Hmmmmm am I really the only one struggling with my body????

[LaDeeDa]

Hi All .....

Just got back from the farm so sorry it's taken me so long to respond.

FIRSTLY- thankyou to all the wonderful ladies who posted here and let the rest of us know we're not strange or alone - as a lot of you said it can be so taboo to say "hey you know what at the moment this whole pregnancy caper just isn't grabbing me!!"

There were too many wonderful responses to start mentioning everyone but I just want to say how much I appreciate all the thoughts and feelings!!!

You know what the funny thing is though ...... no matter how crappy we feel about ourselves and how much we beat ourselves up - the thing is the majority of people think we look beautiful - maybe we should all stop being our own worst critics and listen to them more? Hmmmm..... eaier said than done but I am really gonna try.

xoxoxoxoxxoxoxox

[LaDeeDa]

ps: just found my first strech marks grrrrr ....

[SophieRose]

i'm a bit overweight as it is, but always had an hourglass figure and my body was in proportion no matter big i got. But since being pregnant, my boobs have ballooned and my tummy has gotten bigger, though not sideways, just outwards, so i already look five or six months pregnant which gets me all kinds of weird looks when i say i'm only 9 and a half weeks pregnant. i'm really hating it.

Plus my DP has lost alot of weight lately and although i'm happy for him, i have to say i'm bit jealous. Becuase he eats sooooooo much chocoloate, and fatty stuff he still loses it!!!

He keeps telling me how great i look and how sexy i am, but when you feel like your already full term, you can't quite believe it.
I hate being pregnant, i really do. My DP's family asked me the other night when we were going to have another one, to which i replied "never, i hate this"

[OceanPrincess]

...You know what the funny thing is though ...... no matter how crappy we feel about ourselves and how much we beat ourselves up - the thing is the majority of people think we look beautiful - maybe we should all stop being our own worst critics and listen to them more? Hmmmm..... eaier said than done but I am really gonna try.

Well said sister

I'm going to do the same. Or try to

[Smoke Jaguar]

What? You mean you're NOT conforming to the ideal of being a 'yummy mummy'? How disgraceful! What kind of mummy to be are you? You must look like an icecream stick with a bump on it, didn't you know?
ARGHHHHH! I blame the media's obsession with approving of 'stars' who don't "let go of themselves" in pregnancy. In fact, how many of those stars don't even bother? The media then has a love/hate relationship with stars who work towards regaining physical approval by working out after the birth - oooohhh, too soon, bad mother or oooohhhh, there's a shining example, she's skinny again (read: what's wrong with you, it's 5 months later and you still wobble). I HATE IT.
This is how much I hate it: when I was pregnant I actually lost weight in the first trimester, but it wasn't noticeable to many because the people I'd worked with had only known me to be a bit plump (two years before that I was not, but Depo Provera can do that!) and it seemed that I was putting weight on 'responsibly'. A colleague was also pregnant a bit ahead in time of me and I absolutely LOATHED the unfavourable comparisons - "oh, at x weeks, D was so much bigger than you", "don't get as big as D, there's no need and you look great", and "at least you're not as big as D". What???? There is no way I want to be complimented at someone else's expense! Yeah, it may work for other people, but I think it's so hideous and superficial and completely invalidating of the other person, who is doing something wonderful in cooking a little person...why should it matter how publicly digestible my figure is???
We're told to feel dissatisfied with our bodies at every turn and in many ways. Without these messages, we would accept the changes and not have to waste energy on hating how they look. To me, it's like underarm hair. If it weren't so unequivocal that our society wants women to remove it, I'd bloody well leave it and be HAPPY about it. I do not buy when women say "I do it for myself". In fact, every time I do it, I show DP and say "I do this for you" (legs and bikini, too!), just so that we're both under no illusions about my motives. It's a social pressure that I am responding to, and only because he asks me to do it. So, if he's going to ask me to do it, I'm going to let him know when I do it so that he knows I'm indulging aesthetic convention.
So, no WONDER you aren't valuing the changes your body is making (beyond the bump)! We tell women all the time that there is only one nice way to be pregnant and if you don't comply, then it's very unsatisfactory and dont' try to feel nice about it!
My mum is still an offender, though she thinks she's doing a good thing. She keeps saying how nice I look when I'm slim. There's an unsaid "so don't put on any more weight" implied there! And when I have put some on and then lost it, she'll say "oh, you look nice like that, don't put any more on"...which tells me that she didn't like the way I looked before that...and she can't see how conditional that is and that it's upsetting to me. It even upset me when she kept on about how my sister wasn't able to lose her belly after her first baby. It gives me no joy whatsoever to be compared favourably to anyone. I like to be appreciated in my own right, not in comparison to someone related, someone I know or a famous person. Just unconditionally accepted for what I have to offer.
My pg body was not my ideal body with a bump tacked onto it. I knew that whatever my body was doing it had to do. And it would do what it had to do afterwards, too. Two and a half years later my sides still wobble and are soft and untoned. And you know what? My boy loves to stroke my sides and press his hands into them whilst feeding or sleeping I'm literally his soft place to fall, as well as his emotional soft place...and that's my most important role to date. How other people approve or disapprove of it doesn't make a difference to my boy. I give him unconditional acceptance and I get the same back
When a new mother tells me that she is going to go for walks to lose weight or whatever, I dont' make a fuss and I don't tell her it's a great thing - I don't want her to think I approve of the race to 'get her body back'. Instead, I talk about diet and eating useful carbs, proteins etc over eating junk food - particularly because lactation is going to take all the good stuff and leave you with the crap to store in your own body!
Just think, Marilyn Monroe and her peers were lusted after by millions of men, and emulated by millions of women...and size 14-18 was de rigeur among them all!

[Pandora]

I am really struggling this time around.
I dont know if its cos I started out 10 kilos heavier than I was with DS1 - I do know I was devestated not to get back to my pre preg weight, after all I had over 2 years to do it.
Part of it is because i put on so much last time I'm terrified of it happening again.
then there are people constantly telling me how huge I am and asking if I'm sure its now twins - yeah that makes me feel better
I know for the most part I am eating better this pg than the last, when I was constantly ravenous.
I'm exercising but no more than normal, prob 45 mins 4 times a week.

I just feel unhappy about it. I do get jealous of those pg women they use for model who look like a size 8 woman with a canteloup up her top.

I REALLY hate that my BBs dont get any bigger, not enough to go up a letter anyway, just a number or too - at least if I felt better in that dept maybe I'd be a bit happier about the whole thing.

Grr, I dunno, part of me just wants it all to be over so I can go to my 6 weeks appt & start WW again.