Author: Bonnie (SOAM)

I had my baby boy 1.5 years ago, at the age of 26. He was a big boy, weighing nearly 10 lbs which made for a much more difficult labour than I anticipated. It ended up 2 days later in a C-section which I actually really liked. Relief. I found pregnancy to be much harder than i thought it would be, i had no idea my back would hurt so badly. When my son was born, I was shocked to realize that I did not love him immediately as so many people say. However this love grew and by the time he was 6 months old, I loved him so much. My love continues to grow and I just believe he is the most precious and adorable boy out there:) I started about at 155lbs and ended up gaining 32 lbs. I got the stretch marks on my belly at 38 weeks. I was really worried about them but at this point, i like how they make my stomach look like a mommy stomach. I have lost almost all the weight, just 5 lbs extra which is fine with me. My breasts are another story. I did not expect the engorgement when my milk came in and to go up 3 sizes overnight did not make my breasts any better in the end. Overall though, I did love breastfeeding so it is worth it. I love this site and I appreciate how people are willing to bare their bodies to help other women deal with theirs. For now, I do not feel brave enough to bare much, but here is my mommy belly with its lines.

I became a mother at 24 years old, and am now a mother of 2 children at 27. Becoming a mother has sincerely been the most magnificent experience of my life. I was able to conceive immediately and had two wonderful and uncomplicated deliveries that have literally been the “mountaintop” experiences of my life to date. But since having babies I have genuinely struggled to embrace my new post partum figure, until I found this beautiful and encouraging site. My mother and all of the mother’s in my family didn’t get any stretch marks. My mother at 48 is still able to wear a bikini. I meticulously applied expensive cream up to three times a day in the last several months of my pregnancy with my son, and with my daugther, and hoped that I would have a healthy dose of good genetics on my side. However, stretch marks now cover my entire abdomen, and the skin is now loose. My stomach look “OK” when I am standing up, but when I bend over is puckers and wrinkles. The worst part for my was that my belly button got the worse stretch mark, leaving it looked ripped in half. I once had a friend say, “ew . . it looks like an old woman’s face!” Before pregnancy my belly button and abdomen in particular were my favorite features about my body. I was so discouraged that at 24 my bikini wearing days were over! I bounced back to my prepreggers weight after both of my children within four months, and am even thinner now – but what troubles me is “what is under the clothes.” Many people comment that I look fabulous for having two children, but have struggled to accept this. I am genuinely working on enjoying my new body. THis site has been a wonderful source of encouragement for me. However, my greatest movtivator is that I do not want to share by “self image issues” with my beautiful daughter . . .I hope and pray that one day I will feel beautiful again, under the clothes!

My husband and I always knew we wanted a child and when he told me he was ready, I knew I wasn’t. Then pregnant woman were everywhere expecting children of their own. Regaurdless of the fact that we were not in the best financial set up to have a child, we went for it. I have always lived believing that life is too short to deny myself what I truely want. Having lived paycheck to paycheck won’t bother me when I am on my death bed, but being motherless certaintly would. Experiancy pregnancy, birth, and new motherhood has been an amazing learning experience that I truely do celebrate. It was VERY alarming to see what creating life could do to my body! I kept a sense of humor even though now, 16 weeks postpartum, I can’t fit in most of my clothes. I was always one of those scrawny, petite girls that would eat a whole gallon of ice cream in one sitting. For most of my young adult life I was a childish 110lbs with a breast size that wouldn’t even fill an A cup! When I got pregnant I was at a better weight of 120 which made me look less like a 12 year old and more like someone in their early 20’s. I went braless until pregnancy gave me boobs. I was very angry to have to wear a bra! I have since gotten used to my new breasts, my new marks, my new weight. I gained 45lbs during my pregnancy and am now down to around 130lbs! Steadily I approach my pre-pregnancy weight and size, shriking as my son grows. I’m so in love with my little man, that I have little time to lament my changed body. Hey, I have an excuse. At least it wasn’t from being lazy and eating cheeseburgers all day. It was from growing my boy and more than occasioanly indulging in mint cookie ice cream sundaes! Darn pregnancy cravings. This site has been wonderful. Thanks to all the brave and proud women who shared their experiences with us all!

This is me right now. 30 Years old and mother of two boys. I definitely have a “mommybelly”. I am curved and always have been curved. I like my round shapes, I really do! Of course you can also call me “overweigthed” and in fact, that’s true as well. I’ve gained a lot of weight during my pregnancies and I’ve lost almost all of the extra weight. Just 2 more kilograms to go. But there still is all the extra weight I was already carrying around before I got pregnant the first time. I do have troubles with the way my skin looks. It’s so flubbery. I find it annoying that there’s so much skin. Almost a skirt. I don’t feel I look as good as I did before, because there’s so much hanging around down there. It’s not the weight, I’m fine with being a “Rubensvrouw”. My breasts are hanging down a lot as well and the skin is quite stretched. But they do match with my belly ;).

I have been going to this site for quit a long time, even before I got pregnant. My husband and I got married in Aug. 26/06. We knew we wanted to start a family soon so I began to prepare for the changes and experience of pregnany mind and body. I was 24 when we decided to to start trying and I knew from the experiences of other mothers I spoke to that your body will NEVER be the same after kids. So, I enjoyed my full perky breasts and tight small stomach and kinda said a peaceful goodbye and prepared myself for the life changing experience ahead. I kinda had an idea of what my body might look like after from what my mom looks like now after 3 kids and 3 c-sections. She is small and thin but underneath her clothes she has a lot of extra skin and tons of streatch marks. Even knowing this is what I could look like I was willing to give it all up for a beauitful healthy child. My pregnancy was quite unevenful. I was huge cause of toximia and my bach and knees hurt sooo much in the end I could barley get around!! At each Dr.’s visits I was always measuring 2 weeks bigger which worried me cause in the end I was HUGE! I started at 125lbs and 5’7″ and stopped at about 185 at 42 weeks. I was over my due dat and measured 44cm!!! I am a average height person but tiny frame so my belly was so big people could not beleive it!!! The Dr.’s tried to induce me for two days but nothing worked, they knew this was a large baby so they didnt push too hard to induce labor. So, one c-section later ( I never once cared that I was going in for a c-section cause I knew my mom would not go into labor either and there was a chance I would be the same way.) my husband and I were handed a beauitful 10lb 3oz baby girl w/ a full head of hair on Aug. 21/07!! I never got one streatch mark, I was very lucky considering my size and the fact that my mom was covered w/ them after he first child. I lost 45lb of the 60lbs 11 days after, I had retained sooo much water my hands were as big as my husbands and he is 6’4″!!! I am 7 months pp and still have 7 lbs to get down to 120lbs which is what I was at our wedding. I only recently started exercising again, something I couldnt do through out the last part of my pregnancy cause I was sooo big. I have really noticed with my body slowly getting back its shape was time. It took time for the extra skin to tighten up and my stomach muscels to come back together again and the last few pounds to come off. No amount of exercise or diet could have helped my extra skin come back together, just time and having really forgiving skin!! My breasts are a whole other story. They will NEVER be the same again, ever!!! That is 100% ok with me!! I will take my 10lb baby girl in exchange for droopy, deflated boobs anyday!!! The first pic. is me at about 13 weeks. Second pic. is the last one of my belly shots I too at about 37 weeks even though I did not give birth until 41.5 weeks. The third ids Brooklyn Jade Welch at birt and the last is her around 6 months.

I was brought up in a family were looks was everything. My mother was a model, two of my sisters wear a size 0 pants after having children, and one is now to a size 5 after children. I thought I was fat all through my life, I never thought I was pretty or attractive. I actually remember my mother telling me to suck in my belly when I was in elementary school, she said it would make my tummy look better…so I have done that ever since. My older sisters had children before me. They both never got stretch marks and they both look great and have lost every pound they ever put on during pregnancy. I am a first time, unexpected mother. My pregnancy was not planned and was a total shock to me. Now, Im having a hard time coping with my body. I have so many stretch marks everywhere and I look fat in everything. I hate that I cant just be happy with how I look. Are looks really that important? Im mean I birthed a healthy son, Im healthy, I exercise, I try to eat healthy….yet the weight is still there. I have read tons of stories on here and seen your photos and Im ashamed of myself. So many woman are so happy being mothers that they have no problem with their body. I hate that I think this way, I hate that this was ingrained in my head. I need some help dealing with this

I am 22 and a first time mother to an 8 month old. I came across this site and couldn’t believe there were such strong and proud people out there dealing with the body issues that occur. Everyone I know who has had children have gone right back to normal, no stretch marks or signs that a human being had come out of them. I thought it was just me until I found this site and now I am glad to share my story. I never thought I would have kids, truth be told I never wanted to. I became pregnant unexpectedly 2 months before my 21st birthday. I came to terms with the fact that I was going to be a mother after I was about 3 months along, and yeah I got excited about it. I weighed in at 135 when I became pregnant and thought I would go right back to that weight after I had my child. The reason to that being because my mother did as well as my older sister. I thought it was “good genes”. I got pretty big pretty quick and had no stretch marks of any kind. I was lucky! Around my 8th month of pregnancy I started to notice a few stretch marks around my belly button, but decided that was it and they would go away after I gave birth. By my due date I had stretch marks, deep and red, all over my stomach. I was upset but still tried to maintain my “good” outlook. I weighed in at exactly 200 pounds when I had my son. After my son was born I was devestaed to find out that the strechmarks were still there, along with some excess skin, and lots of extra weight. I had to have surgery 6 weeks after the birth of my son to repair a hernia. They went through my belly button so I wouldn’t have a scar. I told myself and my husband I was going to work out to fix the body my son had left me with. I have been working on my body for the past 6 months and I have lost alot of weight but the stretch marks and excess skin haunt me till this day. My husband tells me he loves the way I look and there’s nothing wrong with me. Everyone else says the same thing, “You lost weight! Be grateful for that!” “You’re crazy, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I won’t wear anything that is even the slightest bit tight around my stomach, or could possibley get raised up enough for someone to see. I’m hoping I can become more accepting of my body, but it’s hard! I’ve read a few stories on this page that have touched me and gave me the courage to write this and post pictures. For that I thank you. I wish I would have found this site before I gave birth so maybe I would have had more realistic ideas of what could happen to my body. I love my son and wouldn’t trade him for the world, I’m just not so grateful of the body he left me with. I have included shots of myself at 3, 6, & 8 months pregant, and one on my due date. I have also found enough courage somewhere inside of me to include a recent picture of my stomach. Hopefully it will get better.

My story’s a little different because I carry my scars not on the outside, but on the inside, where nobody can see them. I’ve always been a petite person and, because of my mom, was pretty much expecting the pregnancy I got. My mom is a very small woman who gave birth to 3 daughters and to this day has NO stretch marks. She’s still got the body of a woman in her 20’s, and she turns 50 this year. So I wasn’t at all surprised when I wore my pre-preg jeans home from the hospital and weighed 105 lbs. again at our two-week checkup. My breasts are now smaller than ever, but besides the underside of my breasts (because my poor little A cups inflated to a DDD in the days following birth), I don’t have a single stretch mark anywhere on my body. However, during pregnancy, I started developing REALLY bad IBS symptoms. I’ve always had mild intestinal problems and couldn’t eat spicy foods without getting a tummy ache, but during pregnancy, I started having absolutely horrible bouts of painful diarrhea any time I’d eat anything spicier than a cracker. It’s gotten so bad that now, 2 1/2 years later, EVERYTHING effects my bowels. I have to very carefully watch what I eat, and if I get chilly in the least, I’ll be on the toilet for an entire morning. I can’t even enjoy a cool spring breeze on my face without being sent to the porcelain throne. On top of the bowel problems, my joints ache all the time, I have a hip that constantly pops out of place, and the sciatica I fought with all through pregnancy still rears its sharp little head a few times a week. I didn’t even have an epidural or any drugs, but my lower back insists on aching any time I pick up anything over about 15 lbs…including my daughter. I feel like a whiner all the time, but with the combination of all these nasty little ailments, it sometimes feels like a burden to wake up in the morning. So yes, while it appears that pregnancy treated me quite well and I do have the body I did before I had my daughter, it’s quite a different story on the inside, and it’s very real pain that I live with every day.

I’m a 48 year old mother of three – all grown up now, aged 27, 25 and 21. I was always slim in my twenties but after giving birth to my third child at 27 I never got my figure back. I really hate my middle area i.e. tum and bum. I don’t look too bad clothed but am really self conscious of my less than perfect body. I imagine my partner admiring all the gorgeous girls in magazines and on film and know I cannot compare. I don’t let this affect my life too much but hate showing off my body in the summer months when it is much harder to hide inside my clothes. What’s more, all those gorgeous girls are out in force showing off their bodies in really skimpy clothes. This is when I feel particularly bad.