Author: Bonnie (SOAM)

Tired of Feeling Ashamed (Elizabeth)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Breasts, Four or More Pregnancies, Mom over 30, Postpartum, Submissions 64 Comments

Previous post here.

I have submitted entries to shape of a mother from my 3rd and 4th pregnancies. Today I felt I need to do this again. I feel horrible about my body today. Yesterday I got into an argument with my youngest child’s father. this is part of an e-mail he sent me;

“Did that guy you were seeing see you naked yet? Cannot blame you for wanting to wait. Don’t wanna scare him off. Better keep your bra on though. After how much they sagged before I cannot imagine how bad they look now. Although they might be full of milk at the moment and temporarily okay. Better hook him now quick before you stop cause its gonna be bad. I don’t remember your body looking good. You forget you had to beg me for sex. I only did to shut you up. Lol. What I remember was a twenty nine year old with the body of at least a forty year old. And I saw a forty year old once and she had three kids and her body was much better. You did not look too bad with your clothes on but… lol. Just sayin. Plus now you got that chunky look. Not my thing. Out of every woman I have seen naked that had kids you have one of the worst bodies I have ever seen. How many have you seen?”

I included what he said to me, because of how much it hurts me to hear the father of my child say these things to me. I wonder if anyone else has been told these things by someone they were once very close to, and how to deal with the hurt. I know my flaws, I had confided in that man about them in the past because I used to trust him. I know what he is saying about how I look is pretty much the truth. I am not blind. I just wish I didn’t care anymore.

I want to be able to say that I am proud of my body for growing and feeding 4 beautiful, healthy babies, and mean it. I want to say that I feel so blessed to have these children that I don’t care what my body looks like at all. I want to feel happy about it, and lucky, and I want to stop being self conscious and ashamed, and sad when I see my self in the mirror after a shower, or if I ever become intimate with someone again. But I don’t see it happening. I was in good shape before this pregnancy but was too sick to exercise during, and I have not started back up, I know that might help my feelings a little, but exercise cannot change some things. wide hips I have always had and stretched out skin. I am most ashamed of my breasts, I have breastfed for over 4 years of my life and counting. I should feel lucky to have had that opportunity and the bonding with my children. I don’t see myself ever spending money on plastic surgery. Even though I want to, I would feel too guilty to spend money on something like that. And I would feel like a fake. I have never really liked my body, never felt comfortable in my skin, even as a child. One thing I always hated was the scar below my belly button from when I was an infant. I never hated the way I look more than I do now. It is definitely amplified after 4 children and being talked to like that by more than one of my exes. Why do I feel so embarrassed about how I look? How can I get over this so I can spend that time on thinking about how awesome my kids are instead of how bad I look? Feeling this way just adds guilt to my shame.

~Your Age: 30 years old
~Number of pregnancies and births: 6 pregnancies and 4 births
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 14 yrs old, 11 yrs old, 3 yrs old, and 2 months old today :) (2 months postpartum)

Want Another Baby, But Worried About Body Image After (Laura)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Postpartum, Second Pregnancy, Submissions 9 Comments

Age 28
Pregnancies: 2
Births: 2 ages 8 and 6

I had both my kids by the time i was 21 years old. My son is 8 and my daughter is 6. After having my daughter I was so worried about getting pregnant again and I hated the way my body looked with all my stretch marks. They are all the way down to the back of my legs and haven’t faded much even after all these years. I only gained 30 pounds with each pregnancy. I decided at age 21 to have my tubes tied. I’m 28 now and I really regret having the surgery done. I am seriously considering having a tubal reversal done so maybe I can have another child by the time i am 30. I am just really worried about what I will look like after a 3rd pregnancy and if I will have a harder time getting my body back being older now. Right now I am not happy with my body and my goal would be to lose another 20 pounds before having another baby. I don’t know if I think I look worse than I really do. It’s the stretch marks that really kill me!

Save the Mom Jeans (Jenna Moffit)

Bonnie (SOAM) First Pregnancy, No Photos (Story Only), Postpartum, Submissions 6 Comments

Age 24; Pregnancies 2; Births 1; 8 months post partum

There are too many days I wake up to my 8 month old daughter talking to herself in her pack and play at 5 am. When I look in, she sees me and her face lights up with joy; I can’t help but pick her up, put her in my husband and my bed, and pray for just 30 minutes more sleep. What I get, rather, is my hair pulled and kicked in the tummy. Between my daughter, our two dogs, my husband and me, our queen sized bed fills up pretty quickly. I roll out of our bed, pick her up, and we start our day. The days I don’t have to work, I immediately get thrown into a whorl-wind adventure of dirty diapers, sweet potato and peas, and of course chasing our golden retriever around, attempting to get the socks he has stock piled somewhere in our tiny apartment. Those days, I’m lucky to get a shower, let alone put make up on. On the days I work, I quickly get the two of us ready, and shuffle off to drop her off at her babysitters before I rush off to work, hoping to get coffee so I can stay awake throughout the day. Every day I wish I could sleep in until 12, take a 30 minute shower, put make up on and do my hair (in other than a pony tail that looks like I didn’t brush it), but those days are long gone. But would I change it? Absolutely not, because my daughter’s smile brings me more joy than not looking like I’ve just rolled out of bed ever has. Am I embarrassed of how I look: every day? Thank goodness my body bounced back pretty quickly (minus my breasts, which now hang somewhere by my belly button), or I think I may be completely devastated.

My lack of fashion isn’t the only area of my life to be drastically different. The complete aloneness I feel from the people I used to call friends is becoming more and more apparent to me. Being a mother and a young adult sometimes do conflict, but I wasn’t aware that also included the people who were once around me. I suppose our priorities do differ drastically, but I never imagined that people I were so close to would have never met my daughter in her 8 months of life. Hopefully there will be a day when that changes, but until then, my husband has always been my best friend anyways. Thank the universe for him.

So I’ll go home this evening, fix my daughter her favorite meal of spinach, apples, rutabagas and cereal, feed it to her while I’m in my pajamas, and go to bed at an early 8 pm. I’ll wonder if there’s ever going to be a time again when I have time to look decent when going out, or if I’ll ever have a best friend to call my own, knowing both are probably not going to happen any time soon. I’ll kiss my gorgeous daughter goodnight, put her favorite pink hippo in her arms, and tuck her in. Fight with the dogs for space on my growing smaller by the minute bed, and get ready to take it all on again tomorrow.

Want What You Don’t Have; Hate What You Do (Amanda Romero)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Submissions 10 Comments

Age: 26
Number of Pregnancies and Births: One Pregnancy, One Birth
Postpartum: Three and a Half Months

I have been through the entire gambit of physical appearance. I was born a healthy baby. I was in the 90’s as far as my percentile was concerned both in weight and height. By age four I became ill with mono and became a skinny, waif-like creature. I remained that way, skinny and tall for the rest of my childhood. As I progressed into the world of womanhood, I didn’t really feel I looked the part. I was still very skinny. No hips, no breasts, no curves. Then in college I really began to put on weight. All of a sudden, I had curves where I never had. I looked like the woman I had wanted to be when I was rail thin, but now that I had that body, I hated it too. The reality of having those beautiful curves, was that they came with some that were also deemed not to be, but times were hectic and I had a lot to do. As life went on, I continued to gain weight at a slow and steady pace. I went from being a slight girl at 120 lbs, an athletic girl at 145 lbs, a curvy girl at 165 lbs, and in my mind, a fat girl at anything above 170 lbs. So, needless to say, when I became pregnant at 228 lbs, I was pretty much disgusted with the reflection in the mirror.

When I was in my 11th week I was tested for gestational diabetes. At first they said I did have it, then they said I didn’t. Never-the-less, the fright of potentially having it convinced me to remain on a strict diabetic diet. I spent my entire pregnancy either nauseous or hungry, but I refused to let food get the best of me. I wasn’t going to let my weight endanger my baby. I hated every minute of it. By the end of my pregnancy, after it was all said and done, I had lost 20 lbs and I had given birth to a beautiful baby girl at 7 lbs 10 oz who had zero complications.

I looked in the mirror and found a body that was more slender most everywhere. My legs, my arms, my face even. The stretch marks had been very few, only mild extensions of the ones I already had. The thing that would not let go though was the belly, a sore spot I’d always had. No jeans fit. I don’t have the waist any jean company seems to think I should have. (Oh my God, is THAT why my mom wears her jeans up to her boobs?!?!) I would look in the mirror and see a beautiful woman, sans-belly. But let’s face it; you’re not going to have a nice butt, nice boobs, and NOT have full thighs and some tummy. Pictures everywhere try to convince you otherwise, but that is not the true anatomy of a woman. A woman has curves, EVERYWHERE, and all of them are beautiful. Especially on a mother!

I look back on it, and I realize, I always wanted what I didn’t have, and when I got it, it always came with something else that somehow didn’t fit the bill of beauty. Why? Why was that? It was as easy as looking at the thousands of crappy infomercials that bombard us. Self-hate pays. To loathe parts of your anatomy is what sells that perfect sit-up, that push-up bra, that plastic surgery, the gobs of make-up. If I looked in the mirror and thought to myself, I look beautiful…what could they sell me? Nothing. On the other hand, if there was something I always needed to fix, then there is always a “fix-it” product they could shove down my throat. Even with this realization, is has been so ingrained in me that I must look a certain way, I still struggle with the new form my body has taken. I am hopeful that at the sight at all these other beautiful women, I will come to find more and more strength as each day passes. Thank you for being there, thank you for reminding me. I will not deny the beauty of the transformation my body went through to make my gorgeous daughter, nor the meaning it possesses. Because I can’t. Now my beautiful little girl is also well into the high 90’s in her percentile of growth too (just like her momma), and when I look at her, I see the most beautiful little girl there ever was. And she needs to know that, so when every other infomercial tells her otherwise, she can remember the loving words of her mother, “You are beautiful,” and believe it, because her mother never looked in the mirror and said “I’m fat,” or “I’m ugly.”

First Child, Deployed Husband (Jessi)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Cesarean, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions 8 Comments

I’m Jessi. I will soon be turning 21 and my baby girl is 3 months 1 week and 2 days old. She is my pride and joy and I thank God for her every day for allowing me to have her while my husband is off serving our country.

When we first found out I was pregnant we were both so ecstatic! It was a bittersweet time in our lives though because my husband was to deploy when i was at 7 months in my pregnancy. Throughout my pregnancy i had the “morning sickness” which ironically ALWAYS came in the afternoons! Other than my morning sickness (which didn’t bother me at all) i had a perfect pregnancy! I had never in my life been so happy! I was at 150 before i became pregnant and at the end i had only gained 27 lbs… no swelling, no extra weight, nothing! After my husband deployed i “went home to mama” because I was so afraid of trying to go through the rest of my pregnancy alone… and it was a good thing that i did.

Three days before my due date my mother-in-law had me out walking and trying to get the labor moving along. That night the weather was supposed to get bad and I had been having contractions for weeks that were about 15-20 minutes apart so she insisted that we go have me checked before heading home (which i had been checked 2 days before and i was only at 1 cm so i didn’t think that i had moved along ANY!) As the nurse came in and checked me she started counting 1…2…3… id say you are about 5 cm lets get you back to a room! My mom was in the room with me when she said this so we both immediately got on our phones and started telling people. After a few hours in labor my husband calls not knowing ANYTHING that’s going on so i told him and he didn’t believe me at first but his words to me were when i call back you better have a baby here :D

Needless to say after 11 hours of labor thru the night the Dr. finally came in and said what i think we have here is a square peg trying to fit into a round hole… I had only dilated to 8 cm in 11 hrs and a lip of my cervix wouldn’t pull back so we went in for a caesarian section. My mom immediately started crying because she had all 3 of us naturally. I set up my voicemail on my phone to say something like “Baby if you call i had to have a c-section call your mom i love you”. As our baby was being put into my moms arms to go see everyone he was just about to get off the phone with his mom and my mom walked thru the doors with our crying baby girl in her arms… and he got to hear her first cries!!! That was simply amazing to me.

So now as i sit here watching our baby girl sleep and i type this story i realize just how blessed we were for him to be able to call and actually hear her first cries. We still await his arrival home but that joyous, amazing return will come soon! He will be able to meet our daughter for the first time and we will be able to start our family together and not long distance…

What a Mother of Six Really Looks Like (Erykah)

Bonnie (SOAM) African American, Belly, Cesarean, Four or More Pregnancies, Homebirth, Mom over 30, Postpartum, Submissions, VBAC 14 Comments

After I had my son in 1999 I felt ruined. I had never witnessed a postpartum stomach that looked like mine and being that I was only 21 years old, I was sure that I was beyond repair unless I had a tummy tuck. And then I had twins and my sense of “ruined” hit me ten fold. My husband assured me that I was beautiful and that I should be proud of my stomach as it was the “house that grew my twins.” We proceeded to have four children in five years including the twins. My stomach has gotten progressively worse over the years. I now have diastasis recti and six wonderful kids. I know that for my health and the preservation of my back muscles, a tummy tuck is in my future. But to be honest even without the diastis, I would still probably opt for a tummy tuck not for shame but because I miss what I used to look like.

~Age: 33
~Number of pregnancies and births: Five Pregnancies, Five Births
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 12 years old, 9 years old (non biological), 4.5 years old twins, 2.5 year old and 9 months old. Bikini Picture: 8 months pregnant with number 5; hospital gown 39 weeks 4 day pregnant with twins; outdoor/black shirt picture 40 weeks pregnant with number six.
~I have had two c-sections (1999 and 2006), a hospital VBA2C (2008) and a homebirth (2010)

What I feel on the inside doesn’t match the outside… (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Breasts, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Submissions 14 Comments

I am 16 months pp and have slowly lost a few pounds here and there. It’s not the weight that gets me down, but how my body has become so misshapen. My breasts are so saggy and the one is double the size of the other. My back side is just a blob of fat. I don’t feel sexy anymore. I can’t physically do the things I used to. I know that for my health and so I can live a long life, I need to lose weight, but it gets me so down. When I get ready and look in the mirror I see a beautiful person, but when I see pictures, I’m so ashamed at what my body looks like.

A month before I had my daughter, her dad left me. I have this thought in the back of my head that if I lose the weight and start looking good that he’ll notice me and come back. Believe me, I know all the things wrong with that statement :)

Maybe some of you have some advice about what to do to be motivated when you are so down about your body. I love my little girl sooooo much and would do it all over again, but I want me back. I want parts of the person I was before I had her back also.

Age 25
1 Pregnancy, 1 Birth
Girl, Reese, age 16 months

For Chanel (Dalena)

Bonnie (SOAM) Before Pregnancy, Belly, Cesarean, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions, Update 7 Comments

~ Age: 25
~ 1 pregnancy 1 birth
~ 5 weeks postpartum

I stopped taking my birth control pills at the end of May 2010. I found out I was pregnant on July 17th, 2010. I would say my pregnancy was normal. There weren’t any complications. I gained a total of 45lbs. I was 185lbs at my first prenatal appointment. And 230lbs at my last prenatal appointment. At 36 weeks my doctor told me that my baby was measuring a little big. An ultrasound estimated that baby was 8lbs 12oz. My due date came and went. I was scheduled to be induced on a Monday April 4th. I went into labor at 8:30pm on Thursday March 31st. I was 40 weeks and 4 days pregnant. My contractions started at 5 minutes apart. By the time I got to the hospital at midnight they were 2 minutes apart. I was checked and only dilated to 3 and a half centimeters… I walked around the hospital for 3 hours until the contractions became unbearable. I was checked again and was at 5 cm. I was taken to my room and given my epidural shortly after. I was checked again and had dilated to 7 cm. So far so good right? The doctor broke my water to try to speed things up. Hours later I was still at 7 cm so I was given pitocin. I was contracting so much at one point they had to turn my pitocin off. I never dilated past 7 cm. My babys heart rate was high and I had a fever. My only concern during my entire pregnancy was that I would have to have a c-section… And that’s exactly what had to happened. I was distraught. I cried for about an hour while they got everything ready. I didn’t want the pain and the longer recovery time and even more I didn’t want the scar and the “lip” that my sister has from her c-sections. The moment I heard my baby cry I forgot about everything else. Chanel Marie was born Friday April 1st, 2011 at 3:39pm. She was 8lbs 8oz of pure perfection. I recovered quickly from my c-section. I was up and moving at the hospital. I took it easy but I didn’t baby myself. I lost 30 pounds in the first 2 weeks after delivering. Since then I’ve been losing about 3 pounds a week. I have 8lbs to lose until I’m back at the weight I was at my first prenatal appointment. I’m breastfeeding and eating a healthy diet and I’ve been going on walks about twice a week. I’m hoping to be cleared by my doctor to start working out at my 6 weeks pp appointment which is this Friday. My final goal weight is between 140 and 145. I’m going to give myself a year to meet that goal. And I’m hoping by the time I reach my goal weight my “lip” won’t really be noticeable. It’s already looking better since my tummy is getting flatter. In the end everything I was worried about hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. Besides it was all for Chanel so it was more then worth it. I’m sooo in love. I’d do absolutely ANYTHING for my babygirl.

Thank you SOAM for letting me share. I owe a lot of being able to accept my body after the pregnancy to the site and women who have posted their stories. I hope that someone will read my story and it will help them to accept their body after their pregnancy as well. There is nothing more beautiful then life and love. And that is what our bodies have done. Created life and love.

Pic #1 Me before pregnancy
Pic #2 is 15 weeks pregnant
Pic #3 and #4 is 27 weeks pregnant
Pic #5 is 39 weeks pregnant
Pic #6 and #7 is me 5 weeks postpartum.
Pic #8 is the “lip”… Where the tummy pokes out over the scar.

Updated here.

I Found My Beautiful (Jessa)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Postpartum, Pregnant, Second Pregnancy, Submissions, Update 6 Comments

Previous post here.

Age: 23
Number of pregnancies and births: 2, 2
Age of children: 3 (next month) and 10 months

I know my previous post had that confident vibe, but most days the confidence and acceptance of my body just isn’t there.

The other day I was very discouraged about my shape. It had been a rough day and I decided to take a picture of my stomach laying down post-Lexi to compare to the picture I took laying down while pregnant with her. It was a way for me to feel accomplished.

I snapped a couple pictures and forgot about them.

Life went on as normal for the next couple days, days that I was proud of myself and proud of my body for two successful pregnancies. Then I had another downer day. On my downer days I snap pictures of my kids playing. I then proceeded to upload those pictures to my computer so I could share them with our family who lives 12 hours away.

And that’s when I saw it. One of the pictures of my post-Lexi body. The way the light hit it, it was beautiful. It literally took my breath away. My skin, though dimpled and scared looked like a thing carved out of marble. Surely my body is art and my children are the medium. I think that is the first time since either child has been born that I have looked at my body in awe and total appreciation.

So now when I have downer days, on top of taking pictures of the girls, I look at this picture and feel proud. And you can bet I will be in a bikini this summer. A fact which has my husband thrilled. <--- No really, I'm serious. He is excited for this *snicker* Pictures: #1 Laying down 9 months pregnant #2 Laying down 9 months postpartum #3 The beautiful picture. #4 My oldest, Haylie #5 My youngest, Alexis [gallery]

Just Me (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Breasts, Mom over 30, Positive Body Image/Words of Enouragement, Postpartum, Sexual Abuse/Violence, Submissions 19 Comments

I’ve been pregnant twice and have a fantastic “5 and 3/4 year old” daughter. I’m 38, 5’2″, and 140 pounds, which puts me right at the beginning of the overweight BMI category [per World Health Organization]. With my ribcage measuring at 30″ and bust at 39″, my bra size is a preposterous 30-I, or 32-H, or 34-G. How much do breasts weigh anyway?

Alongside many survivors of child sexual abuse and neglect I have struggled with disordered eating, body dysmorphia, toxic self-criticism and suicide attempts. I recently realized that perhaps one of the reasons I feel so shocked and dismayed when I catch an unexpected glance of myself in the mirror is that I am looking out with the eyes of a child and looking back as a media-hazed critic aware of the most minute of flaws.

After a flux throughout early adulthood stabilizing my health and weight I arrived pre-pregnancy at 115 pounds quite consciously, still aware of the imperfections of pendulous breasts and compulsively squeezing into jeans that were a size too small, even though I was smaller than most Americans. I breastfed for 2.5 years and happily, sanely, got down to 125 pounds at 3 years postpartum. Then I started taking a beta-blocker medication to reduce PTSD symptoms and my weight went straight up to 140+. I’ve tried for a year balancing calories in and out after quitting the meds to get the weight to drop, but it really isn’t going anywhere despite my ongoing concerted effort! My best hope is to keep it from going up since I’m teetering on the edge of overweight and my mother is obese with diabetes.

I have searched the web for photographs of actual women my age and size in their “natural” state to help me get a grip on body image anxieties, but I’m sure to no surprise, found very VERY few, even though my body type seems to be pretty common. I did find a lot of porn, some celebrations of anorexia, airbrushed and photo-shopped celebrities, and this website. I also found an energetic youTube video from a 18 years younger woman who is my size and happy as a clam, since she just lost 30 pounds to get there.

For my photograph, I choose to use a pose and location that signified feeling good in my body, which I think should be a true and heavily weighted measure of health. I also wanted to include as many of my body parts as possible, to wander away from the fragmented dissociation that is typical with body dysmorphia and celebrate all of the parts that make me. I also wanted to include my face/head, especially after viewing many youTube documentations of weightloss that cut the subject off at the neck. Ironically, as I watched those headless weigh-ins and self-assessments, my appreciation for each woman was unbounded. If I could feel limitless love for the body of a headless stranger, no matter her size, couldn’t I feel it for myself?

Pregnancy changes: My feet increased by 1/2 a size. My hips spread out and added several inches in that area. My breast cup has increased several sizes. If I gain weight now, it is likely to go into my lovely mummy tummy.

I am very happy to participate in this website and hope that many more women do, so that finding reflective non-sexualized images is not a struggle for others. My husband wants to know, is there a “Shape of a Father” website?