Author: Bonnie (SOAM)

Right after I turned 15 years old I peed on a stick and found that my fears had become a reality. I became pregnant from sexual abuse. It’s funny how something that was not my choice gave me more choices than I knew what to do with. Part of me thought I should give my unborn baby to my sister, or my mom, or a family friend. The other part of me knew how hard it would be to watch my child grow with someone else. Part of me thought I should choose abortion. The other part of me pictured myself, at the end of my life coming to heavens gate and seeing my child there. I cried alot, I thought alot, and after my first trip to the OB I knew exactly what I was going to do. The first time I saw my son’s heartbeat on the sonogram screen I started crying. In my entire life I have never experienced so much love all at once. I remember holding his sonogram picture in my hands and just staring at it for hours. He was my baby, and I decided to be his mother. I made a choice. And it was the start of a long list of other choices I would have to make. I chose to call the police and file a report. It was hard, I was immediately taken to the childrens advocacy center and practically forced to give a detailed statement about the sexual abuse that landed me in my shoes. I learned that I would have to wait for justice until after the baby was born to collect DNA. I also learned he was already in prison by the time I filed the report for unrelated charges. We would be safe. I made a choice to leave highschool. I had just started my sophomore year and I knew it wouldnt work out. I started homeschooling and took classes at the local community college. By the time I turned 16 I had finished highschool and my first year of college. I worked two jobs til the day I delivered to have enough money for his things. About that time, my son Ryan Jeremy was born. I was exhausted from my 25 hr labor, 2 and a half hours of pushing, I could barely see straight! But as soon as they laid that little purple boy on my belly I forgot it all. I stared at his face and fell in love like the day I saw my first sonogram. As much as I would have liked to spend life in that beautiful brand new baby happy time, time marches on. I started working and going to school again two weeks after I delivered. I joined my hot college peers in thier stupid fancy brand clothing while I was still sporting maternity clothes because i had nothing else that would fit! I gained 63 lbs with my son and didnt lose much afterwards. I tried every diet I could think of and started working out 5 weeks postpartum. nothing helped. I had to eat so much food just to keep up my milk supply and I was more than dedicated to breastfeed. I never went out, I was too embarassed about how fat I am. I became sucha hermit and never had any mommy time. It took such a toll on my mood and self esteem. There I was, sixteen years old, a single mom, working two jobs, obese, covered in stretch marks, lonely, going to school full time and only got 3-4 hrs of sleep per night because I’d stay up to do my homework. I was exhausted and sad. I felt like my life wasnt my life. I felt like something else was in control and that everything I had done for over a year was simply because that was how the cookie crumbled. It wasn’t until one night that I finally broke down to my sister, a fellow mother. I told her this isnt me, this isn’t what i want, i didnt choose any of this and she looked me square in the eyes and said, “Yes, you did. You choose to finish school early so you could go to college and eventually have a good job to take care of Ryan instead of spending your life flipping burgers. You choose to work instead of living off the goverment or family. You chose to put his father in jail instead of letting him roam free in society and hurting other girls. You chose to be a mother to the baby in your belly instead of going out and partying. That was all you.” And then it all hit me. She was right! The choices I made were hard and exhausting but in comparison to my other options, they were wonderful. Despite the fact that they were also obstacles. I made those choices, just like I made the choice to love me and nurture myself. Since making that choice I have ultimately become a better mother. Making myself happy has in a way, been my gift to my son. He has a mother that respects herself and values herself even if she cant fit into anything in her age section at clothing stores. I will make the choice to put that positive influence in his life. Ryan is over a year old and as happy and healthy as can be. His biological father was sentenced to nine years in prison. I just turned seventeen and am graduating from college with my bachelors this spring-3 months shy of my 18th birthday. Life is good. God bless

I am 20 years old and when I got pregnant I was still trying to lose 15lbs. that I had gained in my military training(usaf)it was tech training so the only thing we did was sit and listen. Then I finally got to my first base and lost 8 lbs.. Then I found out I was pregnant and I couldn’t do my job anymore and I got moved to a desk job, I am 5’10” tall when I found out I was pregnant I weighed 164lbs. now at 39 weeks pregnant I weigh 207lbs. but I work out for and hour to hour and a half everyday but you would never know it. My doctor says I look really good and going to the gym has helped me and my baby regaurdless that I weigh over 200lbs. I know that in my mind but it still bothers me everyday to be so heavy no matter what I do to stop it. This site has defintely helped me understand and realize I’m not alone.

At 5’7″, during my first pregnacy with my girl, I gained 80lbs and went from 130lbs to 210lbs the day I went in to labor. It was HARD work but I lost all the weight (and then some) and went sorta back to normal. When I became pregnant again I became worried that I would gain the same amount of weight but ended up gaining half. The stangest thing about my second pregancy is that after I lost all the weight (only took a few months) I still remain one size bigger then I was before I got pregnant. Now 10 months later, I am nearly 10lbs lighter then when I became prego with my second and I still have a hard time squeazing in to the jeans I wore before I got prego with him. What the hec is up with that? I am having a harder time excepting my body this time around. And the boobs; has anyone else gone up 4 whole cup sizes to be left with saggy boobs? I want to except and embrace what motherhood has done, but who can really love stretch marks.

Before I had conceived my daughter I struggled with my weight then I lost it got down to a size 10 and was soo happy then I got pregnant and was bed ridden and I gained 64lbs and only so far lost 20 , at time of my daughters birth I weighed 230, my stomach was stretched to the point of bleeding and I was so sad at what i looked like but now im more sad at how ive let my body get, and ive been working VERY hard to lose weight but now my husband and I are trying for our second so now ive finally come to love what my body is because it has created a beautiful baby and hopefully will continue too. here is one picture a month before pregnancy and here is morning of birth and now 14mths after.

My canvas started out white, smooth and pure. It was flat, and not a mark lay upon it. I never really thought my stomach was anything special. Just a little chubby, but it was mine. Then I longed for a child. When my body started to change after I found out I was pregnant I was in awe. I was growing life inside of me. WOW. This little person that me and my husband made out of love was moving and kicking inside of me. A real live person. I went through months of agony. Sick to my stomach, pain everywhere, bloating, kidney stones and lastly stretch marks. I went through a lot to have my daughter. My body went through hell for her. I really was a warrior inside of myself. She was beautiful and perfect all 5 pounds 8 ounces of her. My miracle girl. I love her more than I thought I could love anyone. It still shocks me sometimes how much I love this little person. Now my canvas has been drawn on. It has lines up and down. Across and diagnal. All around the circle of my belly button. Some run deep while others are thin and long. My daughter drew all over me. I was ashamed of these lines that were drawn into my skin. I felt ugly and unworthy. Why after all I went through did I have to have these marks? Then it came to me. This was my picture my daughter had drawn for me. Like the memory of labor they will fade but will never truly disappear. Now I wear these marks proudly. I now see what she had drawn. I see my daughters life with me. I see her smiling. I see her laughing. I see her crawling and her first steps. I see sticky oatmeal kisses and dandilions for mothers day. Her first birthday and blowing out the candles. I see her walking onto the school bus while I hold back tears. I see her first kiss…first heartbreak..first love. I see her helping out another person. I see her graduate, get married and one day own a canvas like mine. I see me there for her through all of this. Ready to hold out my hand if she needs it and ready to let go and let her experience life on her own. When I look at my canvas she has drawn for me I am not ashamed anymore. I look at it with pride just like a mother would with any picture their child has drawn. I never want her to be ashamed of her canvas. I want her to know she is beautiful. Real women are beautiful. Some carry a little picture, some carry a whole art piece like mine. But nevertheless we are beautiful. I am showing my canvas on here to let you all know that your canvas is beautiful too. Be proud. Look past the squiggly lines to the true picture. Our love for our children.

I recently gave birth to my third child. I have, again, been blessed with an angel on earth! How precious my children are to me… there are no words to fully explain. But then again, I don’t need to – if your’re reading this, you most likely have felt the deep deep love a mother has for their child. So how do we as women, as mothers, get to the place that makes us adore and worship our child, and hate our bodies? Our bodies have changed in a way that outwardly expresses the transition since giving our children life. I was blessed to not have to deal with stretch marks but this body I am in now is not the one I recognize. I am working on getting it back to a healthy shape. I care not for numbers and weights, but rather the feeling of being healthy. I spend all day loving and playing with and teaching my children. Only about 5 minutes looking at the body they have given me. At first I recoil and think who is that person in the mirror… an then I remember it’s “mama”… it’s ME. And I love them for the transformation I have been blessed with. I’d rather focus on the entire day I spend with the kids than the 5 I spend with that unrecognizable person …

The first picture is one week before I delivered my daughter Kaia. I am 21 and she was my first pregnancy that lasted beyond the first trimester. She was born at home 8 August 2007 after 29 hours of labor and I would not have done it any other way. The next photos are my belly one, two and three weeks postpartum. During my pregnancy I was very careful about what I ate (I tracked every morsel on sparkpeople.com) but still managed to gain 48 pounds during my pregnancy. 13 pounds in the last two weeks alone – which I think must have been water weight because by two weeks postpartum I had lost 30 of the 48 pounds. I have to say, I have not been as horrified by the changes as I thought I would be, even the dreaded stretch marks aren’t bumming me out like I thought they would.

If someone would have told me, pre-baby, that someday I would actually consider any type of cosmetic surgery, I would have laughed. I considered myself to be a very strong advocate of natural beauty, and longed for the downfall of the abundant false and ridiculous cultural expectations of the female physique. I’d gone from 120 pounds to 200 in nine months. Obviously it was not all baby; but after 41 weeks of pregnancy at 5’2″ tall, polyhydramnios, a 9-and-a-half pound newborn, and an emergency c-section in addition to the excess weight gain – I found myself feeling completely drained of the pride and confidence I once had in my realistic form. I went form disgusted by the media to hypnotized, and soon was seriously considering saving up money for a tummy tuck and breast lift. Just when I was feeling particularly trapped in my own baggy flesh, I found this site. I felt joy swelling up into my throat as I browsed the pictures, feeling a sense of immense comfort and even feeling beautiful once more. I may have to lift inches of skin to even see the cesarean scar; and from 12 months of milking, my breasts are now also quite limp and point to the floor… but in truth, it’s a small price to pay for my amazing daughter. I can’t deny that I still sometimes feel horrible about the intense damage done to my appearance, it’s extremely different than it was before… But I do feel greatly relieved when I see that what has happened is normal. It’s such a shame that women must be made to feel like they’re “ruined” by doing what they’re bodies are built for. Thanks for this place, my spirits are so very lifted. It’s a wonderful thing that you’re doing here. My photos tell my story: 1 of my pre-baby body, 2 of my pregnant body, 2 of my postpartum body, and 1 of the wonderful outcome of my journey.