I became a widow 2 years ago in my early 30’s. I didn’t expect to be dating ever again…the prospect of showing your naked torso to a man who didn’t help put those stripes there is a frightening one to say the least. When the date clothes come off this is what you see…no hiding the marks of motherhood.
34 yrs old
4 pregnancies, 3 live births (2 teens and a 4th grader)
I am 24 years old, I have 2 beautiful little girls – a 2 year old and a 6 month old, and I love them with all my heart and soul. However, I am so disgusted and ashamed of my body that I won’t let my husband see me naked. I gained 40 pounds with both pregnancies and lost all the weight plus some 2 months after each. What I am left with is horrible rippling stretch marks, loose dough like stomach skin, saggy breasts and a flat tush! I have always had insecurities, especially about my face – pretty has never been a word I have ever described myself with, and now that my body is ruined too, I just feel so ashamed. My husband calls me beautiful, and I know he’s lying since he watches porn and has always been very critical of other women’s bodies. When we do have sex and I’m not covered, i can’t enjoy it. My doctor told me there is nothing I can do about my skin. So now I need to find a way to cope with my body as it is. It is to the point where I can’t concentrate or have fun with my children because all I think about is how ugly my tummy has become.
I’m always struggling with accepting my new body. I know we should not dwell on the negative of child birth when the positive is two beautiful girls now 6 and 5. I’m 30 now but still struggling with insecurities. I would love to be this fit mom but with a full time job getting out late and then coming home to spend time with my girls before bed, I find it hard to go to the gym. Even though my husband tells me he doesn’t care what I look like, It’s hard to accept that this is how my body will look from now on, I just wish I could have the same confidence as all the amazing moms out there, I will get there eventually it’s just taking me a bit longer!
I was enjoying a rare empty house! No kids no spouse. So I decided on a load of laundry and a nice long hot shower. My clothes were not dry yet so I just laid in my comfy bed and surfed the net…with just a shirt on,while I waited for my clothes.
The warm bright morning sun peeping through the cracks in curtains caught my eye, but something else did to and it was beautiful, it was pretty, it was sexy, it was everything I have thought beauty to be and it was MY BODY! O M G it was MY body! The same body I have thought ugly my whole life! The same body I have filled my head with negative thoughts about, The same body that after 2 kids and a zillion stretch marks I thought was disgusting was now, in a one second moment …BEAUTIFUL!!
I snapped the picture with my cell and sat there a long time wondering how this happened? It was very confusing! How did I just go from years of feeling the negative thoughts about my plus sizeness or my wrinkled belly to thinking – wow look at me, look at my body! My body is not damaged like I have been thinking, it’s a fucking master piece!
I don’t know why or how this thought happened but it happened and that one moment opened the flood gates of positive self-talk about the loveliness that is ME!
I will always keep this picture close to me now, just so I can remember that feeling of self love, it’s a strange feeling and feeling it for the first time at 32 years old was crazy and Enlightening!
I was glad I found your site and I feel happy just sharing this moment!
Thank you so much
After my first pregnancy, I was very unhappy with my body. I stopped eating healthy and my weight yo-yoed constantly. When my son was 2 years old, I found out I was pregnant again and I cried. I wasn’t ready to add another child to our mess. I was a nervous wreck. I even kept losing weight a few months into my 2nd pregnancy. It got so bad that my nurse practitioner encouraged me to start taking meds to control my anxiety. Then halfway through the pregnancy, I noticed that my navel was sticking out more than the first time around and it was tender to the touch. My OB said it was an umbilical hernia (it wasn’t) and would probably get better after I delivered the baby (it didn’t). The discomfort got worse as the pregnancy went on. When I was in labor, the contraction pain was all in my back because of the muscle damage. Two months postpartum when I got permission to exercise, I began with a workout video called Six Week Six Pack. I lost a few pounds, but my stomach looked even worse. So I exercised harder! Sadly it took a few years for me to learn about Diastasis Recti and realize how much worse I had made things. When I started seeing a physical therapist, she was appalled. For months I was not allowed to lift anything over 5 pounds and absolutely no sit-ups. I’ve been wearing a brace and doing pilates and water aerobics to try and heal the damage I did to my core muscles. It’s exhausting and frustrating, but my stomach actually looks like a stomach again! I probably won’t ever have a six pack, but my kids love my squishy belly.
~Age: 33
~Number of pregnancies and births: 2
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 8 and 5
I have had two beautiful children, an 8 year old and 4 year old. I’m 34 now and I feel like since my second child and since hitting my 30’s my body is much different then it used to be. My breasts are much less full and perky and my stomach will never be as flat and tight as it once was. I look back on the body I used to have and am envious and wish I had appreciated it more back then!
I don’t know if I’ll ever get to a point where I feel that comfortable with my body but I appreciate how it carried and delivered my babies.
I just wanted to share the photo I just took of my son falling asleep squishing my belly. I have five children. He’s my youngest, almost 3yrs now. I had to have a hysterectomy and I haven’t been feeling the best since then. I don’t get many moments like this with him since I have been sick a lot lately. So I don’t like how my belly looks but I treasure this moment.
Two sets of twins and I love every mark on me! Blessed so much my kids are so precious to me and have made my life so much more than I could ever imagine xx
My beautiful daughter was born almost 7 years ago. I loved every moment of my pregnancy. I did my best to savor each moment and I loved feeling every flutter, kick, and hiccup. A few weeks before my baby girl was born, I had a visit with my midwife and she marveled at my smooth, stretch mark free belly. When I visited her the next week, I remember her saying “oh no! you have stretch marks!” I remember feeling let down…as if I had almost made it through with my tummy in tact. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the stretch marks would not end up being the source of this frustrating struggle.
It took me quite a bit of time to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight and once I did, I was devastated by what I saw in the mirror. Who cares about the stretch marks? look at that saggy, wrinkled tummy! I was not prepared for the way my body had changed. Prior to this, I had prided myself on the fact that I was a woman who would NEVER consider cosmetic surgery…yet, as I looked in the mirror at this hanging skin…thoughts started to creep in about a tummy tuck. That made me feel low as well. How could I be so vain to consider something like that???
Now, all these years have passed and I am ashamed to say that when I look at my belly in the mirror…when I look at the body that grew and birthed the most precious little being…I still fantasize about the tummy tuck. I don’t care about the stretch marks. I’m even rather proud of them. The saggy, wrinkled skin that doesn’t improve no matter what I do is the source of the embarrassment and frustration I feel. I don’t want to seem petty. I don’t want to seem vain. I am just speaking my truth and it is a truth I never thought would be coming from me. I have been thinking about submitting my story to this website for YEARS and I am just now finally following through. It is my hope that I can find my confidence once again.
~Age:
39
~Number of pregnancies and births:
1
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are:
7
I’m built very petite (5’2″, 100-105 lbs when I’m not pregnant or nursing) and yet three times, I’ve given birth to nine pound babies (my boys are almost 12, 9, and almost 7). It’s taken me time, but I’ve learned to love, honor, and respect the fact that my body that so often feels so small and vulnerable was able to grow and accommodate such big babies. I had to have c-sections because of the width of my pelvis and for a long time that felt like a failure- but now I honor that, too. The loose skin that buckles and puckers when I bend or sit is a physical representation of all the growing and expanding my body and soul have had to do, in order to become a mother. How could that possibly be ugly?
-Chloe, age 33
