Belly

Just Can’t Get Over It (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Child Loss, Postpartum, Second Pregnancy, Submissions 37 Comments

~Age: 25
~Number of pregnancies and births: 2 pregnancies, 1 birth
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 4 years

I met my husband 6 years ago. We dated for 6 months before he proposed and then got married 6 months later. We then got pregnant just a month after getting married, but sadly ended in a miscarriage. We didn’t give up though, we tried again and got pregnant again 2 months later and we had a beautiful baby girl who is now 4 years old. I love my husband more than words can say and he is the best thing that ever happened to me, but he has a problem that deeply bothers me and I just don’t think he gets it. I discovered he was looking at porn when my daughter was about a year old. I confronted him a couple of times and he flat out lied to my face about it. I let it go for a little while, thinking maybe I was just overreacting and it wasn’t as big of a deal as I was making it out to be. I just couldn’t let it go though. I found myself sneaking into his phone to look at his history and it was filled with pages of porn videos. I confronted him about it again and told him that it bothers me that he would rather look at porn than have sex with his own wife (by that time it WAS affecting our sex life) He told me that he loved me and my body and I needed to believe him when he told me that and said that he would quit watching the porn. That was probably about a year and a half ago and he is STILL watching it even after telling me he wouldn’t. It’s so hard to trust him now. I just wish he could understand how bad it hurts when I find this stuff on his phone. I don’t take compliments well and when he tells me I look good or something I just roll my eyes or something and it frustrates him. It’s VERY hard to believe him when he tells me these things. If I did look as good as he’s saying I do, then why is there a need to go look at porn sites every day?? He could just be saying it to try to make me feel better or because he HAS to say it. I wish I could just get inside his head and know what he’s thinking. Guys always say its normal for them to look at porn…. normal doesn’t make it right, or make it hurt any less. I haven’t confronted him since because I feel as if I’m just wasting energy on it. I think about it daily though and it bothers me so much. The past year I’ve lost a lot of weight I went from 186lb to 148lb and have gotten attention from guys. I would NEVER cheat on my husband but It feels GREAT to hear it from someone that doesn’t HAVE to say it. I love the attention. I still hate my body though and I don’t think I’ll ever learn to love it. I’m trying my hardest though! I just want the porn to go away and have a normal relationship without all the worry and hurt and feel wanted and loved!

Picture is at 148lbs a couple of months ago!

Hi, my name is Bump and for nine months it’s all about me! (Alinka)

Bonnie (SOAM) Before Pregnancy, Belly, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions 1 Comment

~Age: 29
~Number of pregnancies and births: 1
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 3 months

Hi, my name is Bump and for 9 months it’s all about me!

I am a mystery (well not for your gynecologist, but still). I am where the miracle of life starts (really that would be my neighbour the
fallopian tube but let’s not get into details now). I am where you’ve all spent 9 months before you came to this world. No wonder I attract so much attention.

In week 13 you still couldn’t see me but I know that I was loved. I was talked to, touched and screened during check-ups. In week 18 I
bounced a little for the very first time – my guest punched faintly against my walls and I knew I brought loads of excitement. That
however was only the warm-up to what then became a regular kick-box training against my walls. That little thing inside sure was a lively one!

In week 23 I still wasn’t attracting any attention and when I went for the ultrasound appointment (I was traveling so the doctor didn’t know me), the nurse was surprised that there was a guest inside me! That’s how big I was.

In week 25 I could still fit into my skinny jeans, as in week 26 (beginning of the third trimester) and week 27. But that was it. Week
28 was when I hit the skinny jeans limit. Still, the shop assistants failed to notice that I had a little guest inside me when I was clothes shopping and nobody ever offered me a seat. But I felt fit and fabulous and the whole body did gain the recommended weight.

Week 30 was the first time a stranger noticed me. I was waiting in line to get a gelato and a little girl whispered to her friend: “look!
There’s a pregnant lady!”. Since then people started noticing.

The whole body gained 11 kg from the beginning to week 29 after which it lost 2kg by week 32! But if you look at the pictures you can see me growing – I was however still the smallest one in my prenatal class.

At the end of week 36 I already started feeling my guest descend. I started feeling my first (painless) contractions in week 37.

I reached 40 weeks and baby girl was still inside! I went into labor on a full moon. The creature I was hosting for 9 months swam out of me clean, beautiful and blissful making me vanish. One week after giving birth the body already lost 7 kg out of the 10 kg it gained during my pregnancy!

After I vanished the brain came up with a book about the whole thing. There are twenty bumps describing their adventures from conception, the great and icky about pregnancy, and the end, which was another beginning. They even named the book after me. It’s called “Bumptabulous”. And it’s a tribute to all bumps and those carrying us.

So Depressed About My Postpartum Body (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Before Pregnancy, Belly, Breasts, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions 44 Comments

I got pregnant at 20 years old/ After a string of terrible luck i began working at a bikini bar. I hated every second of it. Hated the way people acted and hated getting judged all day, and treated like a piece of meat. I felt like at the time, i had no choice, the money was good and I had no other way to pay the bills. One night, me and a couple other dancers had gone to the MMA fights. Afterwards we went to one of the fighters houses for the after party. Thats where I met my babys father. He was one of the fighters and it was at his house. i gave him my number and we started hanging out. I eventually moved in with him and we started dating. After being there about 6 months I discovered I was pregnant. This was a huge shock since I had been on birth control and made him use condoms every time, just in case. Well, apparently both failed. I quit the bar when i got pregnant. Things went downhill fast from there. He started using. (or i guess just stopped hiding the fact that he had been all along, he knew I hated any and all drugs and apparently just stopped caring). He would also do other stupid things, like one time leaving me and his 5 year old son home in a blizzard with no heat because he had decided partying all night at the bar was more important than getting propane, so i had to take his son with me to a friends house to stay so he wouldnt freeze. After I found out he was cheating on me I quit trying to make things work. (i hated the idea that my daughter would never know her father, but decided she was better off without someone like that). I moved out, and went back to my parents house. Broke the news to them that I was pregnant, and basically sunk into a depression about how crap my life had turned out. 9 months of feeling awful, sick all the time, anemia, heartburn, etc, I had all the pregnancy problems. Around 3 months I was working again at a Dairy Queen and saving money to buy everything I would be needing. The father texted me maybe twice my entire pregnancy. He couldnt care less what happened to her. Finally at 41w I went into labor. after 23 drug-free hours and a completely natural labor, complete with lots of screaming and crying lol, i delivered my 7lb9oz baby girl.

I did tear so recovery was pretty hard for me. I am now 7 weeks postpartum. I love my daughter but I really miss what could have been/what my life was before. I hate that I didnt actually get to celebrate my 21st birthday or even since then.. I miss going out with friends, even to simple things like movies or dinner. I miss taking a nap because im tired, or falling asleep at night whenever i want and sleeping till im refreshed. I miss having free time, I feel like my freedom is totally over, I have barely lived and lifes over. And i despise my body. I never have had a good face, i guess im wat you would call a butterface. the way i saw it, my body was all i had it better be awesome. While i was dancing i was in the best shape of my life, its an unbelievable workout. But now, my belly is gross and fat with extra skin, my breasts are covered in stretchmarks and look like deflated tube socks ( I think thats the worst part, I could deal with everything else, my belly will tighten more I hope, but my breasts are a lost cause), my butt looks like a tiger grabbed it, and my hips got so big none of my jeans fit anymore. I was 110 when I got pregnant and 135 when I delivered. I am now 112 and nothing fits. Its so depressing, I feel like I am only 21, I do not want to have the body of an old woman. I miss everything about my old life. Even the crappy things. I would never want anything bad to happen to Emma, but I do wish I had had her when I was older, and had gotten to do more before being strapped down for the rest of my life..i know that sounds selfish. I am hoping as time goes on and she starts sleeping through the night and being awake without screaming, and not being attached to my boob 24 hours a day. Which, after 7 weeks of exclusively breast feeding, still hurts. Lactation consultant says shes latching perfect and basically nothings wrong so she cant help. She says “shes just a strong sucker”, so i guess im doomed to pain until I wean her. Anyway, hopefully soon things will smooth out and I wont feel so much like I do now. I just got a new job as a server in a nice restaurant so maybe getting out of the house will be good for me. I know I need the money.

Thanks for reading and for all the inspirational stories and words that you guys post on here. It helps to know Im not alone. I have been reading this site since I got pregnant.

Pictures are
1. pre-baby belly, which I used to complain about back then, now I would kill to have it back…
2. 41 Weeks – this was a couple of days before I went into labor.
3. Pre-pregnancy breasts, terrible picture, but this is the only one I have of them before. They were never big (barely a B, and I used to hate that, but now id do anything to get them back, at least they were perky..
4. Postpartum breasts (nipples are nasty and huge, and boobs are just saggy, deflated, tube sock looking things. I hate them so much. Plus theyre covered in stretch marks, you cant really see them in the pic.) and ruined belly button. So stretched out my navel ring almost falls through, not really sure whats stopping it.
5. When i lift my arms they arent even round they look disgusting.
6. side view
7. my daughter and what I call her “omg” face lol

Age: 21
Number of pregnancies and births: 1 pregnancy, 1 birth
The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 7 weeks

A Mother’s Body (Anonymous)

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

Previous post here.

21 year old mother of a 1 year old boy

It’s funny what a few months can do to you. I wrote a second entry about my body and the sadness and disappointed that I felt at the fact that I did not lose the weight like everyone had assured me I would, and did not feel confident and sexy as I once did before becoming a mother. 5 months after writing that entry, I’m writing this one.

My son will be turning 1 in just over a week and I’ve realized that I don’t stop and stare at myself after showers, I don’t hide under the covers when my husband and I make love, and I don’t care about changing how I look. I’m finally okay with me, just the way I am.
I was lucky enough to go through such a life change as pregnancy and parenting with someone so accepting and loving. He hasn’t changed a single thing about how he adores and reacts to my body and I can tell he appreciates my body more now for bringing his son into our lives.

I look at my son everyday and wonder how I would have been so sad in the first few months about how I looked, when it was all so worth it. Why was I so focused on something so irrelevant when I had a gorgeous child in front of me, something the doctors said I would never have. I’m not saying accepting the changes of your body is easy, and I perfectly understand that my body could look much different and be much harder to accept, but I think the reason I accepted it was because I stopped judging it. It doesn’t matter how I looked before getting pregnant and when I finally stopped making that comparison I realized that this body I have now may be different, but it’s not unattractive. It’s the body of a mother, and that is a beautiful thing in so many ways.

First photo is just a month before conceiving, in a size 2, Second photo is at 41 weeks pregnant, Third to Sixth photo are of my body as I am now, just a week shy of 1 year postpartum, Seventh photo is the only time I dared to wear a bikini after the birth of my son and the very last photo is my beautiful and healthy little boy, the thing that made it all worth it!

This will be my second and final entry but I will continue to read every submission. I’m so amazed at the strength everyone has just to post the change in their bodies, whether minimal or not. It’s truly played a big part in the acceptance of my body in this journey as a mother! Thank you.

Mom of 7 – It’s Time to Find Me Again (Jennifer)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Breasts, Cesarean, Four or More Pregnancies, Mom over 30, Postpartum, Submissions, Twins 10 Comments

I am a mother of 7. I had my first child when I was just 16. His twin sisters followed 22 months later. My next child a beautiful baby girl was born 2 years after the twins. Then we had another girl just shy of 3 years later. When she was 3.5 months old we discovered we were expecting again. After 4 little girls we were thrilled to have another son. He was born 1 year 1 week and 1 day after his sister. Our last child was born 3 years later and she will forever be the baby in our family. I had my tubes tied after this and I still regret it to this day. If I could afford it I would have 20 children. Pregnancy never got to me. I loved every moment of that special time and I often find myself longing for it. Now I am almost 32 years old and it is time to start working on me. All my life I have devoted my time to my children and a full time job. Now it is time for me to find the time I need to get myself to a point in which I am happy with my body. I am so disgusted with my body but after 7 children, 1 set of multiples and 5 c-sections I am not sure what to expect.

I am 32 years old

First Pregnancy by Cesarean (Tsvetelina)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Cesarean, Cesarean Scar and/or Incision, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions, Tattoo 5 Comments

Hi there. My name is Tsvetelina fit the 23 from Bulgaria. My English is not very good, but I hope you understand what I write. 4 months ago I gave birth to baby girl – Anna. 3.200 kg, 50 cm Pregnancy passed me slightly, the first two months my slightly sick , after 7 months began acids. My term was for July 28, 2012.It’s been two days and my doctor decided to put me in the hospital to induce labor. In the evening I look at ultrasound. It was a normal birth. In the evening the doctor saw that the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby and that I am prepared for cesarean delivery. It all happened very quickly. I was very scared. But Anna was born 30/06/2012. I was in the hospital six days. I restored quickly from surgery. Everything is fine now except the abdomen does not want to go. It saddens me. I have stretch marks on the side of love handles. My breasts hung than breastfeeding. I give a milk of me – 40 days and stopped my milk because Anna is eyelid ptosis, and I was very worried. At 2 months of Anna navel operate as it turned out that there granuloma navel. From these concerns stopped my milk. Now Agim calm, do crunches to get my belly. Before I got pregnant I weighed 50 kg. I gained 17 kilograms. At the hospital I lost 6 kg. and for four months I lost 4 kg. I have not trained anything. Now I weigh 57 kg. I hope to get my weight soon.

The first two pictures are from 22/11
Picture with the big belly is 22/07/2012
Photo by Annie is 13/11/2012
The photo of the sea in the summer of 2011

Light at the End of the Tunnel (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Submissions, Teen Mom 4 Comments

Age: 19
Number of Pregnancies: 1
11 months PP

I got pregnant when I was 18 years old, wasn’t planned but welcoming my son into the world was the greatest thing that has ever happened in my life. Pre-pregnancy I weighed 150, and I am 5’10. I ate alot of junk food when I was pregnant and didn’t really consider it being difficult to lose the weight afterwards. As my ninth month of being pregnant approached I realized what a huge blob I was, I weighed 215. My son was born in December 2011 and is the sweetest little boy I’ve ever laid my eyes on. My body definitely didn’t bounce back, I currently weight 186. I’m too tired and exhausted being a single mom that I don’t have the energy to work out. Being pregnant also gave me the biggest sweet tooth and has yet to go away. All in all, 11 months later, I am embracing my curves and mommy body, and still have high hopes that I’ll be able to loose my tummy pooch!

First Picture: 11 months PP
Second Picture: 11 months PP
Third Picture: My little bundle of joy !

Gaining Self Confidance (Monique)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Postpartum, Preemie, Pregnant, Second Pregnancy, Submissions 4 Comments

age 21, pregnancies 2, births 2, 2 yrs and PP 5 months

When I got pregnant with my first child I was engaged to a man who was great. Supportive, loving, caring, everything you’d want in a man. About 6 months before our wedding date I stopped taking birth control thinking that it would take about a year to actually get pregnant (I was on the depo), and presumably after the wedding. I ended up getting pregnant a mere month after the shot was set to expire. It was a shock, but I was so excited… for a while. After I got pregnant the man I knew completely changed. He became physically and verbally abusive. He threw me down stairs, broke his hand on my face, made me watch porn and tell me how much better the girls looked/were in bed compared to me. I was so blessed that my baby boy came out gorgeous and healthy even though he was born at 34 weeks.Afterwards my body bounced back immediately. I lost all the weight easily, got no stretch marks, but it wasn’t good enough for him. He constantly put me down and made me feel just horrible about myself. I finally got the courage to leave not for me, but for my son and I met the man who is now my husband. He always tells me how beautiful I am, supports me and cheers me on in everything I do and treats my son as his own. I got pregnant very early in our relationship (on birth control and pulling out) so it was a huge shock. I wasn’t very happy in the beginning, I was terrified about what the baby was going to do to my body. I was afraid he would leave me because my body was going to change so dramatically only months after meeting me. I was afraid I wasn’t going to get so lucky this time around, that added to still healing from low self esteem from my prior relationship I was miserable for the first 6 months of my pregnancy. Once I felt her kick it was all over, but I still did whatever I possibly could to look good after I had her. I worked out until I gave birth, I slathered myself in cocoa butter and bio-oil, ate well, ended up gaining a little less than 20 pounds and used a belly binder PP, I started pelvic thrusts 3 days PP, cut calories and started back at the gym the day I was released for exercise. It sounds a little intense but I was determined. Everyone told me I looked great for just having a baby, but I didn’t believe it. Though I got back to my normal weight, everything shifted and sits differently. My tummy is rounder no matter how many crunches I do, my hips are wider, my boobs are a little saggier. I was miserable and though I loved my princess I hated my body. No matter how I “good” everyone said I looked I couldn’t stop putting myself down. I finally realized I needed to work more on my self esteem and less on my body. I started looking at myself in the mirror every morning and finding one thing I like about my body. Doing this I began to appreciate my body that much more and gained self confidence which I’ve never had. I also realized that before I wanted the same body I had when I was 16, why in the world would I want that??? Becoming a mother has made me a woman in so many ways, so why shouldn’t my body reflect that? A woman’s body has curves, it’s rounder and softer, it has blemishes, it’s imperfect and that much more beautiful because all of this means it gave life. Now I don’t want a girls body, I want the body of a woman, the body of a mother.

First and second pic – 36 weeks pregnant, third pic – 5 months PP, fourth pic – me, my son and daughter after bringing her home

Trying to get past my body and realize my blessings! (Anonymous)

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

Well I am a 20 year old mother of two beautiful baby girls. I got pregnant at 17 with my first and had her 4 months after I turned 18. I had my second beautiful baby girl in May 2012. The father of both my children, recently decided he doesn’t want to be with me anymore. I am truly crushed inside after being with him for almost 4 years and two kids later he decides to just up and split. He never really was around that much anyways he always was with friends partying, or hitch hiking to other states and so I already in a sense was a single mother. He cheated on me as well quite a few times claimed it was cause he thought we were going to be over so why not I guess…..anyways I see it as a blessing in a sense and I know God has a plan for my life and my children but it still hurts so bad. Now I am focused on going to back to college to get a degree and be able to support my girls and give them a good life. I am also trying to focus on the areas of myself that need to be changed, attitudes etc so that when I meet the correct man for me I will be a loving wife. However my body depresses me SO MUCH! I have stretch marks everywhere, no joke, my belly, butt, behind my legs, inner and outter thighs, boobs and even my upper arms!!!! What the heck right? Anyways I get really down thinking about it sometimes like I will never find a man who will want to be with me because I have two kids already and my body just sucks not to mention the lose skin on my tummy. I get really sad about it there are good days and bad days, I just want to feel good about myself. I eat correctly for the most part with occasional slip ups. I breast fed my 1st daughter and am still breast feeding my second and I have worked out hard since 2 months pp and lost a lot of weight and toned up quite a bit too, but it seems like stretch marks just keep popping up everywhere ugh…. and they are deep too. Anyways enough whining lol I also realize that God has blessed me with not one but two healthy, gorgeous girls and that we have a roof over our heads and food to eat, clothes to wear and even stuff to have fun with, toys, books, tv, computer etc….where as many other people do not have these luxuries or are not able to conceive so I thank him every day and hopefully one day I can make peace with my body, and hopefully any other mother feeling the same way as myself will too. God bless.

Age:20
Number of Pregnancies:3 Births:2
Age of Children: DD1 is 26 months old, DD2 is 6 months old
Photos: These are all photos of me 6 months pp I couldn’t get any full body views but there is the right side, left side and front side of my tummy.

Second Birth, Second Chance (Colleen)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Breasts, Cesarean, Postpartum, Pregnant, Second Pregnancy, Submissions, VBAC 7 Comments

Previous post here.

My Age: 28
I have two children, aged 3 years 3 months, and 7 weeks.

Seven weeks ago I gave birth to my second daughter. She was my triumphant VBAC, and her birth healed the wound that my cesarean had left in my heart. My body is amazing; we knew what we wanted and by golly, we got it.

And yet…it didn’t exactly go as planned. Nowhere near it, actually. Six days past my due date I developed even worse oligohydramnios than I had with my first. I was sent for an induction; a long, drawn-out process in which pitocin was a last resort because of my previous cesarean. I wanted an all-natural birth. I’ve spent years of my life planning for one, convincing myself that the pain of labor was manageable. The pitocin proved me wrong, and my daughter was born with an epidural after 30 hours of induction and 14 hours of active labor. I pushed her out under my own power, and that’s what’s most important, but the irritation over how medicated her birth was dampened some of the ecstasy I expected to feel.

When I last posted I was fretting over my inability to gain weight, and boy did that change fast. Between my 20 and 24 week appointments, I put on 9 pounds. It continued to shoot up and by the end I had gained 42 pounds (39 of that in the second half of my pregnancy). I don’t know if it was because I had developed habits of eating calorie-dense foods since I wasn’t eating much, or because I essentially starved for 4 months, but even through the lingering nausea it added up. It distressed me to get so close to 200 pounds for the first time in my life (196), but I figured my body knew what it needed.

I’ve lost about 20 pounds or so…maybe a little more. At any rate I seem to have hit that wall where nothing more is going to come off until I make an effort. I WILL make the effort this time, but I’m not ready yet. These two little girls are more important to me than exercise and worrying about calories right now. I once again came out without stretch marks on my tummy. The ones on my thighs and hips spread a little bit (I gain all of my weight in my thighs), and new ones appeared on my love handles. Actually, just one love handle—the left one is covered and the right side only has one lonely stretchie. My biggest problem with them is that they’re not symmetrical! Seriously, how do you grow symmetrically and only one side stretches? It doesn’t make any sense.

Am I at peace with my new body? No, not really. I only have one pair of pants that “fits” (even my maternity pants were too small by the end). My thighs rub together a LOT when I walk. My breasts are larger than ever (32K) and uneven because I’m nursing. I have a little new mommy pooch and—most distressing to me—my face got fatter. But these “flaws” do not consume my every waking moment. I see them, they register, but then I think, “man, I’m sexy”. I carried two babies, I rocked out a VBAC, I breastfed/feed both (the little one nurses like a champ). My husband thinks I’m irresistible. The women in my life tell me I look great (in clothes, of course). I haven’t learned to say “thank you” yet without pointing out a perceived flaw, but I’m getting there. I want my daughters to see confidence. I see the extra weight as something temporary and therefore not something to obsess about.

When I last posted, I decided to include my face in this one (finally!). Then I received a message on Facebook from a man I had never met asking if I was the poster and, frankly, that creeps me out. I understand how it’s possible, but tracking me down took a not-insignificant amount of effort when I obviously chose to remain semi-anonymous for a reason. The fact that it was a man and not another woman just added to the creeptastic factor. Maybe I’ll get brave eventually, but this time isn’t it. I’ll include a lovely silhouette of myself that my husband (accidentally) took at 24 weeks, but that’s as close as I can get this time.

The pictures are 24 weeks pregnant, 40 weeks pregnant, and 6 weeks postpartum.

Updated here.