Elizabeth Dodson

Upon graduating college, I worked in PR in New York City briefly, before returning to my home state, Texas, to marry my college sweetheart.  At 26, I was actually pretty ancient to be childless in my fellow Texans’ eyes, but I wanted to pursue my career and establish myself before I even considered starting a family.  By 30, I was living abroad and working in education and non-profit management.  And by 33, I was divorced and, surprisingly, excited to be starting a new life.  I continued to travel and live internationally for another year, when I met my now fiancé, through mutual friends.  He was living in San Diego, and I was living in Honduras.  It didn’t take long for me to want to return to the States and set up a life in San Diego.

When we decided to start a family, I never imagined I would have trouble conceiving.  But I did, and I felt crushed.  Though it took a long time, and a lot of disappointments, I finally became pregnant with my daughter.  I look forward to sharing the world with my daughter and seeing everything from a new perspective, through her eyes.

Prior to becoming a mom, I had managed press at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, swum in the open ocean with a pod of orca whales, and survived an emergency evacuation out of Morocco – just to name a few of my adventures.  I took a long time coming to the decision to start a family, mainly due to my belief (albeit subconscious) that parenthood would be the end of my adventures.  Life experiences really helped me understand the biggest obstacle of happiness is fear.  I finally started letting go of my fear of life insurance, legal guardianships, and 529 plans to realize parenthood was actually a new adventure.  Though, I maybe should have considered fears like the effects of significant sleep deprivation, the digestive anomaly that is baby poop, or having my heart forever hopelessly entangled in this munchkin’s tiny hand; so far, it’s been the greatest adventure of my life.

You can find out more about my adventures in motherhood at bodybybaby.org.