Submissions

I had six children during my 20s. I was pregnant and/or breastfeeding for over 12 years. It’s amazing to have my body back, even if it’s not the body it used to be. I have lumps, bumps, curves, dimples and stretchmarks. Parts of me sag, droop, bounce and sway. I try really hard to see my body as ‘different to’ rather than worse than it once was.

I had 5 natural deliveries, 1 caesarian and 1 late miscarriage. My children self-weaned between 1.5 and 3 years of age. At times I felt like I hadn’t slept for years… Now that the youngest is four, life is hectic in another way.

i gave birth to my whopping 9 pounder when i was 17 years old. my other 2 were 8 pounders and i didnt get any new stretch marks but the chub is harder to loose each time. im ok with the way my body looks now. ive been wrinkly for 10 years now and am coming to accept it more and more, although ide still like to loose the weight. my last child was born almost 8 months ago and im 30 punds over my pre pregnancy weight still. my stretch marks remind be of my babies and how connected we are as the first and the last were placed in adoptions and so my body reminds me of the sacrifice and serive of motherhood. i love them in that aspect.

I have been on this site a few times. It is very encouraging. I am a sahm to three children ages 6, 4 and 2. I weighed about 110 pre pregnancy and at the time of delivery of my first born i weighed right at 200! My entire body ached. I wish i had been more careful. I was with my other two, but the damage was already done with my first. So here is a picture I took recently of my stretch marks. I had to work really to get off the extra weight. And i still have a few more pounds to go. I have been considering a tummy tuck but after seeing these pics, i have decided to embrace my beauty.

I’m 43 and a mom of 3. I was looking at your web site because – well in getting “older” I am realizing that I have some “issues” regarding my body. I’m not “fat” – I never have been… but my God when I went from a 98 lb waif to 178 lbs in my 1st pregnancy I had a lot to mentally contend with! I’ve maintained a healthy weight since birthing my 3 but cannot seem to shake the whole stretch mark “flab” thing –

I’m still thinking I want too look as tho I’m in my teens and maidenhood – then I look in the mirror and can’t wrap my mind around it.

I went thru this web page and saw all the beautiful women in their motherhood bodies – and it so made me smile. Then I realized… “hey – that’s ME!”

so – just in time for my cronedom – I’m accepting motherhood.

First off, I LOVE this site! Thank you so much for sharing what real women look like. When we found out we were pregnant, we immediately knew we wanted to birth at home. It just made sense for us. Our family and friends weren’t very supportive and thought we were crazy. I went 3 weeks past my due date which, to some people, solidified the fact that our idea to birth at home was insane. The day I went into labor continues to be a very special day. For at least 12 hours, it was just my husband and I. Since we’d gotten little to no support from the people around us, only our midwife and her assistant were present at the birth. 16 hours later, our little girl was born. At home, right where we wanted her to be.

After 3 babies, I finally developed some stretch marks on my midsection. With my other two, they appeared everywhere else…butt, thighs, boobs, etc. All 3 of my births were moderately to severly traumatic…and there are times that I look in the mirror and am shocked that the emotional scars are not visible on the surface. They sure feel like it sometimes. My marks of motherhood do not bother me. I am much heavier and much rounder than I was before I started my journey into motherhood…but I almost prefer it this way. My children have a soft place to lay their heads when they’re sleepy…there are no bony edges to make them uncomfortable when they’re cuddling with me. I am a mother. I have a motherly body and I lead a motherly life. That’s the way it is and I wouldn’t have it any other way. (This is an important picture to me becuause my 3rd child, my first daughter, is the first of my kids that I suceeded in breastfeeding. I am a photographer, myself, so I set everything up for the shot but a friend pushed the button)

I never thought I would be on this site because becoming a mother had once seemed an impossibility to me. I was raped my a trusted family member at 14. I lost half of my family because it was too painful and shameful for them. From that point on, my body meant nothing to me but pain. I was tormented by that. I lost all sense of self worth and boundaries for my body and let people continue to use and abuse me. Even though I essentially gave them permission, it was in direct violation to everything I should’ve been, deserved to be. i never knew I deserved better. I clung to my petite figure and self image because i thought all i had to offer was the beauty of my external self. Then everything changed. I met someone who revealed to me the beauty of my inner self. We got married and the longing for a child burned within us. I yearned for such a gift but was holding myself back because of all of my past abuse. I knew that pregnancy would make me confront some very powerful and brutal truths ( I would have to learn to relate to my body in a completely new and intimate way) and I didn’t know if my heart and body could handle it. I prayed for the strength to let the walls come down and we decided to try for a baby. we went through 18 months of uncertainty and were told we may not conceive. It was so very painful and I felt “What good has my body ever been to me?” Then God wove together a chain of incredible events that changed my life forever. I broke down and cried out for help. a couple months later, my husband and I met a couple whom we eerily shared much in common with. they, too, had been trying to conceive a child and were told the odds were stacked against them.. they had been trying for five years. But only four months after our meeting.. we both found out we were expecting. we were six weeks apart and if everything wasn’t miraculous enough.. we would come to find that we were both expecting little girls. nine months later, out of my deepest pain, my body, my spirit and my soul triumphed and I gave birth to my precious baby girl. I am so deeply moved by the sight of my child that sometimes it brings me to tears. even though she is my gift, i have to admit that the body i hid behind for so long.. trying to keep it as my perfect little mask.. i can no longer hide behind. sometimes i feel so vulnerable and disfigured at the sight of my postpartum body. my breasts are no longer smooth but the skin on them puckered and saggy feeling with the grooves of stretch marks spread across them. my butt is covered in stretch marks as are my upper thighs. i cried the first time i saw myself after the birth. my biggest embarassment are my stretch marks. i only gained 35 pounds but i still got them. my greatest comfort is the realization that, as mothers, our bodies are nothing to be ashamed of but celebrated for our womb was a garden where the life of our child bloomed and that is what makes us beautiful.

I fell pregnant at 15. It was a mistake, I was fully capable knowning what I was doing. I mean it wasnt a big choice that was completely decided upon either, but a mistake isnt even an option. To me no child should ever be considered a mistake. I had no complications through out my pregnancy, but I was hungry, 24/7 causing me to go from about 135 lbs to 217 incredible lbs. ALOT! Even though everyone told me theres no way you could have weighed that much, I did. And I gained it everywhere, from my butt to my thighs to my stomach, to my arms. Which resulted in stretch marks EVERYWHERE! I am not talking about just a couple on my stomach, and thighs. I am talking about, all over my arms, ones that wrap from the front of my stomach to the back to my butt, and all down the inside of my legs, to my calves, on my hips. EVERYWHERE! Being so young, and still am, I feel so bad about myself. I love my baby girl more than words could ever describe and would take all the stretch marks in the world for her, but its so hard to see my young body just completely go. I do have a wonderful boyfriend, who I completely love and adore, been together for a couple of years now, and his family adores me as well, he tells me all the time I am beautiful, and that the stretch marks fade, and the extra weight can come off so easily, but to me that seems impossible. Although my baby girl is just a month old, it still seems hard to even think about the possibility of ever looking somewhat good again. But finding this site has changed my whole outlook on things, and how mothers really do look. And how real mothers dont go back to wear a size 2 the day they come home from delivery, and look fabulous, like celebrities. My first pictures is somewhere in late pregnancy. Second is at the hospital. The rest are of my stretch marks. And one of my baby.

All of this is my opinion so dont take my opinion to offense or personally, but I realized how this country America works in their portrayal of women. The images of “false” women we see are not women at all but products of a child hungry (pedophile) industry. The women that media, magazines, models, etc.portray have this childlike quality about them: flawless skin, soft youthfulness, innocence/virginity, flat stomachs and toned thin bodies (minus the huge breasts). All features of children, tho. Think about it. Models are signed on at what ages? 14, 15, 16 years old, children! Why would anyone want to see a 14yr old walking a catwalk in lingerie? What women, except for few, look like this and after kids especially? Our faces develop acne, we get dark eye circles from lack of sleep, skin is often riddled w/ stretchmarks and other marks in places we didnt even kno about and not to forget the stretched out stomach. And us women are made to think that if we dont go back to our youthful 20 year old bodies that we should just disappear. Most of American women don’t even have the means to buy personal trainers, nannies and nutritionists to regulate everything we do so we could get back into shape. If Hollywood moms didnt have the money they had they would look just like the rest of us and posting their body pics as well. And if models didnt have clauses in their contracts that said you must be back in modeling shape in this many days they would look just like us, too. In a nutshell and “my personal opionion”, society EXPECT women to have children, sacrifice for them and be a “good” mother, but if you also don’t meet the criteria of HOTness you should just stay at home out of public view and just be a mom. What kind of logic does any of this make? Little girls grow up into women, right? And Women help make this world and keep it under control. So then why is society so bent on looking/being like little girls?