Still Coping After Almost Five Years (Lora)

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!!!