Pregnant

pregnancy weight gain, sex & fear (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Mom over 30, No Photos (Story Only), Pregnant, Submissions 16 Comments

I found your site because I am 30 weeks pregnant and shocked that I am having such a hard time adjusting to my changing body.

I am 31 years old and this is my first pregnancy. My partner and I decided this July that we would stop using birth control. We were so in love and both felt like we couldn’t hold it back anymore. I think we both sensed the lifeforce of this baby straining at the gates we had placed up, desperate to burst through. Although we had only been together for 2 years in total with just over a year of living together at the time, neither of us had the strength or desire to resist this force any longer. Two weeks later we were pregnant! We were shocked and proud that it happened so quickly but mostly we felt really blessed. Although in some ways it would have been “easier” to have had a few months of trying-to-get-pregnant limbo to integrate the idea of a baby on the way and absorb the seriousness of what we were doing, I am well aware of how blessed we are to have had such an easy time conceiving this little being.

I have been really lucky to have had a seamless pregnancy. I was a little tired and a little nauseous initially, but it completely vanished at about 9 weeks, and then we heard the little heartbeat loud and strong at 10 weeks, which was a tremendous relief as I was really conscious of the possibilty of miscarriage. Otherwise my energy has been good and I am feeling strong and healthy. My uterus got really big really quickly–so much so that everyone was fussing about twins for ages. But then the pace of growth got on track, and tests showed that there was only one healthy baby. I have continued to grow at a nice steady pace, take my vitamins, and rub my belly with oils but mostly I have just felt like a completely normal person.

The worst part of this pregnancy has been what it has done to our sex life. We used to have a frequent, effortless and pleasurable sex life–but even more importantly, I used to feel that my partner truly
desired me. He would spend time on my body when we had sex, and demonstrate his attraction to me often–with deep kisses or crude comments or grabs at my body that I would chide him for but that also
delighted me. His desire for me delighted me.

Since I’ve been pregnant, the most frequently we have had sex is probably every 10 days and it has been as long as 3 weeks. Most of the times we do have sex it ends up feeling really unsatisfying as I feel like he is only doing it to please me as he knows how upset I am by this, and not out of his own desire. But even worse, his demonstrations of attraction and lust in our day-to-day interactions have vanished. He is still very loving and attentive to me, we have plenty of cuddles on the couch or in bed, and we easily tell each
other that we love each other as many as 20 times a day. We have more love between us than ever before, but the loss of the lust and sex has been a huge source of sadness and depression for me.

We have talked about this many times. He always says that he is still attracted to me, but I don’t believe it because I don’t see him acting on it. He also says that he is having a hard time wrapping his head around how much he loves me with a desire to have sex with me–as though sex is something dirty or negative that will tarnish me. To some extent, I am sympathetic to his own process of adjustment as our relationship changes as we become parents together, but I also want him to just grow up and realize that sex is normal and healthy and something two healthy adults that love each other can share. I wish it was as important to him as it is to me, and I wish he understood how much fear this gives me about the future of our relationship. I think sex and attraction are the glue of a relationship, and it absolutely terrifies me that we have lost it so soon—especially as we embark on this new challenge of parenting when we are going to need that glue more than ever. It just breaks my heart when I read women saying that their husbands “can’t keep their hands off them.” I so wish I had that.

This also makes me wish that we had waited longer in our relationship before having a baby. Even though we still love each other deeply, I feel very vulnerable in this relationship knowing that he isn’t attracted to me anymore. I wish we’d had more time with my old body and our old sex life to build a deeper foundation. I also wish there had been more time for him to really get to know and love me for all the non-bodily things about my personality and soul because I realize now that those things are what I really have to sustain his attention with. I know the true reasons he is with me are indeed all those non-bodily things, but I still feel so vulnerable. I can’t help but think that another year or two to enjoy and develop what we had might
have been better.

I am now 30 weeks pregnant. I have this gorgeous big belly that I astounds both of us. My breasts are huge and I know many men would be thrilled with them. These are both changes that I expected, and I
suppose that are socially sanctioned- even supermodels get a big belly & boobs. But lately I have started gaining weight on the rest of my body and noticing horrible new developments like cellulite, plus I have gained nearly 30 lbs already– and I am really struggling with this. Even though I am a midwife and deal with pregnancy every day, I honestly and sincerely never expected that I would gain excessively, or in places other than my belly & boobs. This scares me with an intensity that shocks me.

Obviously my insecurity about my partner’s attraction to me is probably a huge reason for why I am having a hard time integrating this. At this point, I have pretty much given up on forcing the sex issue as there is certainly nothing less attractive than someone demanding you find them attractive. But I feel like my hopes that he will be attracted to me again after the baby is born are dwindling with each pound and each patch of cellulite. I desperately want my man to be attracted to me again.

As well, I know that excessive weight gain is associated with all sorts of obstetrical complications that I really want to avoid both for myself and obviously for my baby, and that might prevent me from having the homebirth I have dreamed about since I was a teenager. I am mature enough to realize that if my dream homebirth doesn’t happen, then I am still blessed a million-fold to be having a beautiful baby with a man that loves me and is committed to me, but I can’t shake the sense of obstetrical doom-and-gloom that I sense as I see my legs ballooning so early on.

And the worst part is that I don’t know what I could possibly do to stop this weight gain from continuing. I eat well, have cut out sugar, walk an hour at a fast pace most days, and do yoga a couple times a week. I also try to swim a few times a week. This all feels 100% intuitively right to me–hitting the gym just doesn’t jive with my sense of what my body needs right now. So short of completely abandoning my intuition about how to take care of myself, there isn’t any room to “give” for me to slow this weight gain down. So I assume
my only choice is to just stand back and trust that my body knows what it is doing (and avoid looking at my ass in the mirror at all costs?). But how do I deal with the thoughts of panic I have when I see my
naked body? How do I deal with the thoughts about restricting my eating when I plainly know this is unhealthy and damaging to my baby? How do I accept my body and even better–learn to find the beauty in
the changes? I have been so lucky to have been blessed with a healthy body image, natural enjoyment of healthy food and exercise, and a metabolism that has let me pretty much eat whatever I want whenever I
want for my entire life up to this point. I know that most women have had to grapple with these exact questions long before they reach their 30s, and may have some of the answers before finding themselves
floored by these thoughts in the middle of their first pregnancy. But this is incredibly new territory for me and it makes me feel awful.

Mum of three babies after 2 pregnancies -Twins (Natasha)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Cesarean, Cesarean Scar and/or Incision, Postpartum, Pregnant, Second Pregnancy, Submissions, Twins, Update 14 Comments

I had my first daughter at 19. I had a healthy, uneventful pregnancy and a beautiful natural birth. I carried small, and my body returned to normal very soon after Anna was born. At the time I thought it was so different, and struggled for a short time to come to terms with those changes. I now realise of course that those changes were SO miniscule and I wish I had appreciated the body that I had before my second pregnancy far more than I did. I loved it for providing me with my child, but struggled to come to terms with the physical changes and didn’t appreciate how good I looked for having had a baby. I made a submission here after Anna’s birth. As Anna approached 1 year old, we decided to try for our second child as we wanted a close age gap and I want to go to university and work on a career, but not before I have my family. I did not want to wait 4 years to get my degree and however long it took to find employment in my chosen work area and however long it would take to fall pregnant… at that rate our little girl would be 6 or 7 by the time she had a brother or sister, and that was just too long for us.

We tried for our second pregnancy for 6 months before we fell, and sadly we lost that pregnancy. We were lucky to fall again the next month, and when I started bleeding heavily at 7 weeks I was so sure we had lost another pregnancy, however when we were scanned at the EPU at 8 weeks gestation, we were given the wonderful, incredible news – There was not a heartbeat, but there were two! – We were expecting TWINS! I got really big with the twins, it was nothing like what I experienced with Anna, and began to dread how I would look after the birth – expecting the worst.

I had a hard time of the pregnancy. I went into preterm labour at 31 weeks when my waters broke, but they were able to stop the labour and I went on to 34 weeks 5 days before they induced me due to the risk of infection from my ruptured membranes and suspected IUGR of twin 2. I had a traumatic birth where, after I had reached 10cm all by myself with no pain relief, the doctors and midwives took control and interfered in my birth in ways that confused and terrified me. I felt scared and violated – suddenly the contractions were unbearably painful and I struggled to push my babies out as I was forced to lay on a table with my arms strapped down and my legs in stirrups. I successfully gave birth to “twin 1” who we called Sophie-Rose. It angers me in hindsight that I had to ask for my arms to be unstrapped before I could hold my baby. After she was born the midwives pushed on my tummy to try to encourage “twin 2” to come down. This also angers me as I soon started to haemorrhage, and my placenta detached before my second daughter was born, which I fully believe was as a direct result from this pushing and prodding on my uterus from the outside. Because of this, I had to have a caesarean for my second daughter’s birth. I was knocked out with a general anaesthetic and my daughter was cut from my body. I didn’t get to see her for some hours until I had come around from the GA. We called our beautiful, tiny, “twin 2”, Grace.

My caesarean scar is a constant reminder of how wrong that birth was, and I feel like I let Grace down that she didn’t benefit from natural birth and have a cuddle straight after birth like both of her sisters did. The other marks on my body make me proud, though. My body has changed a lot more than it did with my first pregnancy and birth – my tummy is covered in stretchmarks and I have a slight overhang above my caesarean scar, but these are all reminders to me that I carried, nurtured and loved my babies with everything I had in me, for almost 8 months. I feel like a true mother, and my “mummy tummy” is a badge of honour – It speaks to the world and to all who see it, and it says, “this is more than a woman – this is a MOTHER.” It tells the story of the amazing journey that I have been through of pregnancy and birth, and of carrying three babies through two pregnancies. There is no achievement greater than that, and I am so proud.

My baby girls are so perfect, all three of them. I breastfed Anna for 16 months until she stopped asking for it, and I am planning on breastfeeding the twins until they decide it is time as well :-) I’m so grateful to the universe that no matter how they arrived here on earth, I have been blessed with three amazing, beautiful little girls and that makes me one of the luckiest people in existence.

I only wanted and planned on having two children (I got a bonus baby!) but after this birth experience… Initially I was so sure I would never want any more children ever again – not just because we had had all the pregnancies we had planned for, but because I had been so traumatised that I didn’t think I COULD do it again. But now, part of me yearns to have a fourth baby some time (not any time soon!), just to prove to myself what can be done. Not that it will right the wrongs of the birth that I experienced with the twins, but it would heal some of the hurt I have been left with after that birth, if I could do it again and do it RIGHT. I still yearn for that last perfect birth that I feel was taken from me in the theatre room where I birthed my last two children. Part of me feels it would be helpful and healing to do it again before I’m done, maybe after my degree is complete and I have been working for a few years, so when the girls are 7 or 8… I’d have to convince my husband on that one, though – as he is as offput as I was after the whole ordeal that I don’t think he’d be willing to risk me going through it all again :-(

The attached photos are:
1 – 28 weeks bump photo
2 – One month postpartum side on
3 – One month postpartum other side
4 – One month post partum face on
5 – One month post partum tummy only
6 – Caesarean scar

~Age: 21
~Number of pregnancies and births: 2 pregnancies, 2 natural births and 1 caesarean birth
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: Anna is aged 22 months, and Sophie-Rose and Grace are 1 month old (so 1 month post partum)

A Belly I Don’t Know (Shaunda)

Bonnie (SOAM) Before Pregnancy, Belly, Cesarean, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions 15 Comments

Age: 27
Number of pregnancies and births: 1 pregnancy, 1 birth
Age of my child: 17 weeks (4 months, 1 week)

I have always wanted to post something on this amazing site, but just never had the courage. I looked at this site religiously throughout my entire pregnancy, knowing that I would have a hard time coping with my post-pregancy body. So, now I’ve decided to share my story, in hopes that someone can relate to me or offer any input.

I found out I was pregnant on January 14th, 2009. I had always wanted children (as I am the 1st of 8 and love being around kids). So, I absolutely enjoyed my entire pregnancy! At 8 weeks pregnant, I was diagnosed with a subchorionic hemmorage and put on bedrest for 3 weeks. I was absolutely terrified that I would lose my daughter and was, needless to say, ecstatic to find out that the blood clot literally thinned out and disappeared while I was on bedrest.

On September 16th, 2009 at 40 weeks and 2 days pregnant I went into labor. It was so crazy because I was obsessed with being pregant and even more so about being able to survive the pain of labor. But when I actually went into labor, I had no idea that was what was happening. I thought I just had gas or something:)!. When I got to the hospital i was already 7 centimeters dialated. But an hour later, my daughter’s heart rate was dropping and I ended up having an unwanted c-section. My beautiful baby girl was born at 6:35am at 8lbs, 4oz.!!

Today my baby is 4 months old and absolutely the best thing that has ever happended to me. I literally did not know love until I held her in my arms! There is nothing like it–she is my everything!! The only thing is I am slowly becoming sad and unaccepting of my new body. I was always a really skinnny person. Before I was pregnant, I weighed about 127 lbs. I gained 42 lbs throughout my pregnancy and weighed in at 169 the day she was born. Throughout the pregnancy, I was excited about gaining weight, just knowing there was a little person in me growing! But now that she is here, I want my old stomach back. I now weigh 145 lbs and my stomach is so foreign to me. Everyone at work keeps saying, “you don’t even look like you had a child”. I just smile and say to myself, “that’s just cause I’m hiding behind these clothes and sucking it in every now and then”. What’s wrong with me? I’m not fat, but I can only explain it by saying that when you are small for 27 years and all of a sudden you have fat hanging over your jeans, you go from a size 3/4 to 7 or 9 (depending), it’s hard to get used to it.

I love my daugther so much and would do my whole pregnancy over 1 million times if I had to. But if I could just flatten this tummy, I would be happier. I don’t mind the weight, but I got very little stretch marks on my belly (more on my thighs) and want to get into a bikini again, but not with this belly! I hope it will get better with time; I want to run/workout, but I don’t know where to start since I never had to?? I have a ton of clothes and can’t fit any of them, so each time I reach for a shirt or pants to put on and have to take it off cause something’s hanging over or poking out, I get pissed and frustrated. Hopefully this will get better. Holding and playing with my daughter makes it feel better, though. Thanks for listening to my story. All you mothers out there are truly beautiful, strong, and inspiring.

Picture#1: Me pre-pregnancy
Picture #2: Me 8 months pregnant
Picture #3: My beautiful daughter (Shaila)
Picture #4 and #5: My stomach now at 4 months postpartum

An Update to my Story (Jen)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Cesarean, Plus-Sized Mom, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions, Tattoo, Third Pregnancy, Update 13 Comments

27
3 pregnancies, soon to be 3 births (all c-sections)
5, 3 and due in 4 weeks

I originally posted this in December of 2006. To recap, we were in a serious car accident when I was 24 weeks pregnant with our second child, and it left me with pelvic injuries, and depression. I read my submission recently, and was shocked that I didn’t see at the time just how depressed and angry I was!

I have grown a lot since then. It has been 4.3 years since the accident, and I have finally gotten a diagnosis, and some realistic expectations from my physicians. I have an unstable pelvis, SI joint dysfunction and deterioration, and myofascial pain syndrome. I’m never going to be pain free again, and I have exhausted the available treatments at this time. I can choose to have more prolotherapy, which involves injections of a sugar solution in to the joints in my pelvis/lower back, but having had ~250 injections at this point (20 – 25 per treatment, x 10 treatments,) I have learned that they do not work. I have been in pain 24/7 for the last 4.3 years, but I no longer allow it to rule me. I beat depression, have started a support group for moms coping with chronic pain, and am using my experiences to help other moms who are in the position I was in. I have adopted a new motto in life: “It is what it is.” I cannot change what happened to me, but I can accept it, move forward, and be an advocate for those who haven’t gotten to this point yet J To remind myself of this, I designed a tattoo using some of my favorite elements, and put it over the injection sites on my lower back on June 6th, 2009.

In my original story, I was struggling with being told that I could not carry another child. I am happy to say that I am proving them wrong, because after a BCP failure in June, I am now expecting my third daughter. She will be arriving via c-section on my YDD’s birthday in 4 weeks. It has been an extremely rough pregnancy, but seeing my daughter will make it all worth while!

Thanks for reading!

My tattoo when I first got it
Me at 35 weeks with # 3 J
My girls at a wedding (flower girls)

Just a few degrees south (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Cesarean, Mom over 30, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions, Third Pregnancy, Twins 3 Comments

I had my first two children when I was 21 and 23. The pregnancies themselves were perfectly normal and healthy, but I was pretty depressed because the father wanted nothing to do with them. He tried to convince me to abort both times right up until the third trimester. I left him when our second child was a few months old. I went back to school and got my life together. Then, I met a wonderful man who loved my children almost more than I did. We got a married a few years later and then, learned we were pregnant with twins. I had said I didn’t want to have children after 30, so it was perfect timing. Like my first two, this pregnancy was fairly normal and healthy, but I experienced intense pain in my pelvic. I had something called pubic symphosis separation. My midwife wasn’t familiar with it, but she’d sent me to a physical therapist. I worked right up until the day I went into labor at 35 weeks. I had gone in for a regular appointment and the midwife checked to see if I was having real contractions or just more of the braxton-hicks variety. Turned out I was dilated to four and in full labor – I didn’t even know it. I’d been having contractions for 6 weeks and they felt the same to me.

I’d hoped to have a natural delivery, but both babies were breech. They were born via c-section four hours later. My husband cried as he held his children for the first time. I struggled not to panic and to keep my feelings of complete failure to myself. I had really hoped for a natural birth. Honestly, it wasn’t until I read Colleen’s Ode To My Scar on this site that I began to feel differently about it all.

I have always been plus sized, but after the twins, I shed weight very fast. I now weigh less than I did on my wedding day, but I just have all this skin lined with stretch marks. My husband thinks I am beautiful, and the beauty he sees is reflected in his eyes every time he looks at me. That’s what has helped me come to terms with the amazing body I have now.

This is me at 33 weeks and then today, 11 months pp.

~Age: 31
~Number of pregnancies and births: 3 pregnancies, 4 children
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 10, 8, 1 year old twins.

Mom to 10 month old twins (Ariel)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Breastfeeding, Breasts, First Pregnancy, Gestational Diabetes, NICU, Preemie, Pregnant, Submissions, Toxemia, Twins 7 Comments

I have been engaged to my fiance for 2 years when we moved out of the dorms and into our first apartment together, less than a month later I was pregnant, about a month later I found out ‘it’ was ‘them.’ I found out I was pregnant with twins at an abortion clinic. I wanted a baby but not at that point in my life, not when I was at the end of my teaching program, not before I was married….NOT NOW…is all I kept saying. When I was laying on the table in the clinic and the lady looked at me and said ‘I detect multiples.’ I cried, for the first time I cried because I knew they were here for a reason. There was no history of twins in my family, I wasn’t doing IVF, and I was only 20! Nothing says that I should have had twins. I felt like it was a miracle.

Anyway, I was happy about my pregnancy and told my parents and family when I was 9 weeks pregnant. We found out at 21 weeks that we were having a boy and a girl! We were super excited. It took forever to figure out their names but we finally chose them: Delilah AnnMarie and Leon Jason Paul and we were thrilled! I was going to school full time while my fiance was working full time.. At 31 weeks along I went to my OB for my appointment and he said ‘you are too complicated for the local hospital, so here are all your records, go find another doctor.’ I didn’t get names to other doctors but it didn’t matter because the next night at midnight while I was getting in the shower my water broke. My fiance drove me to the ER and they sent me by ambulance to a wonderful hospital over an hour away. I stayed there for 5 days while they tested me and tested me. I was borderline gestational diabetic and severe pre-eclampsia. At 9am the doctor said ‘there is no way she is leaving. We’re keeping her here until 34 weeks and then we’re taking the babies.’ At 5pm, the same doctor walked in and said ‘we’re having the babies in the morning.’ I was FREAKING out…to say the least.

My sweet baby girl was born at 8:04am and her little, yet bigger, brother was born 2 minutes later. Delilah weighed 3lb and Leon was 3lb 3oz. I saw them for 2 seconds and then they were ran down the hall to the NICU and they lived there for 48 days. They came home a week before their due date. During that time I was recovering from my c-section. It was brutal!

Concerning my weight and body image: I have never thought I looked good. I hated my body. A week before my twins were born I weighted 299lb…that is my highest weight. I don’t know how much, if anything, that I have lost, but since the beginning of the year I have set the goal for myself to love my body and to get to a healthy weight. I know I have a lot of work to do but I feel so much better since I’ve been eating better. I have been eating little to no junk food, no carbonated drinks, eating whole grains, and low fat, low sugar foods.

I’ve included pictures of me in the hospital, pictures of my belly when I was pregnant (all those pictures I keep off facebook) and a picture of me breastfeeding my son (to show how huge my boobs were) and a picture of me last week trying to get a picture of the 3 of us. That one is the hardest for me to look at, because I look so wide. Anyway, I think this site is amazing and will help me love my body.

Your Age: 21
Number of pregnancies and births: 1 pregnancy and 2 births
The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: 10 month old twins

Update (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Postpartum, Pregnant, Second Pregnancy, Submissions, Update 13 Comments

Age: 22
How many kids: 2 babies one age 8 months and one 3 years old

Hello to all the beautiful mommies . I first would like to say that i love this site and it has helped get through some rough times about my body image. it has shown me that there’s many women out there that get stretch marks , loose skin and such and its not just me. I have also posted here 7 months after having my son. Anyways I am a single mom of two babies. One girl and one boy. My little boy is 3 years old and my little girl is almost 8 months old. I struggle every day with my body but I try to think positive. My babies were worth every stretch mark and I wouldnt change anything. I have alot of good days but then those bad days come when I cant find one thing I like about my body. I dont like my stomach and every since having my second baby I dont like my breasts either. I think they lost quite abit of fullness and are small. I just want to thank you for all the brave mommies who post. Its not an easy thing to do but its helping soo many women. I really wish that all women could love thier bodies and its sad that so very few do. Well thanks for listening. Oh and i dont have any pics of the end of my pregnancy. I got pretty big and I wish i had some to show :)

Healing Takes Time But I’m On My Way (F)

Bonnie (SOAM) Before Pregnancy, Belly, Breasts, First Pregnancy, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions 19 Comments

1 pregnancy, 1 birth. 5 months postpartum.

I finally am ready to share my story and photos. I have been reading other women’s stories on Shape of a Mother since I was 6 months pregnant or so. They really helped to change my views of my own and other women’s bodies. I now believe that every woman is beautiful. Being a mother is especially beautiful, to me.

I met Michael in July of 2008 and even with our 16-year age difference (I’m 23 now), we fell in love and decided to have a baby. I discovered I was pregnant in November 2008. My pregnancy was healthy, though I was very morning sick for a few months and I also gained about 90 pounds . I was very skinny when I met Michael and by the time I got pregnant I had gained about 20 pounds and was at a perfect weight (160 lbs- I am 5’10”).

Pregnancy brought out a lot of emotional issues, some I didn’t even realize I had. I learned a lot about myself, but unfortunately I had some pretty extreme arguments and fights with my close friends and my mother. Michael and I also began arguing a lot. Luckily my friends and mom eventually understood and forgave me, but over time the fighting really started to disturb Michael, who was (and is, I believe) struggling with his own inner problems of depression and anxiety. I kept promising him that it would get better once I had the baby.

Sophia was born in August 2009, at which time Michael and I were getting ready to buy a home for our family (we had talked about marriage but at that point we definitely felt we should take it one step at a time). My water broke one evening after I woke up from a nap, and 8 hours later, my daughter was born. I had an epidural at 9 cm (we didn’t know how far I was until after I got it!), and there were no complications. It was the best and scariest day of my life. I now know what it is like to fall in love with someone you KNOW you will always love! Giving birth really does help you to learn how to work with your body, and if I ever have another one, I would like to try and skip the epidural all together.

So, Michael took 7 weeks of his paid vacation time to be with me and the baby. It was great, but tiring and stressful. We still continued to argue over the tiniest things. I had to learn to let him do things his way with the baby (leave the room if you have to, I figured out! Haha). In October, Michael dropped a bomb on me: He wanted me to move out, and he was canceling the house deal.

I was shocked, hurt, angry, and in denial. I talked to friends and family (whom I love dearly but are not the type of friends or family that I could just go and stay with…) and I decided to stand my ground and say, “I’m not moving out yet. I’m only 8 weeks postpartum!” Sophia and I moved into her nursery and we continued our breastfeeding relationship. Things began to get extremely tense with Michael. One day we discussed how things would be as far as him seeing our daughter when we moved out. We ended up arguing because he thought he should have her some nights out of the week since he had been getting up with her for one night-time feeding (she had, and still has, 3 per night). I disagreed, because I knew it would compromise our breastfeeding arrangement, and I was not prepared to let her sleep somewhere without me at such a young age.

Eventually Michael filed for a PFA (Protection from Abuse) with the court due to “verbal abuse.” The PFA also included an eviction which is what he was after. He just wanted me out, immediately. I had been resisting moving out because I had not worked since I was 5 months pregnant and he had been supporting me. He was my only source of income. I was also really nervous to live alone again, and even more nervous to live alone with Sophia. After a lot of anxiety, crying, feeling sorry for myself, and praying, I agreed to move out if he paid for the move and if he agreed to pay monthly child support. I am a part time student and when I start school again this semester I will also have student loans to live off of. So financially I WILL be taken care of, I just need to learn to budget.

So now Sophia and I live one block away from her father (that’s right, I moved into an apartment building one block away). He has her 3 hours a day. It’s not a lot of time but it’s better than none! He will also be watching her when I take my classes at school. Though as of yet, we are not friends (tried that and it didn’t really work….he doesn’t want me to come into his apartment because he needs his space, and although it seems extreme, I can understand it, sort of.) I am hoping that one day we will be able to get along as friends do. We do still communicate about our daughter and we both love her very much. She’s healthy, and happy, and adorable! I have a therapy session once a week and am learning ways to cope as a single mother. I am sloooowly losing the weight and though I haven’t been exercising much since I moved out, I plan to start again. I am still breastfeeding as well. I really love it and Sophia really loves it, so I want to do it as long as I can!

Sharing my story with all of you is part of my healing process. I could keep analyzing the “whys” of the situation, and keep thinking of all the things I did wrong and could have changed, but that is not what I am supposed to do. I am supposed to be a good mother to Sophia, and that is what I plan to be. Although things did not turn out the way I had hoped, imagined, planned for, and wanted so desperately, they turned out the way they were supposed to, and the best part is- it’s not over- I have a whole life to keep living with my daughter, and I am in charge of my destiny!

Thank you for reading this.

PS. I could have easily gotten Postpartum Depression (and still could!), but I have been on the lookout for it. I have added fish oil capsules to my supplement routine and they have really helped my mental and physical health!

Picture Captions:
#1: About 4 weeks pregnant.
#2: 20 days before giving birth (1 week late!)
#3. 5 months PP.

My Beautiful/Crazy Motherhood (Nichole)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Four or More Pregnancies, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions, Teen Mom 6 Comments

~Age:23
~Number of pregnancies and births:3 & 3
~The age of your children, or how far postpartum you are: ages 7, 5, 2

Well this site just made me feel 100% better! Let me start from the beginning! I was 15 when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I am 5’2″ have been since the age 14 & I weighted about 115/120 lbs. By the time I went in to have my first little girl I was 16 & weighed 175 lbs. I remember waking up one morning for school & putting on my “big” overalls at 9 months pregnant & busting the ties on the sides of the overalls. I cried .. a lot. But my pregnacy went great & my labor was new, so it was painful & emotionally draining but nonetheless it went good. My daughter was 7 lbs even & beautiful. I was a single mom at 16 but I had my mom and family & it was great. Then at the age 18, I started dating the same guy, (just fyi he is also the same one I lost my virginity to, and now is my wonderful husband almost ten years later) I got pregnant again. This time I weighed about 120 & when I went to to have our son (6lbs 4oz) I weighed 140 & miraculously weighed 125 when I left the hospital. We had a lot of problems & we split up. Then 2 years later we were back together & I got pregnant with our 2nd little girl. I weighed about 140 when I got pregnant with her & 160 when I had her. Then this in Feb’09 we finally made official and got married. I guess after all that babbling the entire reason for my post to begin with is that, I’ve been with my (now husband) on & off for nearly 10 years. He remembers the pre-stretchmark, pre-baby gut me & I always feel like he couldnt possibly be attracted to the me i am now. But finding this site & realizing im not alone in feeling that way really helped me. We are beautiful & stretch marks & baby guts are what makes us the mommys we are! & if my husband has been around through 3 baby & hormonal pregnancies and is ok with it then I can be ok with who i am & how i am. P.s. we’re now expecting baby #4 in september. I’m about 6 weeks! Cheers to all you beautiful moms!

This is me (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Belly, Postpartum, Pregnant, Second Pregnancy, Submissions, Third Pregnancy 7 Comments

23 years old
I am now pregnant with my 3 child (10 weeks) and have had 2 births.
My 1st son is 2.9 years old and my second son is 12 months old

I have had a bad body image for such a long time. I always felt like my body was wrong after giving birth to my son. The when I gave birth to my second son I felt worst. I would look at my self and think *yuck* I could not understand why my husband thought I was so beautiful.

Then one day I decided to start looking at myself differently. If my husband could see that I am beautiful and not fat (I would always call myself fat) then why couldn’t I. So I started telling myself That my body was beautiful and that it was ok to look the way I do. A lot of the time I did not believe this.

When it was time to find a gift for my husband I wanted to give him something he would really enjoy. I kept asking him what he wanted for our anniversary and all he would say is “my wife”. So I decide to give him just that. I found someone who would do nice natural photos of me for my husband.

I had so much fun doing these photos and I started to really like my body. The photos were taken in my bedroom with natural light and no touch ups were done to my body at all. What you see is what I have. I now have a new love for my body. It’s not what it used to be but it is perfect to me.

I am sure after this baby is born my body will be different again but I am ok with that because I believe it will still be beautiful.

Christine and I have become friends after these photos were taken so she is also taking photos of me while pregnant.