Author: Bonnie (SOAM)

Thank you for this website. What a fantastic idea and confidence booster! I’m 25 and my first daughter is now 7 months old. I had hoped to lose the pregnancy weight by now, but I am having a hard time sticking to a healthful diet. I weighed 135 when I got pregnant, and I was happy with my body for the first time in a long time. I weighed 175 when I went into labor, but a lot of it was water weight. I got down to 150 pretty quick, but I’ve just teetered between 145 and 150 ever since. I HATE the way my butt has changed, but I’m thankful that my stretch marks stayed below my belly button, and that my skin isn’t too saggy. I just really want to get rid of those love handles! I wonder how my body will continue to change as I have more babies. But it’s all worth it. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED being pregnant. It was probably the happiest time of my life, and I can’t wait to have another one. I love my daughter with my whole heart, my husband loves my body, and I love my life. In the end, it’s just skin.

These are pictures of me 7 months postpartum.

Just 6 weeks pregnant, obviously not showing

30 weeks pregnant and loving it!

I was happy to discover this site showing what real mommy bodies look like. I am a first time mother to a beautiful daughter. During my pregnancy, I gained 30 pounds (my pre-pregnancy weight was 135 lbs.). I started with just a couple of strech marks around 25 weeks of pregnancy and by the end my belly was covered in “zebra stripes.” I had a normal vaginal delivery. I did no exercises or anything special to lose weight or tone my tummy up after the birth, and you can see the results below. I managed to lose all of my pregnancy weight within a fairly short time – probably through breastfeeding almost exclusively, which burns a lot of calories! But I am left with a soft and wrinkly tummy, still marked, though some of the “stripes” are fading. My belly button is all brown and dark inside thanks to strech marks that crossed it while it was nearly protruding during the pregnancy, and which sank into it when it receded back in. My body will never be the same again, but I am blessed with a healthy, beautiful, and bright baby girl, so I have no complaints. I never was really into wearing bikinis anyway :) Really, it is all well worth it!

37 weeks pregnant:

22 weeks postpartum:

I have always had a poor body image. I hated my body prior to getting pregnant. I had a huge scar on my stomach and always felt like I needed to lose weight and was never happy with my body.

While I was pregnant I had never been happier with my body. I LOVED my body pregnant. I felt so good about myself and I loved the way I looked. I feel like I never looked better than when I was pregnant.

I figured after I delivered my baby I would go back to hating my body and my body would never return to the way it was. I have been lucky and it did go back somewhat to the way it was before (although my C cup breasts are now A’s).

I have to say I think my body is better now that it was prior to my pregnacy I think a large part of that is due to the fact that I learned to acutally love my body while I was pregnant.

Here are 3 photos of me 38 weeks pregnant:

Here I am 12 months post partum

My twins are 4 years old now … I’ll be 24 in September, and after 4 years I STILL can’t stand the look of my stretch marks and sagging breasts. :(

Feeeeeeeet
Originally uploaded by Bhalash.

“Even pregnant women have feet.”

Mariah’s quote cracked me up and I love the angle of the photo. This is from a friend of mine and I wanted to say CONGRATS to her on the birth of her daughter!

These pics are of me just this morning after my shower.

I have two daughters, the first was born very violently in a hospital and the second was born here at home, unassisted.

Before my first I weighed 125 and had sagging breasts due to their size, but they were firm and young and had a bit of perk to them. With my first daughter I weighed 210 the day I had her. It took me over a year to take hte weight off due to many terrible factors. When I got pregnant with daughter 2, I weighed around 145 and had recently ran a marathon. I am not sure how much I weighed when I had her. I am now losing the weight, but the thing I am most embarrassed about is the little pooch in my pubic hairline. THat v-shaped icky fat, but I am working at it and it is less than it was. I am young yet (26) so my skin is still relatively taut. I didn’t get any new stretchmarks from baby2, just a whole lot of new fat in new places. I’ll be down to what I want to be again, of that I am certain. :)

Thanks for doing this site! It’s wonderful!

This web site is absolutely fabulous. I was 20 when I attended the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and had the opportunity to see lots and lots of naked women of all ages, shapes and sizes. Finally — what real women look like!

I have always been super-skinny. It was a source of frustration while growing up, because I am super-tall, too, and the beanpole look was not at all “in” in the 1980s. Now I am very comfortable with my body.

I think women of all sizes are beautiful, and all you mamas, be proud of your “battle scars”! Tiger stripes are beautiful and so are ours.

I was 145 lbs when I got pregnant with my daughter. I gained 50 lbs. Now it’s 4 months postpartum and I’ve lost all but fifteen of those pounds, mostly from breastfeeding. I am hoping to keep them! My belly is soft and squishy — I like touching it. I have some gentle stripes. My linea nigra is still dark, though it has flaked off with some scrubbing… I still have some tied up in scar tissue just below my navel, and I don’t see that going anywhere.

22 weeks:

40 weeks:

18 weeks postpartum:

Hi

I’m Ash, aged 32, and mom to two beautiful boys. I’ve had three pregnancies. These photos were taken during my last pregnancy and after.

I felt huge during my pregnancies. I carried really toward the front. The stretch marks came with my first pregnancy (with a girl) when I was 18, and I think they were worse because I had hyperemesis, extreme stress and a very poor diet before the pregnancy. My stomach looked like a giant bloodshot eye during that pregnancy.

When I was pregnant with my second child seven years later the strechmarks went pink, but didn’t really stretch and by the third they just stayed white. The skin on my tummy is very fragile now and even something simple like my pants being too tight will cause blood blisters to form!

I breastfed my two boys for a total of five years. My boobs are pretty much the same as they were before the pregnancies (an A cup), but with a bit more droop. I gained around 35 kilos (around 70+ pounds) in the process of the two pregnancies and breastfeeding and I’ve lost 20 (50 lb) of them thought a lot of exercise and diet, which I began once I had stopped breastfeeding. Still some more to go. I was never thin before so I don’t have a very svelte me to aim for, just normal.

I saw a woman at the gym who had a tummy like mine, then didn’t see her for a couple of months and when she came back she had had a tummy tuck. The scar looked so invasive and so painful. No sign of her stretchmarks now though.

My first two births were natural, the third was c-sect. I think the saggy tummy is definitely worse post c-sect. I also had surgery this year, so you can see a few laparoscopy scars on my stomach. The big red line is because its hot and my panties were folded over and made a line on my tummy!

Your project is so fascinating. After I read all the stories I went and looked through all our photos. It made me cry. I loved being pregnant and I wanted to have a bigger family, but we have our two boys and I guess that’s more than a lot of people have.

About 38 weeks pregnant.

Four years post partum

J at 8 months with me and S.

J and me at 8 months old.

38 weeks pregnant during third pregnancy

I’m not a mom, but…

When I first came to your site I was thrown for a loop.

I was looking at bellies of women who had children, but a lot of these stomachs looked like my tummy when I weighed almost 200lbs. I now weight some where in the low 120s and a lot of these tummies still look like mine.

And, I know, you’re thinking, “Okay? What do you want?”

I wanted to say thanks. I wanted to say that even though your site deals with pregnant women and their bodies, it has some how morphed and has help me accept my body.

You see, when I was at my worse I had stretch marks on my upper tummy (yay for gentics and having both sides of my families having extra large women! The women in my family are just big girls.) and lower tummy. Back, thighs, and upper arms. They were what made me lose the weight in the first place. I figured when I lost the weight the stretch marks would vanish. But no.

And I must put emphasis on the fact that I did not lose weight the healthy normal way either. My weight lost consisted of anorexic habits and tendencies. I’m getting better though. Prevention and intervention through the loving extra large women in my family has changed my life 110% percent.

And through all of this the stretch marks were there. They faded though. They moved around on my body because my body changed so much. The ones on my back are now on my sides, the ones that were higher on my lower tummy are so low that they touch my pelvic bone. The ones on my upper arm can be seen when I turn my arm just the right way, which happens a lot cause a few people have asked about them.

So when I found your site I was amazed because I havent seen anybody’s body beyond what I was used to seeing through my psychological problems and all the searches I did to find that perfection. It made me feel better. It made me look at my body and go “Okay, this is okay. This is good. I’m okay.. slightly..” The conundrum hit when I realize that pregnancy was a major part in the lives of everybody on this site.

Then I get over it very quickly cause for the first time in a long, long time I’m okay with my body. I honestly say that and you have no idea how nice it is. Hating my body became a way of life for me and here I am saying how I’m okay with it because I’m not alone!

That in and of itself is the best thing ever. So thank you so much.