It’s hard to believe that come July 6, our precious baby girl will be a year old. It might sound like a cliché, but it seems like only yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital. 9 pounds 3 ounces, dark hair on her head, and deep brown eyes. As she’s grown, she’s gotten more beautiful with each passing day, in my opinion. As I look back on photos of her, she’s changed so much in such a short amount of time, and I’ve fallen in love with each version of her.

Motherhood is an experience that is both challenging and rewarding. Despite having many friends who became mothers before me, and despite listening to them tell me about their experiences, there was absolutely nothing that could have prepared me for the reality of motherhood. There were parts that were way more difficult than I anticipated, but there are also parts that are so much better than I could ever have imagined.

Over the past few years, I’ve put on a lot of weight. It actually started with a medication that I had to take for bipolar disorder. One of the side effects was that I put on a few pounds. But it wasn’t until recently, when I got pregnant with my first child, that the weight really started to pile on. During my pregnancy, I was a bit overwhelmed at the rate at which I was gaining weight, and it was hard to prevent it from happening. I was constantly hungry, and as my pregnancy progressed, I replaced going to the gym with more leisurely walks because I was constantly winded and tired from my workouts.