The beautiful Blair Twidwell with her daughter Jocelynn (4) and sons Aidan (2) and Lincoln (1). Blair is also mother to Aliyah (5) who was placed for open adoption following her birth. Jocelynn was just 16 when she gave birth to her first daughter and her parents very much pressured her to give the baby up for adoption. She knew she couldn't follow through with a closed adoption and was thrilled when her midwife showed interest in adopting her baby. Her pregnancy was healthy and she is able to still keep in close contact with her first daughter, her adoptive family even moved across the country to be closer to Blair and her family. Blair became pregnant with her second daughter, Aliyah's biological sister, a year later and delivered via cesarean at 39 weeks. Her pregnancies with her sons followed and were much more complicated than her first two pregnancies. She began bleeding at 12 weeks with Aidan and was told to prepare for miscarriage. Thankfully she held on to the pregnancy but went into preterm labor twice before finally delivering at 35 weeks via repeat cesarean. Her pregnancy with Lincoln went well but she delivered preterm with him as well and he had to spend 17 days in NICU. During his delivery they encountered so much scar tissue they had to make a y-incision on her uterus and she was told if she ever got pregnant again she would be at high risk for uterine rupture. After conceiving all of her children while actively on birth control (the pill with her daughters and an IUD with her sons) she chose to have her tubal ligation just a few months after Lincoln's birth. Breastfeeding is going very well and at 1 year she's nursed Lincoln much longer than any of her other babies. She bound her chest after Aliyah's birth so her milk didn't come in and nursed her next two children for 3 and 6 months each.
Blair admits to having very low self esteem and struggles with her body image. She says that even though she knows her body has changed through the course of growing, birthing and feeding four children she gets caught up in comparing herself with other twenty-one year olds who aren't mothers. She hopes that by embracing her body with her children she can look at herself differently and learn to love her body now.