Author: Bonnie (SOAM)

C(section) You in Heaven, My Dear (Krystal)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Cesarean, Cesarean Scar and/or Incision, Child Loss, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions, Third Pregnancy 21 Comments

My third, and what I was hoping to be my final, pregnancy was beautiful in every way. I was always an active Preggo momma and continued this through my third pregnancy with walking, riding bikes and yoga. My first 2 pregnancies were also active and easy, leaving my body in pretty good shape and with healthy natural births. With just a few stretch marks here and there to complement the easy loving children who came with them. I was heading into my 38th week of pregnancy and preparing for a homebirth with a midwife who seemed to be just wonderful and perfect to accompany us. Again my body was holding up so well and I was always happy that each of my children left me with just a few battle scars. Oct. 27th I had a MW appointment and was gaining steadily, baby was ready for arrival and I was happy to only have acquired another 3 or 4 stretch marks with the 45 lb. gain on my 5’2” frame. Little did I know the next day would leave me with one of the hardest scars to accept. I awoke at 5 am, on Oct. 28th, and was instantly worried because my little bean wasn’t waking me up like she usually did at 3 am doing jumping jacks. I waited it out till about 7 am and was only getting small shifts. I called my MW and received no answer so I called the OBGYN I was also working with through my pregnancy. The nurse called me back about 930 am and told me to head on up to the hospital. My MW was still no where to be found as she is even to this day. I went in and at about 1030 am I was called back to have a NST. The sweet sound of my little beans Heartbeat was beautiful and a normal 141. My husband showed up about 10 minutes later and we sat and listened to the sweet thumping sounds coming from the little machine next to me. Suddenly, as if the world stopped, her heartbeat did too going from 141, to 80 , 40, 80……gone. That little machine then turned into the worst little machine I had ever seen when it started alarming to warn us that my baby was in distress. The Dr. took me to L&D where I was stripped, gassed and cut open. The very last thing I remember was my baby moving one last time in me to say goodbye before she headed on up into the Lords arms. I awoke 4 hours later to the most excruciating pain and life shattering news that I was cut open, robbed of my soul and left scarred and empty armed. I have a scar now stretching 8 inches across my abdomen reminding me on a daily basis that I have an angel in heaven, just waiting for me to join her some day, thanks to the grace of the good Lord. I try daily to accept this scar as a reminder of Gods grace and promise that some day I will see my little angel Stella again.

~Age: 28
~Number of pregnancies and births: 3 pregnancies, 2 live births
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 12, 4, 6 months post partum from my angel baby’s birth

My Belly Has Stripes Like a Zebra’s (Stephanie)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Submissions 2 Comments

Every day I see in the magazines, and on TV all of these women/mothers that are perfect 6 weeks after having a baby (if not sooner) and after reading this site, and everyone’s stories it made me realize, we are taught to think so badly of our stretch marks and our pooches because we don’t see them in the magazines and on TV every day. We see perfection. Well in my eyes, my zebra striped pouch came from something and someone special. I am a single mom, and I DO worry about whether or not the next man I am with will accept me stripes and all. But then I think to myself, if he loves me and wants to be with me, he will accept what I did with my body and what it went through to give my child life. I will never regret that I didn’t drop the weight right away, or that I have stretch marks in some of the most random places. I am happy, and my son is happy, and to me that is all that matters to me.

Two Blessings, My Sister and My Problem (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Cesarean, Four or More Pregnancies, Plus-Sized Mom, Postpartum, Submissions 4 Comments

I am 37 and have had 6 pregnancies and 2 live births. My first born is 3 year and 3 months and my second is 13 months old. I became a plus size after my first pregnancy and I still am. I don’t like my body and from time to time I wish I could come off my skin. I had a new year resolution to loose the weight and exercise. I felt unattractive and have been having problems with my husband for that, I don’t want to be intimate with him because I feel so ugly and that the belly and extra fat gets in the way. He tells me he loves me just as I am… so it is me the problem, I cannot look at my self in the mirror and think how bad I look…

I had both babies by c-section. With the first one I had postpartum depression, I cried for everything and anything and to make everything worse I was afraid of my baby. With the second one I had no time to think of depression. My oldest expected me to be there and so did the new born, I have no family or friends to help, so I pulled my act together just for them. I have nursed both of them and with my last I still am, baby is not showing interest on getting of the breast milk, refuses water, juice, milk.

14 days into the new year my sister tells me that she is going to have a tummy tuck and a liposuction done… I felt scared for hear and tried to talk to her out of it but no such luck on January 18th I called to talk to her and come to find out that she was in the OR having the procedure done, I had so many things going through my head… now I will be the ugly one of the bunch, I am going to be the fat and deformed one, to a point I felt envy, one because she was able to pay for a procedure like that and two because she was escaping the gang of us chubby ones. That same day I tried talking with her on the phone but she was not up to it, so I waited for the next day and that night I kept thinking those same thoughts of envy and self pity. The next day I woke up and went to the chiropractor like I always do on Wednesdays and felt the need to talk to my sister. At noon I received the most horrible news of all my sister, the better part of me had died of a pulmonary embolism.

Now 3 months latter I am still 185 pounds on a 5’2” tall body and feeling guilty for the thoughts of envy, for my lack of commitment to my new year resolutions, without my best friend and confident and with a husband that does not understand why I cannot love my body and my self.

Twice Blessed (mommy2twincesses)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Cesarean, Cosmetic and/or Reconstructive Surgery, Postpartum, Submissions, Twins 21 Comments

After suffering the heart breaking loss of a miscarriage, my husband and I were beyond elated to find that shortly after we were expecting twins. From that amazing discovery at just 7 weeks, I slathered myself religiously with any and every tummy/stretch mark cream I could get my hands on. By the time I was 30 weeks I still had not been graced with stretch marks but decided that I’d better go ahead and take maternity photos at that time, just in case. It’s a good thing too, because at straight up 31 weeks my tummy looked like a road map. At that point I swear I thought I couldn’t get any bigger if I’d even wanted to without literally popping open, but low and behold I did. By the time I delivered my gorgeous identical twin girls via c-section at 35 weeks I measured an impressive 44 inches. My girls were healthy and at that time that was all that mattered. Within the first weeks after their arrival I didn’t have time to think about my body’s aftermath and honestly thought that with time I would “get my body back”. However, after two years of trying to “get it back” through healthy diet and exercise, I finally admitted to myself that although the weight was gone (and then some) that there was nothing I could do about the “twin skin” and in fact, the more I lost, the more saggy my tummy got. My wonderful husband knew full well that my insecurities was not only damaging my relationship with myself, but it was driving a wedge between us too because I was so ashamed of my body that I simply refused to let him see my naked body. He fully supported my wishes to have my belly surgically corrected and for us, it was the best decision we could’ve made! I still have stretch marks, but finally, I feel like and can see ME again!

The shape of a mother should be one that she is completely proud of and confident in. For me, it took drastic measures, but there is still plenty of evidence of the miracles my body grew and nurtured. At 28 years young, I just couldn’t see spending the rest of my life ashamed of my body and now, I don’t have to! And through sharing this as well as my blog I want to give others hope and let them know that yes, you should love yourself, but if you were injured or disfigured in an accident you wouldn’t think twice about correcting the damage done and in my eyes, pregnancy is no different.

My Story (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Before Pregnancy, Belly, Breasts, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions, Tattoo 8 Comments

At 19 I found out I was pregnant. My boyfriend (now husband) and I were scared and shocked but we knew we wanted our little Angel. I worked for the first 7 months of my pregnancy as a Driver at a plumbing company. This kept my body in great shape and know one could even tell I was pregnant. Then we moved to PA to be with my family. The last two months I did not do much of anything. As a result my weight sky-rocketed from 135 to 179. I got stretch marks everywhere, thighs, belly, calves. Thankfully I have my sides tattoed with a Phoenix. This helped to hide some of the stretch marks. I also, stupidly left my belly ring in. It is not destroyed. I wear an over the top one simply to hide what damage it did from leaving it in. I had my son vaginally and every part of me felt worn out and ugly. I didn’t want my husband to touch me because I just felt disgusting. Thankfully I did not get postpartum depression very bad. The only thing I was unhappy with was the radical changes my body had endured. At 22 now, my son is 2 1/2 and he is healthy and I have struggled with my weight for quite some time. It was hard to get used to the fact that I was never going to look the same again. Finally I accepted it and decided that although my stomach might not be firm like it used to, my breasts will never be perky like they used to, and the stretch marks will always be there, I decided I didn’t care. I decided that I was still beautiful. I started to slowly work out so I could at least feel healthy again. I am now at 129 and I feel wonderful and I feel sexy again. A feeling that I have been missing since my son was born. This site has helped me to realize that I am not the only one with stretch marks as bad as they are, and I am not the only one thats breasts will never stand like they used to and it doesn’t matter because we are all beautiful and we are all mothers. Thank you so much!!!

FYI: White dress is a year before I got pregnant. Red dress is a year after I had my son, at my wedding. The rest are all current as of now since I have been working out a little more.

Pregnancies: 1
Age: 22
Children 2 1/2 yrs old

Still Coping After Almost Five Years (Lora)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Child Loss, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions, Third Pregnancy 6 Comments

My name is Lora. This is my story.

I was 18 yrs old when I found out I was pregnant the first time, and I found out by having a miscarriage. When I had made it to the doctor’s they told me I was four months along. I had no idea that I was pregnant. My periods were regular and nothing was “strange” was happening with my body. However, I felt a huge loss when this happened. Even though I didn’t know about the baby until after the fact, I still felt guilty. So when my husband and I found out we were pregnant for the second time, we were thrilled!! I was 20yrs old, and we had been married almost a year by then. I was a normal 20yr old. I had a wonderful body that I was proud of. I worked out, and had gone my entire life never having to worry about what I ate, and when I ate it. My pregnancy we extremely easy. I had no morning sickness, no crazy hormone imbalance. I felt great!! Except once my girl started ‘really’ growing, my body had no where to put her except straight out in front of me!!! From behind you could not tell I was pregnant. Even standing in front of me at the right angle you couldn’t tell. But when I turned to the side, Wham! haha…I was so worried about the skin and stretch marks that were starting all over, but my family kept encouraging me saying, “don’t worry, that happens to all women. It snaps right back after the baby.” This mostly coming from my mother and my aunt who both had 3 children, and not a trace showed on their bodies. I decided to believe them for the time being. But after my daughter was born 9/24/07 by c-section, I began to realize what they had said wasn’t true in my case. Immediately after the birth my tummy sagged. My husband kept telling me that after I lost the pregnancy weight it would go back. But it never did. I was so miserable with myself that first year after her birth, I didn’t lose any weight at all. I even gained some replacing my baby’s weight. I was 21yrs old, and while all my friends enjoyed summer days in bathing suits, I couldn’t even bare putting on a pair of shorts. I had stretch marks in my inner thighs, outer thighs, breasts, and of course my tummy. To make matters worse, I had sustained an injury to one of my breast before my pregnancy and never gave it a second thought, until I started breast feeding. The one that was damage had a reduced milk flow, so as my other breast grew and grew, the injured one did not. I found myself padding bra’s and wearing very lose shirts to hide it. I just felt so ashamed of myself and felt like it was all my fault. “just lose the weight” my husband would say. Finally after a year, I decided to finally take him up on that, and was just further depressed. No matter how much weight I lost (30lbs total) and was only 3lbs away from my prepregnancy weight, my tummy still sagged. My breasts were still uneven and lop sided, and I still couldn’t wear a bathing suite outside. I am now 24yrs old and after 4yrs I am finally starting to adjust to this new me. My daughter is now 3 1/2 yrs old. We also found out that we are expecting again! Our second child is due 11/26/11 of this year, and I have decided that there is nothing that this baby can do to me, and my daughter hasn’t already done!!!

Five Years Later and Still 20lbs Heavier and Loving It – Confessions of a Skinny Girl (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Breasts, First Pregnancy, Mom over 30, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions 10 Comments

I love what pregnancy has done to my body, beforehand I was skinny as a rail and super self-conscious of my body. People used to say that they were afraid to hug me because they thought I would break. I wore long sleeve shirts and pants my entire life to hide my “chicken arms and legs.” Some people can’t understand the woes of being too skinny, but it can have just as detrimental effects growing up as being overweight. I was so ridiculed and ashamed. Now I have a body that another human being helped me shape, it is round, soft and pudgy in places…and I love it. I feel more like a women than I have ever before in my life, I have curves and am now officially embraceable :)

Current Age: 34
Number of Births: 1

Photos: First picture I am 2 months pregnant. Second picture I am about 7 months pregnant. Third picture I am 9 months pregnant. Fourth picture I am 3 months postpartum. Fifth and sixth picture I am almost 6 years postpartum. Seventh picture is my baby girl at 3 months old (who is now a whopping 5 years old!)

The Story of Who I Am (Corinne)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Mom over 30, Pregnant, Submissions, Third Pregnancy, Update 8 Comments

Age 33
2 children, my first is 12 years old and my second is 18 months old.
This is my 3rd pregnancy, currently 36 weeks pregnant

I posted my photos and story at 24 weeks and since then my confidence has soared. Sharing on here has helped so much. I simply adore my pregnant body, my lumps, bumps, stretch marks, scars, every part of it. I hope I hold on to this feeling and confidence after my baby is born, I want to be proud of my body and what it’s achieved. I have always believed that women of all shapes and sizes are beautiful but somehow forgot to include myself in that, but not anymore!

I have various scars on my body and they all tell a story. I have a tiny scar on one of my fingers from when I made flapjack at school, after 15 minutes I didn’t believe it was cooked so I left it in the oven for far longer and then had to cut it out of the tin with a knife, which slipped of course and sliced my finger! I have a burn scar on my arm, from the first ever roast dinner I cooked. I have a scar on the side of my stomach from when I crashed my motorbike, I slid a way down the road and my leathers moved leaving me with a hole in my side, which then had to be stitched back up. I have always been proud of these scars and then I realised I should be equally proud of my stretch mark scars, because without them I wouldn’t have my beautiful boys. They are part of the story of who I am.

Updated here.

I am Blessed with One (Cassandra)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Child Loss, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions, Teen Mom 6 Comments

Pregnancies: 6 Births: 1
Age:19
Postpartum: 4 months and counting.

This is very hard for me to write. I had my first miscarriage at 15. I was 9 weeks pregnant, it was very hard, no one knew I was pregnant it had to be kept a secret. I had to mourn my loss on my own, from that day forth I’ve never felt so alone. After that, I lost 3 more children in the years to come also at 9 weeks. Doctors told me I’d never be able to hav a child. :(

They were very wrong. On June 9th 2010 I found out I was pregnant, terrified when the doctor told “you’re 9 weeks!” I quickly bursted into tears. But as days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months my confidence in the pregnancy was sky high. I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl on January 12, 2011. She weighed 8lbs 12oz and was 21inches long.

And still I was very depressed. I still am. On April 15, 2011 I discovered I was pregnant 7 weeks., and on April 25, 2011 I miscarried, at 8 weeks.

My body is in a shape its never been before. I’m embarassed of my body, I hide it under layers of clothing. Before I had my daughter I weighed 120 lbs, after I had my daughter my weight has increased to 182 lbs. But with the help of my sister Jennifer Harmon and my husband Kevin Mendoza, I’ve realized… My body IS beautiful. My body shows a story of the struggles I went through, the tears I’ve cried, the children I’ve lost, and the child I’ve gained. I have the shape of a mother! Although looking in the mirror sometimes disgusts me, I have the strength within myself to see that the form of my body, that everyone else might see as flaws, I see as perfection. I carried a child of 9 months and 1 week. I am no celebrity, I am CASSANDRA RAE LEIJA and I am The Shape Of A Mother.!

After But Before (Colleen)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Breasts, Cesarean, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Submissions, Update 9 Comments

My previous submissions are here: (oh no I’m becoming a serial poster!)
One Year After a Cesarean
Ode to my Scar
Coming to Grips With a Cesarean

My age: 27
One pregnancy, one birth
My daughter is 21 months old.

I have to apologize; I like to take a few days to tweak my entries before submitting them and this one just kept getting longer and more ramble-y. I didn’t originally intend on writing quite so much!

A few weeks ago my husband fell while out on his daily bike ride. He’s okay, but he scraped up one knee pretty badly. I was looking at the scab one day to see how it was healing, and I noticed a large white stripe on the side of his knee.

I said, “Hun, is this a stretch mark?”

He replied, “where?”

“On your knee.”

“Yeah, probably. I’ve got them everywhere.”

My husband is not an overly large man. He is 5’8’’, and 195 pounds (a lot of which is muscle). Yet his thighs, butt, back, and—apparently—knees are covered in deep, wide stretch marks. They are flesh-colored, but they still lend an unmistakable texture to his skin. And you know what? He’s okay with them. “Okay” really isn’t the right word, he just doesn’t consider them at all. There’s nothing he can do about this gift that puberty gave him, so why stress about it? (When I let him read this post he stopped and looked at them, but he had to look around to see exactly where they were. They just aren’t on his radar normally).

I find it ironic that as I sat down to write this entry, I checked Facebook and Bonnie had posted the clip from Steven Colbert about ugly armpits and companies creating problems for women to “fix”, because that’s sort of what I was thinking about writing about.

The thing is, I’ve read several posts where women say “I already had stretch marks from puberty.” Nobody ever seems bothered by those marks, like my husband, but the vast majority of women HATE their pregnancy stretch marks. Why is that? Because we are told that we should. There are countless products out there made to “fix” and/or “prevent” stretch marks, and they invariably have a pregnant woman on the label. The message is that if you are growing yourself, stretch marks are fine, but if you are growing another being, they are not. And that’s just plain wrong.

I understand this, and yet I am still terrified that a future pregnancy will leave my stomach riddled with silvery lines, just like my hips are. It’s such a deeply ingrained cultural prejudice that I cannot seem to overcome it. But I was a junior in college before I EVER realized my mother had stretch marks. They faded to almost nothing and I didn’t care. Our children do not care about the marks that we gained in giving them life. We are perfect to them regardless. Isn’t it sad that what society deems “acceptable” is more important to us than our own children’s opinions?

I love my daughter more than life itself, but the thought of raising a girl in today’s culture scares the ever-living crap out of me. She’s small for her age but she eats like she’s facing a famine, so much that her little tummy gets distended and her shirts ride up. J I love to poke it and say “look at that belly!”, but sometimes I worry that she’ll take it to heart and start thinking she needs to eat less, or suck it in. And she is only 21 months old. She can’t possibly think that way yet but how do I know when she might? I want to raise a daughter who loves herself the way she is and realizes that she is beautiful, without pushing her over into outright vanity. It’s such a fine line and I’m afraid that I will step off of it and mess her up for life.

I have made no progress since my first post, 20 months ago. My indomitable self-confidence is starting to waiver. Some days I look in the mirror and look at my stomach in disgust. It isn’t big at all, but I see the line left by my underwear and feel like such a fatty. I had a very small pregnant belly and I still look like I did when I was 4 or 5 months along. But as I was standing in the shower earlier, sucking my stomach in to see what was fat and what was the natural curve of my body, I began to wonder why a flat stomach even matters. Women are not all meant to have flat stomachs. If that was “normal” for all human females, it would not be such a hard state to maintain. It bothers me that I’m upset about looking like a natural woman, a mother. I wish I had more friends near me who are mothers. Everybody I know with babies lives far away and none of my “everyday” friends have kids yet. It’s very hard to be confident or comfortable when you’re comparing yourself to untested, unstretched bodies.

Sometimes I feel like I have lost control of my life. I hate my job (yup, still the same one that I “wasn’t going to go back to”). I keep applying for new ones and I never hear a single thing back. It is discouraging, and my inability to get out of a horrible work situation has started to cause me to doubt other areas of my life too. Why can’t I eat better? Why can’t I finish painting the house we bought over a year ago? Why don’t I exercise? What, exactly—other than a beautiful little girl—have I accomplished in the five years since I graduated from college?

I have been slowly working on making my dinners healthier; I figure that’s something, at least. What I really need to do is exercise, for peace of mind as well as for fitness. There just always seems to be something more important to do than exercising. I don’t have enough (baby-free, work-free) hours in the day.

My husband is my inspiration. He is more dissatisfied with his body than I. He’s gained nearly 30 pounds since we started dating (8 years ago) and he hates it. He has an unfortunate metabolism that likes to add weight quickly and not give it back up easily. He took up cycling a few years ago, and this year he signed up for a 250-mile charity ride which he has been training religiously for. He’s only lost 10 pounds so far but he is so much trimmer and in much better shape. I figure if he can do it, why can’t I?

So here I am, 21 months post partum from my first baby, 8 months after I weaned her. I am considering these to be my “before” pictures—before I take control of my life, get my body to a healthier state that doesn’t nag at the back of my mind, and regain my self-confidence. If he can do it, I can do it, and I WILL.

Updated here.