Author: Bonnie (SOAM)

My previous entry was “I almost want to cry (Anonymous)” and now I am very happy with my body image! Although I would love to be the size 12 (Australian sizing) that I was before kids! so I have a way to go yet. I now see a dietitian and she helps educate me with my food intake and how much I should exercise according to my body mass etc – totally recommend this option! its no fad diet or anything, and I feel great being able to have some time to myself to talk to someone about my emotional eating as well! Because, in all honesty I can’t just blame the 2 pregnancies or months of breastfeeding alone that turned my body inside-out its all the emotional eating! hormones?! This is a fantastic site, I thank you for this ! It boosts my self-confidence every time I look at it. My kids are happy and healthy and thats what is the most important thing to me above all else! xx

At 26 I found out I was expecting twins. It being my first pregnancy I ate whatever was in sight, using the age old “I’m eating for three.” At my 4 month ultrasound, it was discovered one of my babies had died. Her heart had stopped beating. I was devastated. Happy I was left with one baby but mourning the loss of the other. Luckily I was able to carry the other baby to term, and delivered a very healthy 7 lb baby girl. I gained a total of 40 lbs with that pregnancy. It took me 6 months to lose the baby weight, and another 3 months to actually tone that flabby belly up. Now, two years later, I became pregnant again this past fall with much to my surprise TWINS again. I vowed this time to eat healthy and not gain more than the recommended weight. I started off at 119 lbs, the day I gave birth I weighed 176 lbs. My daughters were delivered premature (34 weeks), baby A 4 lb 12 oz baby b 5 lb 2 oz. A very good weight given their gestational age. They did super, and only stayed 3 days more than me in the NICU. I gave birth 10 days ago. At my doctor follow up I had already lost 27 lbs. JUST GIVING BIRTH!!! I realize my body may never be the same. I probably will never have a flat stomach again. But all three of my little monsters were worth it. They have brought me more joy than being a size 2 ever did.

I would like to say that after childbirth,and after losing the 60lbs i put on during my pregnancy i am more comfortable with my body than i was before. i think that everything is relative, and my few and subtle stetch marks were very upsetting to me after my daughter was born. Since then i have slowly become happier with my post-baby body. I have a wonderful husband makes me feel beautiful for who i am, and the body i have. Without a doubt my daughter was worth all of it. 20 hours of labor, with a bunk epidural. I would do it agian in a heartbeat. This website is an invaluable tool for women, no matter how you look after childbirth.

I had Twins about a month ago now by c section and it is possible to come back from! I gained about 30-35 pounds while pregnant and lost 25 of that in the delievery room and another 5 a week later. I have two beautiful babies! Madison and Riley

We, as woman, are constantly sizing ourselves up. Constantly comparing, wanting to see if we are better, or worse, or normal…especially when it comes to our bodies. Today I found out that the tiny, cute, dancer who works with me has a due date only five days after mine. She seems so cute, so small, people look at her and smile. People look at me and ask “aren’t you due next week?”. An adult life of weight loss and management, going from 236 to 120 to 150 to pregnant, often has me looking around, seeing if I’m normal, feeling large. It’s somthing that I have to deal with. On one hand I see the tiny cute pregnant women and think to myself, “I don’t see how they are able to create life, they seem so small, so frail.” I think, “I’m glad i have dealt with weight loss and stretch marks already, it wont be as much of a shock to me as it will be to her.” The other hand says, “You really should have worked out more, eaten better, paid more attention to your weight.” The insecure side says, “You worked so hard before, now its gone and you wont be the cute woman you fought so hard to become.” Luckily I am surrounded by people that tell me that I look great. I have a husband that loves my shape, round or not. I have hit a point in my head that says, “You are thirty, and in love, and lucky to have a life to bring into the world, you aren’t the same person you were when you were twenty-six and trying to find yourself again. You have found yourself, and you are an ever changing wife, mother, woman, friend.” I know that I will have battles with my body, but I find what it can do completely astounding. That right now, as I type, I am helping a new person grow. No matter what size I am that is a beautiful thing. The pictures I am submitting were at about 5 months (taken by a talented friend, they are copy protected) then me about 6 weeks from my due date (taken in a hurry, by me) Hopefully better pictures will come :)

I found I was pregnant at the age of 18. My husband, then boyfriend, is wonderful and fully stepped up. After I had my son, Ive hated my body, just hated looking in the mirror, refuse to on most days. I had lost my mother right before I had my son, and didnt have that support. I was in no way prepared for the changes motherhood would bring to my body. I found this site about a week ago, and I have to say its changed my outlook. After looking at so many moms, I went to the bathroom, lifted my shirt and smiled for the first time in years! Im now pregnant with my second child at 22, and could not be more proud of my body. I will no longer feel I have to hide my body, for I am a full member of the mom club! :)

I wanted to put multiple pictures up so that there would be visual references to what I was talking about. The first picture is of me when I was 18 at a park. The next two are from my senior Prom where I am also 18. The next are my baby belly pictures taken at 37 weeks by my wonderful husband in our new home. Now for my story…I have been a dancer since I was 4 years old. It is my passion and my love, but it has also been my disease. I have lived and breathed it since the day I started. I have also based my worth on it; how well I did it, and how thin I looked doing it. I have thought I was overweight, not thin, and most definitely not attractive or desirable ever since I became devoted to the dance world. In that world, I am a bigger boned girl, and with my body image issues already present, that really wasn’t good. (side note: most of this perception was self inflicted, not all of it though) Starting in junior high I struggled with a different kind of eating disorder. I would eat very minuscule things, and then take laxatives so that way I would never gain weight. I did this off on and until my senior year of high school. Needless to say my body image has always been a HUGE issue. My senior year I started dating childhood friend, who is now my husband, and for the first time in my life started to feel pretty, not thin, but pretty. The first semester in college we found out I was pregnant (October), told everyone in November, got married in December, and moved into our new house in February. Everything is absolutely wonderful and I honestly could not be any happier. As you can see in the pictures, I was not at all fat or thick or any of the horrible things girls feel about there body. I was absolutely beautiful. I am thrilled to be pregnant and wouldn’t have it any other way, but sometimes I am terrified at my body, because those issues do come back. I was talking with my mother the other day when I realized how good for me this pregnancy has been. If I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant and things wouldn’t have panned out the way they have, I don’t think I would ever realized that I am beautiful, I was beautiful then despite how much I tried to tear myself down, and I am beautiful now because I am a mom. Being a mom isn’t something everyone gets to do! I am 38 weeks pregnant and quite impatiently awaiting our son’s arrival. I found this site because I was miserable over stretch marks, and apparently God needed me to be here, because this site truly changed my mindset. Part of me is very afraid of what my body will be like now, but the other part of me tries to remember that even though I may never look the exact same, I am beautiful now, to myself and to my husband, and every step I take from here will only increase beauty. I am so thankful to be having a healthy baby boy and to have a husband who tells me daily how even more beautiful I am now. I hope that this maybe helps someone realize that just because our body isn’t exactly how we think it should be, doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful. Lord knows if my body was the way I used to think it should be, I would be a very unhealthy, miserable person. I thank God giving me what I have today, and for opening my eyes before it was too late.

I’m 33 and just had my little Michaela 6 weeks ago. I never thought that I’d have children. In fact, I had established an entire philosophy on why having children, in this day and age, was a bad idea. I was pretty militant with this philosophy too. At the time I got pregnant I was embarking on a career in teaching – a goal that was abruptly put on the backburner (not that I miss it much). I thought I’d be a career woman, with a cool jet setting husband and an easy lifestyle. But mother nature, and my husband, had different ideas. Subconscioulsy I must have been on board too – otherwise I wouldn’t have thrown caution to the wind and ‘forgot’ the contraception on that critical night last July. Once pregnant I never feared the delivery. But I didn’t like being pregnant. Mainly because I was sick as a dog for the first few months – and the last few months I was walking around like an arthritic cowboy. Towards the end, I couldn’t eat more than a couple bites at a time (and I like my food)… there was just no room in there! Body issues: here we go! At the time I got pregnant I was 5’7 (still am amazingly) and 130 lbs. Slim and athletic looking. I have always been this way … and still am 6 weeks after giving birth. I only gained the prescribed 24 lbs during pregnancy – didn’t over eat and exercised a bit. I don’t have issues with the shape of my body now – but what do we all end up moaning about?? STRETCHMARKS. Whoever thinks that stretchmarks are a sign of lack of self control and that only really over weight people get them need to wake up. I got them first in adolesence on the hips, bum, thighs, back of calves. I was 14 and devestated. They faded over the years and I didn’t want to relive the shock and horror of getting them again during pregnancy. But alas! My once beautifully unmarked, toned tummy now bears the marks and my breasts are starting to get them now too. But you know what? They don’t bother me that much. Like my husband says, they are ‘natural marks of life’. Why do we give them so much power to make us feel bad? I like to call mine Michaela marks. When I look at them my feelings are mixed – on the one hand I hold society’s view of them and think, ‘Oh gross’ … but on the other hand I am kind of proud of them and they make me feel like I’ve achieved something great. And I think I have! To that end, I’m not including any photos of them – because really, who should really care? They have no bearing on me as a person – and who I am inside. They don’t effect my ability to love, laugh, and be a good mother, wife and friend. I own them, they don’t own me. My first picture is of me at nine months – the next is me and Michaela. Who, it turns out, is the sweetest little thing. And who is teaching me to be a more patient, loving person everyday that I know her. Hope you enjoyed the read!