to be freaked out by my pregnant body?

[CinnamonBun99]

Nipples - have no shape anymore. I have dark brown nipples and they look like they are spreading across my whole boob. It looks like I have a disease of some kind.

Belly - huge. Just starting to develop my first stretch marks which I'm struggling to accept. Still have two months to go and worried about this!

Bum - piles! Ouch! Never had those before!

Skin - brown marks everywhere. My face has dark patches all over it. My dad (who is a doc) said 'you're looking very melasmic!' - thanks Dad.

Thighs - let's not go there.

Joints - painful. Can hardly walk without a waddle and as I said before, I still have two months to go. And I was in the gym 5x per week 3 months ago!

Vagina - covered in painful, ugly veins. I won't even let DP go there!

Ok, I won't keep going. I'm probably boring the life out of you. I'm just feeling a bit freaked out and like my body isn't my own anymore.

AIBU to let this get to me? I'm feeling a bit lost an self conscious.

Does it feel amazing to reclaim your body after birth? I'm ready for little one to arrive. Counting down the days...

YANBU unreasonable that this has got to you, I sobbed my little heart out when I discovered my stretch marks on my tummy! Come the end of it, I couldn’t even bend my leg due to water retention and pre eclampsia, and spent quite a lot of time crying and being desperate to get the babies out.

I felt fucking amazing after I gave birth. I could bend my legs! I felt better than I had in weeks, my babies were safe and well, I felt like a superhero, and I could eat pate which my dh brought in for me. Sure, I was in a lot of pain, but I’d got used to that, and having newborns was easier than being preggers with them.

Hang on in there 💐

I hated my body when i was pregnant and was so glad to get it back after the birth.

After 6 weeks i started swimming again and going to some gym classes to help me feel more like me before i was pregnant

Thank you unicorn - I thought I was invincible until about a month ago but suddenly it's all gone downhill.

I'm so, so nervous about what I'm going to look like after baby is born. Of course the most important thing is that my baby is happy and healthy. Gosh I am praying so hard that they are ok and the birth isn't traumatic. It would be nice however to have a little pride in my body again. I feel like a huge ugly mess at the moment...

Yes, the pregnant body is a wonderful thing. Embrace it.

Just so you know:

EVERYTHING you've described is totally normal!

Nipples commonly go very dark and the areola enlarges during pregnancy. If you plan to breastfeed this may continue after the baby is born.

The belly thing is also quite normal. Women carry in different positions and each pregnancy can be different within the same woman.

Piles are also quite normal. You can help to prevent them by eating lots of fibre and drinking lots of fluid. Check with your provider about what you can use to treat them.

Brown marks on your skin is normal. This is called melasma or chloasma; it's also known as "mask of pregnancy". It should go away after the baby is born.

The joint pain is caused by a hormone called relaxin which is produced during pregnancy.

All of this is normal, but I'm sure it's one thing to read about it and quite another to experience it! It's also quite normal to feel a bit self-conscious.

The thing to remember: your partner chose YOU. Your partner chose YOU to share life and YOU to bear children.

Everyone knows that some of these things, at least, are common to pregnant women. Your partner should know that too. It can take some time to regain your body after pregnancy, but the good news is that a lot of the extra weight will go away as soon as you give birth or shortly thereafter. (Considering that the average baby is about 7-8 pounds, plus you'll lose about another pound or more of blood and fluid during the birth, plus the weight of the placenta which is another 2 or 3 pounds, you'll probably come out of the birth itself about 10 pounds lighter! Then, too, you'll lose a lot of the extra blood volume soon after and your uterus will shrink in size. If you're breastfeeding you'll lose a lot of the weight because it will go into making milk.)

I feel you.

I'm only just over half way but I grunt by every time I bend down, my boobs have grown enormously (I was quite happy with my small ones thank you very much) and I'm dreading the day the stretch marks make their appearance.

I get pain in my back when I walk, when I sit and when I sleep. I can't bloody sleep very well anyway and to top it all off I have such bad heartburn it creeps up my throat at night and has given me a horrid cough!

This BETTER be worth it.

It was terrifying the amount I sweated for weeks after giving birth as my body stopped retaining and started getting rid of fluid. I loved rediscovering my ankles again!

Neshoma I'm embracing many bits, don't get me wrong. The kicks. The fact that I have made a baby and an extra organ from scratch. The amazing hair. The amazing skin. Many increased cup size (thank you lord!). There are many things I appreciate hugely. There are just a lot of things that I feel quite sad about. Stretch marks being a big one

Here to share the pain and nervousness about whether I'll ever get back the body I liked so much and worked hard to keep in shape.

The fabled "glowing stage" happened at some point during the night for me between 6 and 7 months!

It's like finding a perfectly ripe pear - it's too hard to eat, then it's perfect and juicy for 5 minutes, then immediately an inedible, brown (melasmic?), soggy mess.

But good news! You are not a pear! You are a super human woman! Singlehandedly growing another human! So relax, put your feet up

agnurse what a fabulous post! Thank you! Really needed to read that

I hated my pregnant body. I cried every day watching new stretch marks appear to permanently scar my perfect stomach. I felt like I was watching my body being destroyed in slow motion and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My belly is still saggy and I’m disfigured for life.

Almost haha! Thank you. I do feel quite super woman esque at times!

Thanks everyone. Pregnancy is so emotionally and physically draining. I have such a new found respect for my mother and all pregnant women. We are all amazing!

My belly is still saggy and I’m disfigured for life.

That's so sad to read. Disfigured is a really strong word to use. Sorry you feel like that. I bet you are far more beautiful than you believe!

Sending

If I could just get rid of the piles and the swollen looking vagina.... I'm scared to push this baby out. The damage is already there. 5 weeks to go 😬

@choccybuttonshelpeverything I feel you! I'm experiencing the same and have 9 weeks left! Best of luck for the big day

Haha, I thought the same up until about 30/32 weeks, then BAM! everything seriously declined. I really was quite shocked, and very upset - I’d heard “stuff” changes, but I had no idea how much it would, and exactly how it would feel!

I didn’t know that you didn’t snap back after giving birth. I thought it was a given had to lose the baby weight but then it was back to pre pregnancy. Thousands of women do snap back to exactly the same (seems my bloody fb is full of them) but I haven’t. My DTs are 7 months now and I’ve had quite a few tearful episodes since having them over how I look, the worst one being when I discovered a bald patch! I’ve now been persuaded by my dh to go crazy clothes shopping (I hate it normally, and even more so now!) and am feeling good about how I look. I’ll lose the last of the weight, and whilst I’ll never be quite the same again, I’ve made peace with it.

I have got my pride back in my new body, and wearing jeans that didn’t have an elasticated waist band massively helped with that (can seriously recommend m&s for jeans after giving birth!). I hope this hasn’t freaked you out, I had twins and was a monster (measuring 56 weeks pregnant when I had them), and I’m nearly back to where I was weight wise, just a little squidgier. If I could just stop eating biscuits and actually exercise, I’m sure I’d be just fine 😂

Thousands of women do snap back to exactly the same
Nobody posts pictures of the actual damage on Facebook. My SIL looks amazing. You wouldn’t know that she’d been severely torn, suffered faecal incontinence and had her vagina and anus surgically reconstructed. I look pretty good myself until you see me with my clothes off and realise my stomach is shaped like an apron.

I got sucked in to one of the videos played on the screens in my maternity unit and bought a secret saviours stretch marks support band. I didn't get any stretchmarks using it - but more than that I felt I was doing all I could to not get them (so a mental win at least) I used the band with neals yard mothers balm instead of the gels provided and would cover my bump, bum, boobs and hips in the balm very thick twice a day - also gave me a bit of time to enjoy my bump and look at the changes happening. Also so so much water and fruit and veg! Oh and honestly once baby is here you won't care - I religiously applied stretchmark cream... ended up with a c section and couldn't care less about my scar... I also enjoyed swimming when pregnant - even just a handful of very slow lengths made me feel I was trying to keep myself healthy / in shape.

I've got over 3 months to go and I'm suffering with nearly all the above.

I'm finding it much harder being pregnant this time, I think it's because I'm old. ☹️

While not everyone "snaps back" to exactly the same, many women have more than one child. My mother had 7 pregnancies and her mother had 11. Presumably there was still something about them as their husbands went back for more!

It's quite normal for it to take some time to get back to your "pre-baby" body. (Especially "down there" - that can take several weeks or more!) That said, I have heard of cases where a woman went for her 6-week postpartum checkup and it turned into an initial prenatal!

I feel your pain. Everything you have described happened to me (including the worst piles ever!) Looking at myself I couldn't believe things would go back to how they were but they honestly did, apart from my mum tum but that's more 3 babies in quick succession. You're not bu to be bothered by it but just know it'll go, the third trimester is by far the least glamorous!

Stretch marks were the hardest thing to accept for me too. They started on my hips at about 32 weeks and I thought ‘oh this isn’t too bad, maybe I won’t get many’. Then by 37 weeks they were all over my stomach, very red and angry. I have an old belly button piercing that made it look worse.

I gave birth 9 weeks ago and whilst they are still there they have faded a lot and the saggy tummy is going down. I think with a bit of exercise (when I can be bothered) they will look fine. I would rather not have them but I feel okay about them now.

It’s okay not to want the ‘tiger stripes’. You will get used to your body even if it is a bit different to before.

Girl I feel you, 32 weeks and I can't wait to have him now just praying he's healthy and happy! Also I fully sobbed when I got my first stretch mark because I tried so hard to prevent them