The other day as I was getting my children ready for school, my five year old son looked at me with distaste and asked me if I could put some makeup on before dropping him off. He wanted me to be “beautiful like the other mothers”. During my pregnancies, I developed something called “the mask of pregnancy” which is another name for chloasma (or melasma). This is a dark blotchy brown pigmentation that forms on the forehead, cheeks and upper lip.

It is usually a temporary ailment of pregnancy which typically goes away once hormone levels balance out, generally after pregnancy or once finished breast feeding. Although in some cases, like mine, it doesn’t go away.

This condition effects up to 50-75 percent of expectant mothers. Chloasma is caused by a rise in estrogen levels that stimulates excess melanin production which may also be known as hyperpigmentation.

It is this same excess melanin production that causes the dark line down your abdomen called the linea negra, and the reasoning behind your areloas becoming a shade darker whilst pregnant.

During my five pregnancies, my face slowly worsened.

Initially I read up on all the ways I could conceal the dark brown blotchy patches on my once clear skin. It was making me feel self conscious and a “lesser” version of my previous self, if that makes sense. I wanted to fix it. I wanted my old self back.

It has been said that taking doses of folic acid may help, as a deficiency could be the underlying cause of the hyperpigmentation.

It was also noted that sun exposure could make the chloasma even darker, so to apply a 30+ sunscreen on a daily basis in order to protect skin from further damage.

Although nothing I tried seemed to work. My old “better” self felt out of reach.

If there is one thing I’ve learnt in life, it’s that if you can’t change something, you need to change the way you look at it.

So that’s exactly what I did. I had to choose between wearing the mask of pregnancy proudly, or covering it up with makeup at every opportunity, inadvertently masking my true self.

Before I changed the way I looked at my skin, my son’s comment would have shattered me. Accepting change is a difficult task, one of the hardest things you can ever do.

No one likes change, just look at the uproar every time Facebook changes it’s settings!

In order to feel confident again with my new body and new skin after having children, I simply needed to accept the fact that things change. People change, circumstances change, relationships change, and bodies change.

The key is in adapting.

If a caterpillar didn’t adapt, he would never transform into a butterfly.

If I had never fallen pregnant, I would never have been blessed with children.

If my body hadn’t undergone these visible differences, he wouldn’t be here today, asking me to put on makeup.

The benefits far out way the costs.

The cost of anything, is how much life you’re willing to give up for it. I would give it up time and time again for these children just beginning to learn about the intricacies of it all.

Which is how I explained it to my son.

On this day, when my son asked me to put on some makeup before taking him to school, I reminded him of the strength of my body and what it had endured.  I told him that no matter what I looked like on the outside, I could never imagine feeling anything but just as beautiful as all the other mummies.

My chloasma filled face was his proof of life.

Just between you and me, he’d almost needed one that morning.