Submissions

I was 16 when I found out I was pregnant. It took me half a second to decide I was going to keep and raise this child. I fell in the love the first time I heard his heart beat, back when he was just a little peanut on the screen. It was a pretty easy pregnancy, oddly I wasn’t scared. Horrible labor, it took hours. I was poked for an IV 9 times. Poked for an epidural 4 times, which only lasted for 2 hours. I was on muscle relaxers for 2 days and couldn’t even pick my own leg up. But it was all worth it the second I saw my baby boy. 7 pounds 2 ounces and 19 1/4 inches. He is the most beautiful boy I have ever seen. I would go through it all again in a second for him. During pregnancy I got stretch marks all over. My whole belly wrapped around to my back. My arms and breasts, and even the back of my knees. Until recently I thought I’d never be attractive again. But with the help of a woman I met on the internet, Amy, I see that I don’t have to be afraid to be proud of my body. Her courage helped me to show you all my post pregnancy body.

I am 28 years old and just had my first baby girl 6 months ago. I started out weighing 160 lbs (after losing 25 lbs about a year earlier through diet and exersise), gained 40 lbs during pregnancy, and now I am at 170. I had a planned c-section because the hospital would not deliver her breech. It was a easy pregnancy and an easy “delivery”…and she (baby Claire) is turning out to be such a wonderful little girl. Sure, I would like to lose some baby weight (and then some), but things could be worse. My baby is happy and healthy and I am feeling pretty good in my own skin, even if sometimes I look in the mirror and feel a bit dissapointed that another day has gone by and I *still* don’t resemble Kate Moss! What’s up with that? ;) I need to remember that my daughter is going to be looking at me as a role model and I am going to need to keep a good self-image so that she will hopefully be happy with how she looks as well.

I was living in Alaska when I became pregnant. I was 21. Partying peak age. Out every weekend. Then BAM. Preggers. My finace and I had just broken up a few weeks earlier and he had moved out. I was trying to make it on my own as a low-grade manager in a clothing store. For those of you who don’t know, Alaska is an expensive state to live in. Anyway, I had what I like to call an irresponsible moment. I had met another guy and was on the rebound. I’ve never done that before. Because of this, I am unsure of who the biological father of my daughter is. I’m not the only one this has happened to, and I know this. I also don’t feel like any less of a person because of it. I moved back to my home state when I was about four months pregnant. I couldn’t afford to pay my rent anymore, let alone raise a baby. During my seventh month, a boy whom I had gone to high school with and I started talking. He claimed he had liked me since junior year. He wanted to take me out to a movie and dinner, just as friends, because he knew all of my friends lived in cities further away because of college. I agreed. We had no idea we’d fall in love. He’s been there for me since that day. He would rub and talk to my belly constantly. He stayed with me the entire time I was in labor. To me, he IS my daughter’s “daddy”. He’s been there since the day she was born, and she loves him to death. My ex fiance and I are still friends. We plan on doing a DNA test this spring when he comes home to visit. As for the other guy, he could care less about me or my daughter. But life goes on, and she’s very loved. It’s been 5 months on the 29th of February since she was born. She is my life. My angel. Random facts about my pregnancy/post-pregnancy: * I gained 60lbs. Topping out at 220lbs the day I was induced (which was my due date!) * I was officially preeclampsic the day I was due. * I have stretch marks from the back of my knees to the back of my arms all from being pregnant. * I was being treated for depression/anxiety before and during my pregnancy. During my pregnancy, my moods weren’t too bad at all. I actually felt “normal”. (I was still taking the medication during my pregnancy). After having my daughter, the moods became worse and I’ve had to have the dosage of my medicine increased. I felt like I was the ONLY one who had been through it. Now I know I wasn’t… * I was more confident about my body when I was pregnant that I EVER have been in my life.

I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times. I love your website.

I am not a mother. I am a 36 year old Ph.D. student who was doing a search for “real women” when I came across your website. Now that I am officially middle-aged, give or take, I felt I needed to see what other women my age look like. The women in my program are actually older than me or younger than me, so I thought I’d look online to see what women en masse look like in their mid-thirties. I didn’t get much on-line.

Instead, I got your website and boy do I feel silly. I was truly humbled by the strength displayed by all the women there. I’m wondering if I look as good as I did when I was in my 20s and these women, most younger than me, are displaying scars of one of the strongest loves known to man: that of a mother.

Needless to say, I now realize that I look just fine and that I will ALWAYS look just fine because we, as humans, are meant to display what we’ve accomplished physically. Whether it is age, or motherhood, or calluses from dancing, or cancer, or a surfing injury, or whatever the world may throw you, your body is the account of it and we all have our scars, wrinkles, laugh-lines, moles, grey hairs, etc.

Anyway, thank you for indulging me. Thank you for your website. Thank you for thinking about what women need.

I had my first child at age 36, my second at age 39. This is me at 40. I don’t recognize my body. I used to do yoga several times a week, feel very strong and fit, and was a size 2, with a small waist and firm breasts. I’m all mush now, and it’s hard for me to look at. I love my kids, but I don’t feel very pretty. I surprised myself with the body image issues I’ve had postpartum, especially since I’m such a strong feminist, and have always scorned dieting and any hint of the Lean Cuisine size-conscious mindset. Thank you for this website. I love that it’s here, and all these women are here.

I am having two girls. I feel even more acutely now how important it is to teach them, as future women in the world, how to be strong in themselves, to be able to look at the body God gives them with pride and say, “look what amazing things my body has done”. I don’t feel I can do that for my girls if I can’t lead by example. So while there are days that I still think it’d be nice to regain some of that youthful perkiness (north and south), there’s nothing I’m more proud of than being this vessel of life and I will wear my battle scars proudly. And I WILL update when I have a post-baby belly again. Thank you for this website. What an amazing thing! Included are pics of my twin belly at 29 1/2 weeks. the two that might be harder to decipher are of my belly as I see it when I lie in bed, and one from overhead.

I hesitated for a few days before submitting my pictures. I love this website, I love all the pictures I found here – of all breathtakingly beautiful mothers. I almost feel like I was cheated out of something. I… look good. My pre-pregnancy body just came back, on its own, without any diet, without any exercise – I can’t take any credit for it whatsoever. Not a single stretch mark, no extra skin around my belly. I weigh slightly less than pre-preg. I lost my boobs along the way, too, and who knows what’s going to happen to them once I stop breastfeeding. My daughter will be 3 years old soon. I want to let her decide when she’s ready to move on. I was 31 when I gave birth – it was quick and intense, at home with my husband and 2 midwives. My only child so far – my beautiful, brilliant, witty daughter. We want to start trying for another baby soon. My Mom was 39 when she gave birth to my youngest brother. There are 3 of us. My Mom has no stretch marks either and has been slim all her life. It’s in the genes, I guess… The first picture was taken at 37 weeks. My daughter is 3 months old on the second one. I AM sucking my tummy in on this one. The last two are from today. 32 months later. I can’t remember when my body became this way – some 7-8 months post partum, I think. Warmest greeting to All Mothers…

I am 27 years old, and my son recently turned 4 years old. When I became pregnant, I was 20lb lighter. I now weigh 150 lbs, and am happy with my body. I have stretch marks galore on my breasts, but only a few on my belly near my pubic hair. My son is still very devoted to his ‘milkies’ and professes that he will nurse forever. Well, I know better, so I am cherishing this time with him still as my little nursling, knowing the time will be gone all too soon. My breasts have never been small and perky, and even before my son, they always were pendulous. I pay homage to them, though, for providing milk for my son these last four years.

My body works. It does what it was intended to do. It does what God made it for. It makes healthy children. It bears healthy children. It feeds children to make them healthy. My body works, I am a mother. I have always felt like an old soul in a young body. If I believed in reincarnation, I would swear that my soul had been around for centuries, had lived different lives, experienced different worlds. When I became an adult I decided to act on these feelings and become the woman I felt inside, instead of the woman people saw. I fell in love on the cusp of womanhood, married the man that nature intended to be mine, and gave birth to my first child before I was more than a child myself. Birth was a natural thing that happened in life, like breathing, like puberty, like gray hair. Birth was just something that happened. It was not bad, it was not scary, it was not hard. These are the lessons that my mother taught me, showed me in the birth of my siblings. When my children came into the world, they came naturally. They came into our home, they came into their father’s arms. They came into a place without fear or anger. A place full of love and peace. My firstborn came without fear but not without work, hard work. Now I know why they call it labor. I am so grateful to him for being strong enough to come first, to teach me how to be a mother, to pave the way for the others. And then a daughter. The second edition of my original self. She is stronger, fearless. Everything wish I could be. I will not hold her back. Giving her the birth I did, I started her down a path that shows her the world is hers for the taking. And my baby. My second son. So much quicker, easier, calmer. The peace maker in our home, from the moment of his conception. His spirit is so strong, he will do great things in this world. I give my body to them now, as I did when it was their world of growing. Now they gain from it love, confidence, nourishment. I am not ashamed of what they have done to my body, I am proud. In one of the past lives that I never experienced, I was a warrior. I draw strength from that warrior woman now, as I did when I brought my children into the world. My body is brown. Like the earth, it soaks in the sun, making me warm and life-giving. My flesh, my curves, are my battle scars. But scars cannot be called beautiful, so mine are not scars, but badges. Badges as beautiful and colorful as ancient badges of honor. Badges as adored by my husband as sunken cheeks are adored by the world. My body is considered beautiful. If not by you, or you, then it is always considered beautiful by my love, by my children, by me. I am theirs forever, theirs is the only approval I seek. My breasts are not perky anymore, my butt is not tight anymore, my stomach is not smooth anymore. My body is different than it was when I was a girl, but that is because I am not a girl, now I am a woman. How could someone go through such alterations as pregnancy and childbirth and not be affected? It would be wrong. The body is made to accommodate, and serve as a reminder to life. Like puberty, like grey hair. Change is something that happens. I welcome the change to my body, it serves as a reminder of the miracles of life. Of the beauty of nature. Of the blessings of love. I love my body. My body works. It has done what it was intended to do. It has done what God made it for. It has made healthy children. It has born healthy children. It has fed children to make them healthy. My body works, I am a mother.

I am 25 years old. In a few weeks my son will be a year old. I can hardly believe it. I love him more then I imagined it possible to love someone. However, love for my self does not come as easily. Having been pretty much anorexic as a teenager I struggle with body image. I gained 42 pounds during my pregnancy. My body just seemed to want to gain whether i wanted it to or not. Now, I weigh 125 pounds, 5 less then my pre-pregnancy weight and still I am not satisfied. I focus in on the negative and am overly bothered by my (very few) stretch marks. Why do I feel this way? Why does it seem the whole world is set up to enforce these feelings rather then encourage a more accepting and loving outlook? I want to appreciate my body for having nurtured my son but find this appreciation overwhelmed by an overly critical eye.