The Story Nobody Expected Her to Tell
Lisbeth was sixteen when she became a mom.
Hers wasn’t the carefully planned, Pinterest-perfect version of motherhood.
It was the kind that came with judgment instead of congratulations. Shame instead of support. Gossip instead of guidance.
Her family was angry. She knows now that it was fury dressed up as fear.
Her teachers were disappointed. Her friends disappeared. Nearly everyone in her life had an opinion about what she’d “thrown away.”
Everyone except her husband, who was nineteen and told her, “We got this.”
Spoiler alert: They didn’t have it all figured out.
They were married, but living apart. He was stationed in North Carolina with the military. She stayed in California, living with his parents while she went to school.
But all of these experiences? They helped shape what Lisbeth did figure out over the next three decades:
- How to turn shame into resilience,
- How to turn judgment into wisdom
- And how to turn survival into the kind of life she now calls “main character energy.”
And that transformation? That’s exactly what we documented in her Postpartum Project session.
What Makes The Postpartum Project Different
Here’s the thing about traditional portrait sessions: I guide you through every pose. I tell you where to put your hands, how to tilt your chin, when to smile.
The Postpartum Project isn’t that.
Instead, we sit down for an honest conversation about motherhood while I document your story.
No performance. No pretense. Just you, your truth, and a camera capturing the essence of your journey.
When Lisbeth walked into the studio, she wasn’t sure what to expect. What she got was something she never anticipated: clarity.
“Doing this was cathartic,” she told me afterward. “It was nice. And I got some really good insights into my own motherhood journey out of this, not expecting to.”
That’s the power of sharing your story out loud, while being truly seen.
Doing this was cathartic. It was nice. And I got some really good insights into my own motherhood journey out of this, not expecting to.
Lisbeth
The Evolution: From Teen Mom to “Main Character Energy”
The Early Years: Learning to Protect What Matters
When Lisbeth became pregnant, she was still wearing braces. She was skinny enough to hide her pregnancy in baggy clothes for months.
The physical experience? That’s not what she remembers most vividly.
“What I remember was not the physical pain of giving birth, but the embarrassment of my mother-in-law being in there with me. At that point, I had seen her a handful of times, and she was in the room with me. So, you know, they pull up your gown and you’re just butt naked, and doctors are coming in and checking all this time. And I didn’t know that was going to be the case. So I just remember being really embarrassed.”
Two days after delivering her son, she was at a party in jeans that still fit.
She was a teenager, after all, and at sixteen, that felt important.
But beneath that bravado? Fear. Uncertainty. And a fierce protective instinct she didn’t know she had.
“I used to be carefree, and, you know, just my age. I was a teenager. And then after I became a mom…I knew that education was the way that I was going to get out and not get pulled into poverty. So I knew I had to take school seriously. And then that’s when it turned around for me… I was always a really good student, and I was intelligent. But now I knew I had to be strategic, and that made a difference.”
Here’s what shifted: She went from being intelligent to being strategic.
She couldn’t afford to coast anymore. She had a baby to protect, a life to build, and no safety net to catch her if she fell.
The Middle Years: Finding Her Voice
Living with her in-laws meant navigating someone else’s rules in someone else’s home.
Lisbeth learned to bite her tongue, to not speak up even when she disagreed, because she felt like she had no right to her own opinions under their roof.
But this experience shaped how she chose to parent her own sons.
“I think I gave my sons the opposite of what I got. And so I think I gave them a lot of freedom.
“Freedom of choice. Because I was so overprotected, I think I just let them do whatever they wanted to do, and they chose not to. So they didn’t have the rebellion streak that I had because they hadn’t been told no all their lives.”
She broke the generational pattern of control and shame by choosing trust and freedom instead.
When her younger son was in high school, he came home from a friend’s house and said, “Oh my God, I’m so grateful for you as a mom… because I was over so-and-so’s house and… it’s crazy. That house is crazy.”
It was the first time he truly appreciated her approach to parenting.
It takes a contrast to appreciate what you have.
The Wisdom She Carries Now
Looking back, Lisbeth sees how her early experience shaped everything that followed.
The shame. The isolation. The judgment.
“That’s what I talk about now in my work, is it doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t have to be, okay, we’re here now, let’s make a plan, right? Not throw away the human. Not ostracize them. Not shut them out. Not freeze them out. Not make them pay for something that can’t be undone. You know, I always say you can’t put the toothpaste back in, so you might as well grab your toothbrush, take some of that toothpaste and use it.”
So even though the toothpaste came out the wrong way, you use it. Just in a different way.
“That’s what made me who I am now – being completely alone and how I had to design my life and how I had to think about things and just know that I could only depend on myself. And I had a little baby to protect now, so I couldn’t mess around anymore. I had to be super serious with that real quick.”
Now: Living Her Main Character Life
Today, Lisbeth doesn’t just survive – she thrives.
She talks about “main character mom” energy.
She understands that taking care of yourself isn’t selfish; it’s essential.
She knows that getting dressed up, going on date nights, and prioritizing your own needs doesn’t make you a bad mother; it makes you a whole person who happens to also be a mother.
“If you’re not the main character in your own life, you just end up depleted.”
And here’s what makes her story so powerful: She’s not just living well in spite of becoming a teen mom. She’s living well because of everything that journey taught her.
The shame made her resilient.
The judgment made her strategic.
The struggle made her who she is today.
Why Your Story Matters (Yes, Yours)
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, “But my story isn’t dramatic like Lisbeth’s.”
Or maybe you’re thinking, “My postpartum was thirty years ago – surely this isn’t for me.”
Or perhaps, “I didn’t struggle. I don’t have anything important to share.”
Here’s what I know after photographing Lisbeth and listening to her story:
Every maternal experience deserves documentation.
The mom who had it “easy” needs to be heard just as much as the mom who struggled.
Because somewhere, another mother is wondering if her smooth postpartum experience is valid. If she’s allowed to love motherhood without apologizing for it.
And the mom who became a mother decades ago? Your wisdom is gold. Your perspective matters. The lessons you’ve learned over time are exactly what younger mothers need to hear.
When I asked Lisbeth what she’d tell other women considering the Postpartum Project, here’s what she said:
“I would definitely encourage somebody to participate in this, if anything, to share your story, because that’s always going to help… I think everyone needs to do this because we need to always be exploring this motherhood thing that we got into, right? And community is so important.”
Your story, whatever it looks like, might be exactly what another woman needs to hear to know she’s not alone.
Ready to Document Your Evolution?
Whether you became a mother at 16 or 46. Whether it was three decades ago or three days ago. Whether you struggled or soared or both.
Your story deserves to be told.
Book your curiosity call and let’s start documenting your journey.