The Shape of a Mother

Coming from someone who never likes to be in pictures this isn’t actually all that bad. but, when I look at myself on a daily basis, I feel like a flabby frumpy whale. I’m 5’3 and 152 pounds. It seems like my body likes this weight even if I don’t. My baby was born by c-section on 8/18/04. He is healthy, beautiful and full of enormous SPUNK! when I look at this picture I see a body that birthed that beautiful spunky fellow. Now, if only I could feel that way everyday… Thank You for this sight even if it only made me feel good for a little while.

These are pictures of me 38 weeks pregnant with my 3rd child (taken yesterday). My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage at 12 weeks. My second pregnancy went well and I have a beautiful 2 year old daughter. This time we are expecting a baby boy. He is due in 2 weeks. I love this site. I will admit I get jealous of the girls who bounce back to their small figure after pregnancy. But we are all different.

I wanted to share pictures of my belly. I have had five children, all were born 2 years apart. I nursed for almost 8 years straight, with child-led weaning.

I gained about 30-35 pounds with each pregnancy. It took about 2 years after my last child was born to get down to a size 4. I am happy with my weight at 120.

I would love to have another baby…would like to get pregnant again this summer. I am blessed with a high metabolism and lose weight pretty easily, however I have not always had a good body image. I was anorexic in 9th grade and weighed 94 lbs. Everyone in my class was jealous and told me so. Isn’t that sad? After my last child was born, I weighed the most I ever have in my life at 155. I didn’t care, I was SO happy to have him! I am now a vegetarian and find that this
diet has greatly improved my health and kept weight from creeping back. For years, I had a pregnancy website because we have our babies naturally, at home. My husband caught two of his children as they slid from my body…that is the most beautiful way to have a baby! My
oldest son was born at the hospital and my daughter chose to arrive in the front seat of our car on the way to the hospital, thus leading me to a beautiful and amazing journey in trusting myself and my body, learning that birth works and finding my faith in God. I love my body because it grew and brought forth life. It sustained life through years of nursing. It is strong and capable…I love being a woman! I am not perfect, but I am happy and in love. I love my simple life in
the country, homeschooling my five children. I love the natural life…picking wild blackberries and pecans/walnuts and persimmons on our five acres of land…laying in the sun, enjoying nature and the simplicities of life…like children laughing and birds singing…I think we focus too much on how we look…learn to enjoy the simple things, for they truly are the grandest of all! ~Peace~

I am a mother of two toddlers. I had them 19 months apart, and my oldest is 3 years old. I maintained a weight of around 105 to 110 lbs pre pregnancy. I am now at 93 lbs, but that is mostly due to stomache problems. I rarely work out, but put alot of energy into playing outside with the kids everyday. I do however, feel more comfortable in my body than I ever have. I have more self-esteem, and feel like more of a woman having birthed two children and breastfed.

First of all I absolutely LOVE this site. I wish it were around after my daughter was born. She is 20 months old now, my only child, and I had her when I was 21. I absolutely love her and she is my world, but after she was born I felt like she “destroyed” my body. I love the positive comments here about stretch marks and sagging skin being badges of honor, but back then I really couldn’t see it that way. I was diagnosed with anorexia at the age of 12 and have been in and out of hospitals and treatment facilities ever since. Needless to say I have some major body image issues. I was healthy during my pregnancy for my daughter- ate right, didn’t fast, and ended up gaining 75 lbs as a result of both my diet and an excess of amniotic fluid. After my daughter’s birth I suffered from severe post-partum depression and ended up being institutionalized for a few weeks. I think the shock of my new body had a lot do do with that. So anyway last June I had a tummy tuck which I suppose I am glad I did, but had I seen a site like this and realized that this sagging extra skin is normal I may not have gone through with it. None of the women in my family had the type of bunching skin that you need to tuck into your jeans. Not even my mother who had twins! Not a stretch mark on any women in my family. I really thought I did something wrong during my pregnancy to cause what I thought was such an awful disfiguration. Recently (3 weeks ago) I also had a breast lift/reduction although that was more for medical purposes, as after breastfeeding my daughter my breasts went up past DD which killed my back considering I’m living here on a 5’2 frame. Anyways here are some pictures of the current me…though I still haven’t lost all of the weight I put on while pregnant. I will try to post some of the ones of my big pregnant belly soon..they’re on my other computer :)

Updated here.

I was 14 when I had my first baby, a boy. My love for him was so strong, the bond we shared was built on the understanding between us that we would say goodbye to one another and the faith that we would meet again.I became a birth mother. Every thought I have, He is there echoing each one. I am now almost 22 years old and 24 weeks pregnant with another boy. the emotions I feel with this baby are so different. I know that this time I will watch him grow, his father and I. I will change his diaper and soothe his cries. I will be there to see him smile for the first time, and it will be me he smiles at! I will help him take his first steps, I will know the sound of his laughter and He will call ME Mother….My Samuel….God has heard.

Well, here it goes…After years of self-esteem issues, here I am. I’m 32, gave birth to the most amazing little girl the day after my 30th birthday. The heart tattoo on my belly is “her heart”, as she calls it. Red for ruby, our birthstone. I weigh less now, just by a few pounds, than before I had my darling, but I’m far from shaped the same. It was all more than worth it though, and I know I should be mighty proud of my mommy body, and I’m really working on it. Thank you for this site, it’s so empowering and REAL. You are all beautiful. Thanks for giving me a place to be secure and share.

I always thought of myself as a woman who was comfortable in her own skin. I knew that pregnancy would change my body and during pregnancy I welcomed these changes. The first photo is my belly pre-pregnancy. I waited impatiently to “look pregnant” and I couldn’t wait to wear maternity clothes. I looked in awe at my expanding belly and felt beautiful. I gained 63 pounds during pregnancy. Every week I took several belly photos to document the growth. I looked forward to these weekly pictures and compared them with the earlier ones endlessly. The 2nd photo is my belly just 12 hours before my labor started, on my due date. When my son was born (via c-section due to the impatience of the medical hospital) the belly photos stopped and he was the center of attention. A week later I missed the weekly photo that had become a ritual with my husband and I so I had him snap the 1 week post-partum photo, which is the 3rd photo. I had a PUPPP rash on my belly and I was amazed at how pregnant I looked still. I was horrified by it but snapped the photo because I thought it would somehow help me in the healing process of accepting my new body. The next photo was taken at 3 months post-partum and the last 3 photos are at 6 months post-partum with a close-up of my c-section scar. While I will never have my flat pre-pregnancy belly again I actually look at my c-section scar fondly. Sure, I had a horrific birth experience that ended with a c-section but my son came out of that scar. I see the scar now and I see him. I still like to think that I’m a woman who is comfortable in her own skin, even though that skin is scarred, loose and stretched out a bit. One thing that helps me is that I remember going to the beach with my mother as a little girl and I thought she was the most beautiful creature in the whole world…her stretch marks and all. She still is the most beautiful creature in the whole world–that creature is a mother. Now I’ve joined her as a mother and I’m learning to see the beauty in myself.