Benefits of Weight Training (Anonymous)

I had my daughter 12 years ago at the age of 25. I gained 50+ pounds during my pregnancy. I worked hard to drop the weight, but didn’t discover weight training until last year. This photo was taken 2 months ago after 9 months of training 2-3x a week. You can still see that my stomach pooches out a bit and has stretch marks, but I feel strong. I am 5’4″ and weigh 120lbs. Prepregnancy weight was 110lbs. I weighed 163lbs before giving birth.




10 Months PP with Baby #2 (Kimi)

I am Kimi. I am a 24 year old mom of 2. My DS is 2 (8-3-06) he was born 8 days late. DD is 10 months (1-25-08) and she was 2 weeks & 2 days late. I gained & lost over 100 pounds in about 2 years. As you can see my children are close in age & as many mothers know that can take a huge tole on your body. I loved being pregnant. I took advantage of it. I worked out during both my pregnancies to keep healthy. I nurse my son from the time he was born, through my pregnancy and right along with my daughter after she was born. I contribute that to a huge part of my weight loss. That and the fact that once my daughter was born I had a wild 18 month old boy to chase around.

I was very unhappy with my body after my son. I was by no means over weight but I had stretch marks & hated them. I got pregnant with my daughter shortly after & I forgot how much I hated my body since I loved being pregnant so much. After she was born, I wore my stretch marks as a badge of honor. I didn’t get that many compared to some women but I do have several on my hips and bum. I was so self conscious in front of my husband but he assured me that I am more beautiful than I was before I had children. That I should be proud of my body!

I went on to work out with my child and get my body to the shape that I was happy with. As a gift to my wonderful husband I had some pictures taken in lingerie. I was 9 months PP in them.

I have included pictures from both during and after both pregnancies!

The 1st picture is 36 weeks pregnant with #1.
The 2nd picture is 41 weeks pregnant with #1.
The 3rd picture is 1 month PP #2.
The 4th picture is 22 weeks pregnant with #2.
The 5th picture is 30 weeks pregnant with #2.
The 6th picture is 1 month PP with #2.
The 7th picture is 4 months PP with #2.
The 8th picture is 9 months PP with #2.










belly (Anonymous)

i was 19 when i had my little boy. my body has changed and im trying to accept it. im almost at my pre-pregnany weight but my stomach is still mushy and i have soo many stretchmarks all over the place it makes it hard to love. i do however love my son and i wouldnt trade him for anything. if it means that ill have a mushy stomach and a road map on my butt the rest of my life then im just fine with that.







18 Months After CS and a Beautiful Girl… (Anonymous)

This is my body now. I hate it. After my CS i was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Polycystic ovarie syndrom. Because of the Polyblabla its hard to lose weight, since everything you eat gains on the stomach. I was a size 36(european sizes.. small/medium) the day i had my girl, and the day after i was a size 46. I got a beautiful daughter and a body i hate, that is not mine, but her mothers. I feel so disgraced that she has to live with a mother like me, what will she think? Why me, why did i have to get diseases like that, making me invalid at 25… I try so hard to accept my body, and when i see all the skinny, beautiful women here i tend to get happy but also sad; you all look great!!! Luckily my husband loves me and my body, so i cope “fine” with it, but its a war inside.





One Mental Year Later (Anonymous)

Hi everyone! :) I found this site at the beginning of my pregnancy and thought that now, just past my daughter’s first birthday, would be a fairly apt moment to reflect on this mental year and nine months and make a post myself. I’m 5ft2 ish and I started my pregnancy at 9st (see before photo!) I put on about a stone in the first month then two more by the end – total weight gain of 3 stone or 52lbs !! I was also polyhydramnios (more amniotic fluid than usual) so I was MASSIVE. I thought I had got away without stretchmarks on my tummy until week 36 when they started creeping up from my knicker line. I also have a belly button piercing and that stretched alot. Also, I developed weird stretchmarks on both inner thighs from baout week 26 which got bigger and bigger until my daughter was born. Couldnt understand whay I got them there! I also have more on my hips and LOADS on my boobs, although these have faded quite a bit. My pregnancy went smoothly other than very low blood pressure which left me feeling faint and breathless most of the time from about week 34. I worked until 6 days before my due date and went into natural labour 6 days past my due date. I was due that morning to have a membrane sweep, which I didnt much fancy, so I was quite pleased with Lily’s timing! My waters broke slowly overnght and I gave birth at 18.50 the following evening, with NO PAIN RELIEF AT ALL to my beautiful 8lb 9oz baby girl Lily. She is the most wonderful little girl in the world and most definitely worth it all. I desperately wanted to breast feed but Lily just didnt take to it. The midwife decided to cup-feed her formula for one feed because they were concerned she was hungry and after that she just wanted really interested in trying to feed from me. I was very upset but managed to express breast milk for her for 8 weeks until my supply dried up. Im pleased that she got my breat milk, even thouh it meant milking myself every 90 minutes and feeling somewhat like a cow for 2 months! ;) My body was ‘better’ before in many ways – my tummy was flat and toned and the skin was tight and my boobs stood up more, but honestly Im happier with my body now than I was before. It is just so incredible what our bodies can do – way more amazing than a flat stomach and toned skin. I celebrate my body so much more now and I feel like a whole woman. I have included a before photo, several through my pregnancy and some after pics. :) :) :)


Before
121008-anon-1

39 weeks – two weeks before the birth

3 days PP

25 days PP closeup of tummy

20 weeks

3 photos at one year PP




Learning to Love my 21 Year Old Baby Body (Anonymous)

I’ve been through a lot in my short 21 years and 10 months here on earth. The good, the bad, the unexpected… In high school I was a 5’3, 117 pound cheerleader with an eating disorder. I was teased when I was younger for being chubby, so I made up for it during my adolescence. I hid the memories of my broken childhood with alcohol, prescription pills, and eventually hard drugs. All of which helped me to maintain my thin frame. When I was 16, I met who would one day become my husband. Fast forward to college, by the time I was a Junior I was 130 lbs. I was okay with this, I had grown out of my self-destructive behavior for the most part, but my weight was still a burden on my mind every day. I was living with my high school sweetheart when we found out we were pregnant on Thanksgiving of 2007. Three semesters away from attaining my degree and suddenly it seemed so far away. I took a year off from school, sat at home and ate, and ate, ate… Over the course of my pregnancy I gained 73 lbs. The day I went into labor I weighed a whopping 203 lbs, most of which I gained in the last 3 months of my pregnancy, leaving me with numerous stretch marks on my hips, my breasts, thighs and calves. Thirty hours of labor and six hours of pushing later, my baby boy was born at 8 lbs 9 oz. and 21 inches. A week later what I was left with was 180 lbs, nearly a hundred stretch marks and some saggy skin. Despite my previous obsession over my body image, I became less concerned with it, and instead focused my attention on my new son. With the help of breastfeeding, I lost nearly 40 lbs in the first two months. My weight loss began to slow, so when I stopped breastfeeding at 3 months post-partum, I began eating healthier. I am proud to say that today, on my son’s 4 month birthday, I weighed in at 145 lbs. I am still overweight for my height; however I have never been more content with or proud of my body. I look at my son everyday with pride, and when I look at my stretch marks they remind me of that precious little face. I am going back to school in January to finish my degree, and thanks to my beautiful little interruption, I have all the motivation I need. The attached pictures are, in order: my pre-pregnancy body, my 38 week pregnant body, my one week pp body, my 1 month pp body, my present body, and my baby boy…








2 Beautiful Boys and an “Apron” (Anonymous)

I was always skinny. 111 pounds before the birth of my first son, and proceeded to gain 55 pounds. I ended up with stretch marks from literally my breasts to a few inches past my knees. After I lost the weight, my breasts were just loose skin, nothing else. My stomach looked pretty wrinkly, but I was okay because I was a size 0 and could wear tight shirts. I just had to tuck an inch of skin into my pants! I just had my second beautiful son 8 weeks ago, and gained the same amount of weight, and it’s coming off pretty easily. I went from 155 and am now 119. But my stomach is just loose skin, I knew this could happen but it consumes me every day. I have so may pairs of jeans I know I will never be able to fit into because of the loose skin draping over my pants. I have an absolutely wonderful husband who said, after I showed it to him sitting down, “what kind of husband would i be if I cared about that? You had a baby!” But he said if it bothers me that much, I can get a tummy tuck next year.






Updated here.

2 Baby Girls by 20 (Regina)

Previous entry here.

My name is Regina. I became pregnant with my first daughter when I was 16 years old. I planned on giving her up for adoption for the first 5 months of the pregnancy but in the end I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Her father and I were married when I was 32 weeks pregnant. We were both 17 years old. 9 weeks later, on January 9, 2006, 8 days late, my baby girl was born. She was 8 pounds 8 ounces and 19 inches long. I started out the pregnancy at 158 pounds and a size 9-11. During the pregnancy I gained 47 pounds! Topping out at 205 pounds. I lost 20 pounds in delivery. My beautiful daughter gave me larger hips, larger breasts, lots of fat and a tummy full of stretch marks. I must say though I LOVE my stretch marks. I was never afraid to get them and did nothing to prevent them. I think they are beautiful. They mean so much to me. They mark a time in my life that is precious to me: the 9 months that I carried my princess inside of me. Over the next 2 years I managed to not lose a single pound. I did manage to tone my way down from a size 20 to a size 15. I was big, and soft but my shape was nice and I liked my body. On January 24, 2008, when I was 19 years old, my husband and I were surprised to find that we were expecting another baby. I was determined not to gain as much weight and to keep my body in shape. Well, with the exhaustion of taking care of my 2 year old and being pregnant I never managed to work out, though I did go for an hour walk everyday with her. By the end I had gained only 18 pounds! I weighed 204 pounds on the day I delivered. One thing that I was absolutely ecstatic about was the size of my belly. With my first, even when I was overdue people couldn’t always tell I was pregnant. But this time I was huge. I started showing at about 11 weeks and by the time I delivered I was a HOUSE! I absolutely LOVED my belly and my body! My 2nd daughter was born 8 days late on October 5, 2008. She was 8 pounds 10 ounces and 20 inches long. I lost all the weight from the pregnancy in delivery. But my hips have grown a few INCHES and my old stretch marks grew a bit longer, but no new ones. Even though I am my pre-pregnancy weight of 186 pounds, I am about 2 sizes above my pre-pregnancy size. I am now 6 weeks post partum. I am breastfeeding and starting a weight loss program. Since this is my last baby I’m going to work hard to get a decent body back without fear of losing it again to another pregnancy. I found this website when I was about 15 months post partum and fell in love with it. I have accepted my body so much more because of it. It has done amazing things. It has survived 2 teen pregnancies, a blotched epidural that caused permanent nerve damage in my lower half, a 100% natural delivery and now it is surviving breastfeeding. I would like to be thinner, but until then I love having a little chub for my children to rest when we are cuddling. The 1st picture is of me when I was 16 before I got pregnant. The 2nd is of my 9 months pregnant with my first. The 3rd and 4th are of me 24 months after my first. The 5th is me 9 months pregnant with my second. The 6th is of me now. And the 7th is the reason I wake up in the morning, Melora Abigail, 34 months and Amelia Grace, 6 weeks.









Updated here.