a tattoo story - featuring stephanie of the odd duck

hello lovelies!  i have another fabulous tattoo story for you today.  this one coming from stephanie of the odd duck!  be sure you stop over after you read her story and check out her happy place.  also i just realized that she is hosting a giveaway of my FAVORITE book ever....the happiness project.  if you haven't read it i highly reccomend it.  you can enter the giveaway here until april 14th!!  okay now on to her story :)

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I'll start off by saying that I'm one of those girls who is completely fascinated with tattoos and the idea of tattoos. just the sight of a tattoo makes me squeal in excitement. That's a fact. So when I got pregnant at 17 and couldn't get any [because I'm responsible enough to not risk infection affecting the fetus], I was feeling a bit let down.


Don't get me wrong, I was actually really excited to have a baby. Mike and I wanted one, and we didn't care about age [he was only 16 at the time]. My pregnancy was mostly kept hush from the family [ahem], because I'm a scaredy cat and couldn't figure out a good time to bring it up.

The baby was perfect; angelic and beautiful, as any baby is to thier parents. Our relationship was going to be eternal, and I knew that I wanted my first tattoo to be a promise of that fact. I wanted it to represent us in the best way there is.

After studying for over a year, I came up with the tattoo design, which is a mother turtle being followed by a baby turtle. Both are pink to represent us. There is also room for more turtles, if we have more babies [pink for girls, blue for boys, of course].

Turtles are said to be the bridge from Heaven to Earth in many cultures. The point here is that my daughter [and future children] are the closest thing I will have to heaven on earth.

They are viewed as eternal beings, as my love is eternal for her. They represent a long life, which is an obvious thing that any mother wants for thier child.

Turtles are also very strong. Since we've given our daughter a strong name [Alexandria translates to "defender of men", meaning my daughter kicks ass], why not symbolize her with an animal that enforces that inner strength that I see in her?

It will forever be my favorite piece of art on my body, though I like my second tattoo; an "OM" symbol in the form of a raven.

But that's for another tattoo story. =]
 

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thank you stephanie for sharing your amazing tattoo story!  hopefully you'll share your new ones here too ♥

hope you all are having a fabulous day! XO, lindsay