When Adrienne Erazo, a researcher at a newspaper in Orange, California, got pregnant the first time, the excitement over building her family was immediate and profound. As her baby started to grow, she felt a sense of purpose, like this was what she was supposed to do her whole life. But hanging over that joy was a pall of doubt and shame: Was she doing something wrong? Was she hurting her baby?

She wasn't drinking alcohol, smoking, or taking drugs – she was simply overweight, a size 22W at 5 feet 4 inches tall. She'd been overweight most of her life.

She kept hearing the concerned voices of her husband and family telling her, months earlier, that she should really "get her weight under control" before she got pregnant. She kept thinking about all the warnings she'd read in the news about plus-size women having gestational diabetes and their babies having birth defects.

"When I got pregnant, at first I was sad because I was so worried," says the 27-year-old. "I should have been happy." Unfortunately, Erazo's not alone.

Guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urge healthcare professionals to counsel plus-size women to lose weight before pregnancy, limit weight gain during pregnancy, and lose baby weight quickly after pregnancy. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks being overweight or obese during pregnancy nearly at the same risk level as uncontrolled high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, or drinking.

With all the warnings out there about how dangerous it is to be overweight – and the phrase "obesity epidemic" appearing regularly in the news – it's no surprise that women like Erazo feel anxious and guilty about their pregnancies and spend at least part of the time feeling bad about themselves.

A more positive outlook

Luckily for Erazo and countless other plus-size women, the truth is not nearly so frightening. After nine months of a complication-free pregnancy, Erazo gave birth to Orion, a 9-pound baby boy with soft brown hair and his daddy's chocolate brown eyes.

Now pregnant with her second child, Erazo wants you to know something: "I'm fat and pregnant and I'm just fine," she says simply. "It's important for other moms to know that you're not a bad mom and you won't be a bad mom just because you're plus-size."

In fact, if you're a plus-size woman, you're part of a growing sorority. In the United States today, more than half of pregnant women are considered overweight or obese. “Overweight” is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 29.9, and a BMI of 30 or more is considered obese. (You can calculate your BMI here.) While plus-size women face increased risks of complications, the majority of these are manageable if they occur, and being overweight doesn't mean you're destined for a troubled pregnancy.

"Most plus-size women have completely normal pregnancies and normal babies. We're currently making a lot of fuss about maternal size. This only magnifies the risks and scares women," says Cornelia van der Ziel, a clinical instructor in obstetrics at Harvard Medical School and an oby-gyn in private practice.

"The odds are, plus-size women are going to have healthy pregnancies," says Brette McWhorter Sember, a mom of two and coauthor of Your Plus-Size Pregnancy. "The odds often sound like they're against plus-size women, but the truth is that you're most likely to have a perfectly healthy pregnancy, nothing wrong with the baby, and a wonderful delivery. It doesn't have to be that big of a deal."

As the women profiled below can attest, your weight truly doesn't have to be that big of a deal – and it is possible to have a healthy pregnancy and healthy baby.

Adrienne: Overcoming gestational diabetes

Erazo and her husband, Marcelo, decided to try for a second baby on her husband's birthday. Two weeks later, she was pregnant. They were thrilled and were hoping this pregnancy would also be complication-free.

This time, however, Erazo developed gestational diabetes. You can hear the edge of tension in her voice as she talks about the future and worries about her baby being affected by gestational diabetes.

She doesn't know what will happen, of course, with the delivery or the baby's health, but she's trying not to blame herself. Instead, she's focusing on approaching food in a different way. Rather than interpreting her gestational diabetes diagnosis as a sentence or a judgment of herself as a plus-size woman, she's being positive and embracing a new, healthier way of eating. She feels better already.

"This pregnancy is completely different," she says. "It's a really positive experience because of all the realizations I've been making about how I eat and how this diet makes me feel. I feel healthier." She adds, "I truly believe that I'll eat this way the rest of my life."

She loves her body when she's pregnant – a shift she didn't expect. She spent many years hiding her body from people, overwhelmed by the negative attention her large size sometimes attracted. She sucked in her stomach. She hid behind baggy clothes. But being pregnant, she says, makes her feel beautiful, even sexy.

"I'm so proud of my belly," she says. "It's okay for me to be big for once, because I'm pregnant. Plus, I just feel so special when I'm pregnant. The fact that I can grow this beautiful being inside my body is a blessing. I feel like I have a purpose."

Amie: Complication-free pregnancy

When Amie Blasi got pregnant, it was a surprise. A pet store employee in Lakeland, Florida, Blasi was finalizing a divorce from her first husband and making plans for the future with her fiancé, Nathaniel. Her first hint that she was pregnant came while she was at work.

"I was cleaning a cage out after a mess, and the smell made me sick to my stomach," she recalls. "It had never really bothered me before, and I was sick the rest of the day. I just suspected it was because I was pregnant."

As soon as she learned she was carrying a baby, she worried she was hurting her baby by being overweight. At 5 feet 5 inches with long red hair down her back, the 27-year-old Blasi weighs about 280 pounds today and is a stay-at-home mom. Before getting pregnant, she had lost 60 pounds and was down to a size 22, but the weight loss didn't loosen the grip of her fears.

As it turned out, everything was fine: After a complication-free pregnancy and a simple delivery, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl with fuzzy ears and a dark patch of hair on her head that, she recalls, "was as soft as a kitten." She weighed in at 8 pounds, 13 ounces, and has her mom's eye shape and her daddy's dark brown eye color.

Jennifer: An "easy" pregnancy

When Jennifer Mountain, a 29-year-old mom of one and a real estate contractor in Haslet, Texas, got pregnant, the last thing on her mind was how her weight would affect her baby. She was finishing her master's degree in social work, working part-time at a real estate office, and interning at a day resource center for the homeless. Plus, she and her husband had just filed for bankruptcy.

"My biggest surprise with the pregnancy has been how easy it was. It's been a blessing," says the Texas native, who, at 5 feet 5 inches, weighed 245 before getting pregnant.

She gained 10 to 15 pounds during the pregnancy without changing her diet, and she tested negative for "everything you're 'supposed' to get as a plus-size pregnant woman" – such as gestational diabetes and preeclampsia.

Ironically, it's been her friends and family – not the medical professionals – who keep predicting dire outcomes for her pregnancy.

"You can be healthy and overweight, and it's been nice having medical professionals support me in that," she says. "It was a little disconcerting sometimes having my family react so poorly, though. I just didn't listen to them."

Mechelle: Moving past negativity

Mechelle Lehman was taking a break from getting her degree in secondary education when she found out she was pregnant the first time. She and her husband, Jon, had just moved to a new town. She says she worried briefly about her weight affecting her pregnancy.

Instead, her pregnancy was easy. But that didn't stop the occasional negative comments about her weight from strangers and acquaintances.

Lehman, now a 28-year-old stay-at-home mom of two in DeKalb, Illinois, stands 5 feet 6 inches tall and vacillates between a size 16 and a size 24. During her pregnancies, she says, people couldn't tell she was pregnant until she was quite far along. "I didn't change too much during my pregnancies," she says. "The only difference was that my large hourglass shape – which I call an infinity glass! – turned a little bumpier around the middle."

Still, people occasionally made negative comments about her weight – assuming she wasn't pregnant – even when she was wearing what she thought were her "most pregnant-looking" outfits. But she figures that's more their problem than hers.

"This is how I look at it: I've worn a size 16 to 24 most of my life," she says, matter-of-factly. "You get used to those comments. You can choose to let them make you angry, or you can choose to try to ignore them. That's what I do. Seems to me the most important thing about your pregnancy is that you just eat healthy and surround yourself with nice people."

She adds, "You need to try to enjoy being pregnant. It's an experience of a lifetime."

And Lehman did enjoy her pregnancies. Her first yielded a happy, healthy baby girl, Mallora. Her second pregnancy was complication-free, and she gave birth to 8-pound, 6-ounce Thorsten.