and feel her move in joyful motion.
There is no right or wrong. Let your five-minute daydream flow however a healthy child may be imagined.

Feeling strong and confident? Please share your beautiful pregnancy photos with the Homestead and inspire another mama to love her body!