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This is the me from now speaking to the me at the ripe age of twenty:

I understand that you want to get that tattoo. Everyone around you is getting one, you want to portray yourself as a rebel - or as much as one can while serving in the military - and you really like the design. Go for it, dear, but do me one favor: Don’t get it on your stomach!

It’s too bad that I didn’t get this advice before I indulged in my one piece of body art: a relatively conservative cross on my stomach. It wasn’t until I really started thinking about having kids much later in my twenties that the realization hit me: “Hey, my stomach is going to stretch out, and this tattoo is going to look pretty weird!” Leave it to me to have a tattoo placed on my stomach that was not only going to get stretched out, but that also relied on its symmetry to look good.

With my daughter my belly got huge, and with my son I was even more huge. My tattoo got stretched out on one side, and believe me when I tell you it wasn’t a very pretty sight. Combine that with the adorable (that’s sarcasm) stretch marks I have from pregnancy, and I don’t think this tattoo will ever see the light of day again.

The good news is that my tattoo bounced back relatively well after my stomach shrunk back down. I don’t know if it would still look as good if it was a more intricate design or if it had bolder colors, but for the simple black tattoo it looks decent. If you have a tattoo on your stomach and you’re worried that your clever design will soon resemble a Rorschach test, then don’t worry. You may turn out like me and retain a pretty nice design, but if it gets stretched out too much you can take solace in the fact that you can always pay to have it redone when you’re finished having babies.

Tags: body art, stomach tattoo and pregnancy, stretched out tattoo