Belly

My Story (Brittany)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Submissions 6 Comments

My name is Brittany and I am 7 months postpartum after the vaginal delivery of my first (and likely, only) child, a beautiful baby girl named Freyja. I’m nearly 23 years old and although I’m young, my pregnancy unplanned, I feel that I came into my situation informed and prepared to do what I need to do to have a healthy pregnancy and minimally traumatizing birth and postpartum period. I was active before conceiving, spending at least 45 mins, 3 days a week at the gym. I planned my daily meals with a focus on the amount of calories and types of food my growing baby and I needed (an extra 300 calories a day, give or take) with some wiggle room for the occasional treat. Prior to baby strength training was my game and I won’t lie that I was a bit disheartened with the conventional wisdom that now that I was pregnant that would need to stop. Thankfully my ob-gyn was a fitness fanatic and mother as well, and she informed me that while I would have to be conservative with the weights, I would by no means need to stop. I simply switched from pushing the limits each session to doing a lot of reps with a comfortable to lighter weight. I still squatted, lifted and even benched up until the 9th month of pregnancy. I trained abs vehemently with a special focus on gentle exercises that would not strain them as I had a mild diastasis. The 9th month I cut down to moderate cardio only and found that the typical aches and pains of being pregnant were lessened by this moderate amount of activity, though getting off the couch to do so was a struggle indeed. 4 days before my eventual labour I could feel that it was indeed time to rest. The labour itself (though I have nothing to compare it to) was relatively easy. It was a vaginal delivery, no tearing. I had the fitness and muscle tone I needed to push out my baby in only 45 mins. Kegels were indeed my friend. Past the soreness and muscle trauma of the actual birth and I am completely back to normal in terms of pelvic floor function. I don’t pee when I sneeze or otherwise. I’m now almost 7 months post-partum and I have my body back. It took work, but I’m back to lifting heavy and I feel great and grateful every day that I was surrounded with the right people to help me make this milestone in my life one that hasn’t left me feeling poorly about myself. I’m not being a neglectful mother by taking that 45 mins to work on myself, I’m an example to my daughter that hard work and a healthy lifestyle will pay off every day of your life. When the stress of motherhood mounts it’s a needed release and I truly feel that it makes me a more energetic and attentive parent. My body is my own, it’s the only one I will ever have and as long as I’m able I will treat it kindly.

Trying to Feel Positive (Megan)

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

Age:24
1 pregnancy, 1 birth
7 weeks postpartum

I am so thankful this site exists . The body shaming and unrealistic expectations put on appearance in our culture needs to end. All the same, I sometimes find it difficult to accept my new body.

All my life I loved my figure. I was thin with a flat stomach and a womanly hourglass shape. I didn’t even have to exercise. I felt sexy.

My husband and I felt all of the usual emotions when we found out I was pregnant; elation, nervousness, excitement, fear. My pregnancy was amazing. No morning sickness and a cute little baby bump. I felt great and I thought I was going to get away without stretch marks. Wrong! At 37 weeks they appeared. First, just a tiny one above my belly button and then one morning I woke up to find myself covered in the little purple bastards. I cried and felt like my body was ruined. I couldn’t have any clothing touching my belly without unbearable itching so the last 2.5 weeks of my pregnancy were pretty uncomfortable.

Our son was born on April 7th, 2013 weighing 7lbs 14oz. I gave birth to him completely drug free and I am so proud of myself. I didn’t tear so I didn’t need stitches and I was up walking around an hour after he was born. I felt completely back to normal by day 3. It was incredible. Our son is the most beautiful, amazing thing I’ve ever seen and I feel fortunate beyond words every time I look at him.

But my body. At first I thought, “Hey this really isn’t that bad” but now, 7 week later I’m starting to get pretty sick of it. The muffin top and the roll of fat that hang over my pants are not something I am used to and I don’t like looking at it. The stretch marks are distressing and my breasts…well I won’t even go into that.

But I grew a HUMAN BEING from nothing inside this body. That is amazing. This body was strong enough to bring a baby into this world with no pain medication and recovered from that trauma beautifully. My body is amazing.

It is perfect just the way it is but I still want to make some improvements. I’m excited to see what changes a few months of exercise will bring. Once again, this website is wonderful. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share these vulnerable feelings. Keep up the good work, hot mamas!

Pictures: Pre-pregnancy, 39 weeks, 6 weeks PP, my sweet baby boy

25 Year Old Mother of 3 (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Breasts, Postpartum, Submissions, Third Pregnancy 8 Comments

at 20 yrs my first girl, who is turning six in a couple weeks
second daughter is 2 yrs old, she is turning 3 soon.
my third lovely boy is 4 months old now.
~~~simply put 3 babies in 5 yrs~~~

I have become super busy lately, but i wanted to take some time and put myself out there in front of others like me.
My children and taught me so much, literally changed my life for the better.
Being a cancerian, i love family and home. I havent worked in years thanks to my husband. which gives me opportunity to dedicate to them and focus on home and health. Since my first daughter alot of changes have been made: GF, non GMO, Organic, meat every other day, non processed snacks. I have become a home chef :) and very likely will be vegetarian soon. We do not buy any premade sweets, I bake. Lots more fresh foods here lately
.
These changes have made a huge difference, and now to add on to it, I am putting myself through CoDA, and my life is changing.
I know once i find the time to workout with the new baby I will transform as I have with every child.
.
speaking out is new to me, but here goes some pictures i just took
no sucking in, tucking up, pushing out, honest pictures of me standing for the world to see
all my physical body is right there, neither excited nor bummed.
Right now I simply am and that is ok with me

Made Me Even Stronger (Amanda)

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

Age: 23
Number of pregnancies: 1 pregnancy/birth
Age of child: 18 days

I got pregnant in London during the Olympics last summer. It wasn’t planned, but we were both pretty excited when I came out of the bathroom six weeks later with two positive pregnancy tests.

I was very fortunate to not experience the continual nausea or vomiting throughout my pregnancy that a lot of women experience.
I kept up with my fitness (doubles beach volleyball, Ashtanga yoga, running 5ks, hiking) until I was six months pregnant. I slowed down to gentler yoga and walking, but I was still in good shape. I ate really clean because I knew that every single thing I put into my body would affect my baby, which made me even more disciplined to eat pure, whole foods. I ended up gaining 23-24 pounds by the time I delivered at 41 weeks and 4 days (I’m 5’9″ and weighed 145 lbs pre-pregnancy).

No stretch marks appeared until one month before my due date. I don’t hate them or hate my body because of them, but they’re so friggin’ dark that I wonder if they’ll ever fade.

I gave birth to my beautiful Ember on May 2, 2013 in a birth center in South Florida. I had a short, yet intense five-hour labor at home before driving to the birth center and being told by my midwife that I was fully dilated and ready to push. I couldn’t believe I had gone through all the stages of dilation at home (Ujjayi breathing really helped)! I thought surely as a first-time mom my labor would last at least 12 hours. Upon hearing the great news, I stripped down naked and told the midwife I wanted to push in the bathtub. Fifteen to 20 minutes later, my baby was born. She came out perfect in every way.

I attribute my smooth labor and delivery to staying fit and healthy throughout my pregnancy. I did end up having a second-degree tear on my perineum and I know my vagina will never look the same, but let’s be honest, our babies are worth whatever “damage” happens to our bodies. I lost 20 lbs after giving birth, but I’m not worried about my weight. All of my energy is focused on feeding my baby and fueling my body with enough healthy foods to do so. I know that I will eventually get back into shape once my stitches heal.

I always considered myself a “strong” woman, but now I feel like I’m even stronger. It sounds so cheesy, but I know that if I can push a 7lb 4oz baby out of me without any sort of medical intervention or drugs, I can do anything.

Pictures: At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, 39 weeks pregnant, just after birthing my daughter, my little Ember, my stretch marks two weeks postpartum.

Proof of My Child (Lil Rosh)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Complications During or After Birth, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Submissions 7 Comments

Age: 29
No. of pregnancies:1
Age of child: 6 weeks.

6 weeks ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, my labor was nothing like I expected it to be, it lasted 36 hours after 32 hours with no pain meds i finally gave in and had an epidural but it took 3 attempts with the second attempt puncturing the spinal fluid, the epidural didnt work completely it numbed the contractions but I could still feel my legs and I felt every inch of my baby as she made her way into the world. I thought that when I met the little person that had been growing inside me that I would be overwhelmed with a rush of love…. I wasn’t! The truth is I was just so exhausted all I felt was relief! She was 7lb 11oz and perfectly formed. Before they had finished stitching me up I got a huge headache, the epidural that punctured my spinal fluid had resulted in an epi headache. I had to lie flat in my back until the next day when I was given a blood transfusion into my spine. I felt helpless. It took 3 days and a second blood transfusion to clear the headache, I had also bruised my tail bone, the recovery was extremely slow, I didn’t realize how much giving birth took out of you. But with each day that passed the pain lessened and my love for my daughter deepened. Now 6 weeks later I finally feel more normal and pain free… I’ve lost the 27lb I had gained, with the only proof of my child being the marks on my tummy and the saggy skin they cling too!!

Will this ever get better… Can exercise make my tummy look normal again??

1 Year PP and I Still Disgust Myself (Brittani)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Breasts, Butt, Child Loss, Mothers with Health Complications, Postpartum, Submissions 15 Comments

I married my husband on my 18th birthday. A little over a month after our first anniversary, we found out about our oops baby. We had been using condoms, and I guess one failed. We were scared, since we were so young, but excited. I knew my body would change, but I was fairly confident that my belly would bounce right back like everyone said it would because I’m so young. Then I developed preeclempsia. I am 5’7″ and started at 121 lbs before pregnancy, dropped down to 119 right after I got pregnant, and then barely gained 12 lbs in the entire first two trimesters. Then I started jumping up at least 5 lbs a week from water weight with preeclempsia. Nothing I did prevented this, not even the extremely low sodium diet I was put on. When I went to the hospital at 41 weeks to be induced, I weighed 189 lbs. I lost nearly all of the water weight within three months of giving birth. I breastfed/pumped until my milk dried up at 4 months pp, and none of the real weight (all located in my belly and lovehandles) went away. The rest of my body looks the same as it did prepregnancy (aside from the one saggy boob lol), but between my bellybutton and vulva I am stretchmarked, saggy, blobby, and jiggly. It looks gross and makes me a little sick to look at it. My stretchmark color isn’t what bothers me, they’ve faded to a light lavender/pink/silver, it’s the fact that most of them are a 1/4 inch wide, and I even have a few over a 1/2 inch wide. Not long. WIDE. You can physically see the tears in my tissue under the skin. My tummy skin is saggy and floppy and makes me think of Adam Sandler’s tongue belly on Click. My love handles FORCE me to wear mom jeans up to my bellybutton, because anything lower gives me a muffin top of colossal proportions. I can’t wear sexy underwear, because the effect is ruined by all the flab spilling out over the top and my cellulite and stretchmarked butt. I’ve dieted, eaten right, walked, done yoga, and every other exercise I can do without danger to my health (I have exercise induced asthma attacks so I can only do exercises that don’t make you breathe fast or hard). Now my daughter is walking and running, and I’m also chasing her around. Nothing helps. My husband says he loves my body, and tells me I’m beautiful, but I know it’s because he doesn’t want to upset me. He may love me for me, but there is NO WAY to be attracted to my midsection below my bellybutton. I have always been a person who hates clothing, and if given an opportunity I would never wear them, but it’s sad now for me to have to be fearful of wearing certain clothes because they make me look lumpy or gross.

Pregnancy also ruined my health. My immune system is shot. Before I got pregnant, I was the kind of person that got sick maybe once a year. I developed recurrent strep after I had my daughter, and get it at least once a month. I also get recurrent sinus infections, and catch any illness I am or am not exposed to. I exercise regularly, and yet normal everyday activities like getting off the couch and cooking dinner make me out of breath. I am not overweight for my height 5’7 at 132 lbs, but I FEEL fat. Not like the way I look, but the way I feel when trying to move around. Fat and old and unhealthy. I just want to be healthy and pretty again so much that I go on good sob fests probably every week. I can’t afford to go to the doctor to see what is wrong, and I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired. Does this ever end? Will I ever feel like a healthy happy woman again, comfortable in my body?

~Age: 20
~Number of pregnancies and births: 2 pregnancies, 1 birth at 41 weeks. 1 miscarriage at 8 weeks.
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 1 year old

Stretch Marks Ruining Confidence (Lacie)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Cesarean, Cesarean Scar and/or Incision, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Submissions, Teen Mom 24 Comments

my name is lacie, age 19.

so i had my BEAUTIFUL baby girl on the 8th of April! she was 8 lbs 6 oz. :) she is our everything! i should feel great about everything in my life, i have a super amazing husband and the best baby in the world, but every time i look in the mirror at myself in a bra and underwear i seriously break down because of my stretch marks. i was a toned 110, measuring at 5 ft. 2 in. and had enough self confidence to wear a belly shirt and bikinis! (i actually loved it, not because i liked to show it off, but its because it made me happy!)
now, i cant even look down when showering without getting upset! by the end of my pregnancy i weighed close to 155…. YIKES.

i hate feeling so uncomfortable in my own skin…. and it hurts even worse that i am ashamed of something that came from my amazing daughter…… i feel so sad that i feel embarrassed….

my husband says he still finds me and my body just as beautiful as before, (which i find super hard to believe, and often end up arguing with him about how much my body literally sucks now) but when i ask him if he finds my stretch marks attractive he says no! humph. that seems kind of contradicting doesn’t it?! buuutttt, i can’t say much, because i am my own worst enemy in this.

i feel so freaking ugly due to this flabby skin and stretch marks! i know this may seem super shallow of me to say, but i feel like they are ruining my life! i mean, i know i still have some toning, and a bit of shrinking to do, but the stretch marks will remain even after that!!!

i would do anything to have the confidence some women do about their stretch marks, but i just cannot pull myself to that point…..

any idea when they will fade!? i also have some deep red ones on my hips that you can’t see, they’re more towards my back anyhow. ugh. does anyone else feel like me? or am i crazy?

Pictures:
My marks
me, my husband and our beautiful baby

The First Cut is the Deepest (Sharlene)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Mom over 30, Postpartum, Submissions, Surgical Scar (Non-Cesarean), Tubal reversal 4 Comments

Age: 43
Number of pregnancies/births: 3/3
Ages of children: 19 years, 30 months and one year

I always wanted more children than the one perfect daughter God had given me – but thought I was done, because my life hadn’t “gone that way”. So I had my tubes tied when she was 10. I woke up from surgery and sobbed for hours; I think my subconscious knew I had made a mistake. Fast forward 3 years, and all of a sudden my perfect mate came back into my life, someone I had known since elementary school and had dated briefly. We moved in together, bought a house and got engaged. He had never had children, and I knew he needed to experience it. We talked and talked, then at age 39 I had a tubal reversal, which was performed like a c-section. My surgeon was very skilled, but left me with a ridiculous scar, part of which was a bad burn caused by a mistake with a cauterizing tool. Now four years later, I have THREE perfect daughters and wear my scar with pride! Ironic though, that all three births were vaginal with not even a visible stretch mark to show for them.

My Beautiful Scars (Taylor)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, First Pregnancy, Pregnant 9 Comments

My name is Taylor. I am 21 years old and currently pregnant with my first child. From the day I found out I was pregnant I used lotions and creams to prevent any marks from appearing on my body. I got my first stretch mark at 20 weeks. It was all downhill from there. Everyone else that was pregnant around me would post pictures of their beautiful bare baby bumps and I was ashamed to show anyone my stomach. I was even embaressed when my husband looked at me. He always tells me I am beautiful and I just wince because I never felt that way. I am learning that there is something extremely beautiful in the marks I carry with me. I am bringing a beautiful life into this world, and I will never have a perfect body, but I have a husband who loves me and I will soon have a baby to make it all worth it. I have never shown anyone but my husband my stomach but I feel its time to stop hiding my beautiful scars and share them with women who know how I feel. This site has made me not ashamed to let my tiger stripes show! Thank you!

From 104-124 (Anonymous)

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

I am 22 years old, just had my first baby 3 months ago. I went from being very skinny my whole life, to having some volume added to my body. I don’t mind the extra weight, but I do mind my belly (look like im 3 months pregnant again), and my breasts (they used to be perky and beautiful, now they look like a used, saggy balloon) I didn’t get any stretch marks until the day before I had my son. Everytime I have sex with my boyfriend I think about my gross body, it doesn’t help that my stitches from the episiotomy hurt like hell when doing it. My boyfriend tells me how much he loves my body now and everyone else tells me I look better with the weight, its not that I care about, its the belly, breasts, and stretch marks… my vagina doesn’t look the same either. I cant wear a bikini anymore… I barely look in the mirror anymore. I know I just need to tell myself that theyre battle wounds. I hate the way I look now, but I wouldn’t take it back… I have my son and hes all I need <3 ~Age: 22 years old ~Number of pregnancies and births: 1 pregnancy and 1 birth ~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 3 months & 1 week [gallery]