C-Section, Droopy Tummy, & the Bright Side (Anonymous)

Photo 1: PUPPS rash and stretch marks at 7 months pregnant
Photo 2: 38 weeks pregnant. 1 week before my delivery
Photo 3: 4 months PP boobs and stomach (front view)
Photo 4: 4 months PP stomach (side view)
Photo 5: Close up of stretch marks
Photo 6: Close up of C-Section scar
Photo 7: Postpartum booty. Not too shabby

~Age: 32
~Number of pregnancies and births: 1
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: PP 4 months

Me and my husband of 3 years are the proud parents of a 4 month old baby girl born in October 2011. She is amazing and truly one of a kind. No really, she is a rare one. She weighed nearly 12 lbs at birth! I called her my sumo baby. I was really just happy to get her out since I had one hell of a pregnancy. I had morning sickness for the first 6 months. Not necessarily puking my guts out but just nauseous and dizzy more often than I would have liked. I also had ridiculous heartburn, sciatic nerve pain and round ligament pain the entire time which woke me up every hour of the night. In regards to the heartburn, I really got sick of hearing “Your baby is going to have a lot of hair!”. Then I got the dreaded PUPPS rash which covered my arms,legs and stomach. It was the worst thing I have ever experienced. I wanted to burn my skin off it was so itchy. I thought, things couldn’t get worse than this. The bright side, baby looks great and healthy with each screening. Yay! Another plus, I passed all gestational diabetes screenings. Then, I go in for my 36 week ultrasound. The baby is measuring almost 10lbs at 36 weeks! I have also developed some high blood pressure (146/90). My Obgyn sends me to a high risk clinic for further testing. Ummm…now I really have high blood pressure, haha! So, I go to the high risk clinic and have a more in depth ultrasound. Again, baby is measuring almost 10lbs. Eek! And again, my blood pressure is high so they diagnose me with Preeclamsia and want me to go to the hospital. Double Eek! I spend 4 hours at the hospital getting my blood pressure monitored. Again, baby looks perfect. My blood pressure finally goes down to normal so they send me home. Now back to the Obgyn. She strongly recommends scheduling a delivery via C-Section. She says my pelvis is pretty narrow and is afraid if the ultrasounds are even close to being right there is no way I can push that baby out. After much debate, I finally cave into scheduling the C-Section at 39 weeks. I should also point out, my stomach was massive! People thought I was carrying twins in that bad boy. I gained 40lbs during my pregnancy which is about average but I swear every pound was in my stomach. I was stretched to the max. My stomach was so hard. I steered away from sharp objects for fear I may pop, ha! Paired with being covered in stretch marks and the PUPPS rash, it looked like a mangled creature in a horror movie or a burn victim. Horrendous! I had a feeling my stomach would never be the same after childbirth. I was certainly right. So, here comes week 39. I go in for my C-Section scared to death since I have never had surgery in all my 32 years. Hell, I didn’t even know how to put the hospital gown on. Clueless! Everyone is super supportive and they hook me up to the monitors. The nurse asks if I have experienced any real contractions. I say “Not that I am aware of.” Then she proceeds to tell me “Uh, you are having some pretty good ones right now!” Well considering my stomach was so stretched and hard as a rock, it would be very difficult to feel anything until they became painful. Thank goodness they scheduled me today. Phew! The C-Section went great aside from the 8 attempts it took to get the epidural needle in. Talk about uncomfortable! They kept thinking they were hitting bone but it was just my hard ass ligaments. Lucky me! The only other discomfort I experienced during the C-Section was the uncontrollable shivering. My arms shook like I was on a vibrating bed. It was really annoying. Other than that, I didn’t feel a thing. Out comes the baby! Whoa! That is what I hear from everyone on the other side of the curtain. She is huge and has a full head of hair! I guess the heartburn myth was right! I see her adorable plumpness for about 10 seconds before they whisk her to the weighing station. 11lbs 11oz! Holy crap! She checks out healthy except with all big babies her blood sugar is low. So, she is sent to the NICU. It was actually kind of funny visiting her in the NICU. Here is this giant baby surrounded by all these premie babies. If a baby death match broke out, we wouldn’t need to worry about her. Anyways, her sugar stabilized after 3 days but we couldn’t leave until I passed gas. OMG! It was the worst pain ever being so full of gas and not being able to release it. Even my shoulders hurt from it. Finally, I let out the best fart of my life! Still full of gas for a couple weeks after but at least I got to go home and be with my baby. The first couple of weeks being first time parents were a bit scary but after that we adjusted. Let me just say, I thank my lucky stars since we were blessed with a baby who likes to sleep. By 6 weeks, she was sleeping an average of 6 hours at night then by 10 weeks sleeping an average of 8 hours at night! I think God gave me this gift for having such an awful pregnancy. It has been 4 months now and I couldn’t be happier. Our marriage has gotten stronger and we have this beautiful little girl. She is now at an average weight for her age and is the cutest thing ever. The only thing I am not happy with is this sorry excuse for a stomach I now have. I know it has only been 4 months but it is frustrating when you drop all 40 pregnancy pounds within the first 2 weeks following birth but still have to carry around this relentless growth in front of you. I look fine in clothes and feel great when people compliment me but it is a whole other story when the clothes come off. That droopy thing just stares up at me snickering. My boobs are sagging a bit too but they aren’t that bad. I think it helped that my boobs were super perky before hand. I keep looking at the bright side which is my backside. Haha! I am pleased to say my ass still looks nice. A little bigger but nice. All I can do is keep on working on the tummy and eventually will see some progress. I need to keep telling myself, your stomach looks damn good for being stretched to the max and giving birth to a giant baby. I have a loving husband, a comfortable home, wonderful friends and the most beautiful baby ever. I am loving life so suck it droopy tummy! Quit raining on my parade! :-)