I had my little boy july 31, ’08. 2 months after my 21 birthday. He is my world. I appreciate him coming into my life because he saved me from myself. He made me into the best person I can be, and I will always be indebted to him for that! I started out at 140lbs (I’m 5’8) and when I delivered I was 212 pounds! yikes! lol. I have stretch marks~even on the back of my knees!~and my tummy is not tight anymore, but I don’t have any regrets! But that doesn’t mean some days I don’t miss my old body!
Well here goes nothing… My name is Rachel I’m about to be 21 I have 2 wonderful kids A boy that is 3 and a girl 1. I had my son when I was 17 ( yes i was married and got married at 16 ) and i hated my body after I had him and made me feel even worse on the inside when I had to stop breast feeding my son.. he was allergic to my milk and when my breast milk dried up Osaw all I never wanted to see small raisin like boobies….and then my Husband who had been in Iraq got his 2 weeks leave and I never took off my clothing with out the room being pitch black… but in afew months time I went back down from 166lbs to my 120lbs self and that made me happy!
Two years later we made another baby she is now one and im 130lbs and have grown to love my body breast in all… I am who I am a MOM !!! and i love all that comes with it even the slobber kisses an dthe sleepless nights and the dirty nappys.. Muah love to all you other moms you are all beautiful!
View my original entry here.
When my son was born 5 weeks early, with severe IUGR and weighing only 3lbs, I was angry. It was all my body’s fault. I learned not long after submitting my original entry that my heart was struggling with the pregnancy and I had developed pregnancy induced hypertension. My placenta was only 2/3 the size it should have been, because my heart wasn’t pumping adequate blood supply to it. I was hospitalized, medicated, and watched 24 hours a day. I was in danger of a stroke or toxemia.
I lost 25lbs of baby weight in 4 weeks. Breastfeeding for 5 months combined with healthy eating took off another 20lbs. Since then I’ve lost about 5-6lbs more, for a total weight loss of 51lbs since I delivered 8 months ago.
My body is healthier now than it has been in years. I went from a 12 before becoming pregnant to an 8 post-partum, and I’m still slowly losing (in spite of weaning my son – I pumped exclusively for 5 months because he was unable to latch.) It made a baby to the best of its abilities – we couldn’t have known that my heart wouldn’t like pregnancy. After all, I was only 26 years old, no health complications, and I should have been low risk.
It’s hard for me to get to know this new body — it’s smaller, and I feel good physically. I can see changes in my appearance, and I have greater confidence in spite of the breasts that have flattened out (thanks to breastfeeding!) and that crease from hip to hip. I have a love-hate relationship with it — I love that it’s smaller and that I’m wearing a size 8. I hate that it is not good at being pregnant, and that I’m not sure if I can ever have more babies.
It’s a day by day process — I can easily accept the stretchmarks all over my breasts and thighs, but I’m having a harder time with the unknown of what will happen if I try to conceive again. Another pregnancy could be fatal — to the baby, to me, or to both of us. I don’t know the risk yet, but it’s there.
For mommies who grieve the loss of their bodies through pregnancy, try to remember the beauty of your children. You are SO BLESSED. Look back on your uncomplicated pregnancies, your chubby healthy babes, and the exciting potential of more amazing little ones in the future. You have much to celebrate!
Updated here.
My beautiful, rewarding, amazing son was born ten months ago. I wanted him, but had no idea how much my life, including my body would change. Most of the changes are awesome. Sometimes I wonder if I suffer from post part em depression. I see this site and think I am being heartless and selfish for complaining about the way I look. I am just having a difficult time coping. I feel like I do not have the time or motivation to work out. My husband is big into fitness and is always at the gym and eating right. I try to watch what I eat, but sometimes I just give up and feel like I am always going to look like this. My boobs fell, my nipples are enormous, my butt fell,my arms wave that “thing” with the slightest motion, and I still have about fifteen pounds of baby fat left. I am only 22 and when I get the chance to go visit old friends and we are getting dressed for the evening, looking at them hurts. I remember looking like that and I envy their bodies. I want to love my body, but the truth is I don’t…I obsess over my naked body and how I wish it looked. The women on this site are amazing and I hope to gain the kind of hope and confidence they possess. My husband tells me Im beautiful all the time and that he loves how I look. I just get so jealous and hurt even when a Victoria’s Secret commercial comes on. I am secretly hoping he does not notice because I do not want him to see them and wish I looked like that..my son is so worth this pain I feel, I just feel like I am in a slump that I can’t get out of..all i want to do is sleep all day. I love my life, I just don’t enjoy shopping anymore or getting ready to go out..am I cold? Is this normal? Almost a year..I just want to loose the 15 pounds or so..advice please!
Hi everyone just wanted to let you know IT IS possible to get a great body after baby…this is my stomach after about a year of having my kid..and my kid was 10 pounds! im five ten and now 122 pounds…i worked out all through my pregancy too and used Vichy stretch cream on my belly all the time…i have NO stretch marks either, i didnt allow myself to eat any junk during the entire pregancy…So yes, it is possible to look great after having a baby, i think i look better after haiving kids…though i wish i could have kept the huge boobs! lol
I recently just had my second child, a precious little girl a couple weeks ago. After I had my first child in 2006, I submitted photos to this site. Now after my second I am sending updated ones. With both pregnancies I gained 30lbs, starting out each time around 130. I am currently down to 145, but it is harder this time to lose the weight. I had a csection with both, so my scar is pretty obvious, but I’m ok with that. I think of it as a “smiley face” where my children came out of. I want to say thanks for this website, it is so amazing!
I have posted here before, but I have to admit I’m not nearly as confident as I was then. I’m trying to work on that, I’m ashamed to be ashamed.
Since my son weaned from breastfeeding, my relationship with my body changed. My body feels alien to me, I have ignored it’s shape and feel since my son was born. My body used to be a foreign, magical thing that grew and then nurtured my son. Now I feel like I have to learn it all over again. I feel hollow and unfamiliar, but it feels like mine again.
We plan to have many more children, but we don’t plan to try for #2 until next year.
However, I dont feel that I’m done making babies. I was given an amazing miracle, and I want to share it. Thus I began researching egg donation.
I think back to a period in my life when I feared I could never bear children. The thought was life changing.
As it turns out I have a completely healthy, functioning reproductive system. Something I will never take for granted. My mission now is to give that ability to women who could not otherwise have children, and it’s something I’m very passionate about. I have applied at dozens of clinics in my state, and hope to begin the process in one next month. Some friends and family members did not understand. Some where even shocked or offended, asking things like “Won’t it be weird to think you have kids out there somewhere?” My answer is “No, I wont have kids out there.”
I may have a few chromosomes in common with the child, but that baby was grown, carried by and given birth to by another woman- the childs mother. A woman who might not have had that magical experience otherwise.
It might be a little off topic, but I have found new purpose for me and my body, and I feel whole again.
This is what I was made to do: create.
im a 21 year old mommy to my almost 2 month beautiful baby girl. My fiance and i are thrilled to have her in our lives, though i do not feel at all physically attractive. i was 150 before i got pregnant at 5”6 and though i needed to lose weight, little did i know i was pregnant and would be gaining 60+ lbs over the next 9 months. i also got a lot of stretchmarks, although they didn’t show up till my last month of being pregnant! i was so close! i ended up being two weeks overdue so when she was born she was almost 9 lbs! no wonder i stretched out so much lol.i had to be on bedrest for two months and didn’t get much excersize to do cramping and spotting. at the end of my pregnancy i weighed 216 and now weigh 180, im hoping to get back down to 150 or even less would be nice.i am breastfeeding and i hear that helps, but im not patient at all when it comes to this…i also started working out and tanning last week so i hope it pays off. this is such a great and supportive website to dedicate to women who are all struggling with the same things, and its great to know im not alone. feel free to leave comments or give feedback. congrats to all the mommies and thanx for reading!
the after pics are 6 weeks month post partum and the preggo pics are at about 8 months. my daughters name is chloe and shes 5 weeks in the pic.
Author Melissa Stanton recently wrote an article on the controversial “Mom Job” plastic surgery package in Brain, Child magazine. She mentions this website in the article. Overall, I think the article is mostly balanced, but I would like to take this opportunity to clear up one thing about this website.
The Shape of a Mother is often misunderstood to be a site dedicated to loving the postpartum image – that IS a big part of my hopes for the site, but it is Step 2 for us as women. Step 1 is simply to put the images out there so we know we aren’t alone. Stanton mentions this in her article – the relief of knowing she wasn’t the only mom to face this. I think once we know we are part of a big, worldwide sisterhood, then we can begin moving down our respective paths of of self-love, whatever that may mean to each of us as individuals.
I know the images here are as scary to some women as they are reassuring to others. I think that’s normal – after all, this has been our deep, dark secret for so long. What I want is to let the secret out. If it’s not secret anymore, it will no longer be shocking or scary.
What did you think of the article?
Many, many thinks to my friend Graham who worked very hard yesterday to update the blogging software for me. The site was down for a few hours, but is back up and better than ever now. Luckily for us, this also solved our upload problems so I will get right to work on all those entries that were sent to my e-mail that have been waiting so patiently for their turn.
Thanks for your patience, everyone!