Bloody Stretch Marks!!

[lovelydaisies1]

I'm so fed up with my hideous stretch marks. They're so bad. My youngest is now 8 years old, they haven't improved with time. The worse thing is my tummy is like a saggy wrinkly horrible bag. I'm really small framed and the rest of my body is fine but I could never wear a bikini now and if (imagine?) I was on top, my tummy hangs down, it's disgusting. It makes me feel horrible and self conscious. I was inspecting from beneath my sunglasses on holiday other women wearing bikinis who had children and their tummys were fine. Am I in a small minority? I guess I was just unlucky but with summer coming up I'm already dreading the dowdy old swimming costume. Sometimes I just feel like getting it out and saying f*ck it but I can't because I know it's too bad. I'm not massively depressed about it or anything but just thought I'd let everyone on here know about it!! See what anyone has to say?!! Giving things an airing usually helps I think!! Obviously I have 3 gorgeous kids and that's my consolation but it doesn't stop me feeling fed up about it.

I share your pain! I have 4 dc's but the twins really did the full monty on my tummy! The underground map as nothing on me!!! I bet there are many more like us than the bikini perfect that we see in the media. You are sooo not alone!

Aww, that's good to know. Sorry for you though, it's awful isn't it. Why is it that none of the mums in magazines have them or seemingly none of the Mums in Fuertaventura or anywhere else I seem to go?! I just feel like an old frump in my swimming costume while everyone else is frolocking around in skimpy bikinis. Poor us!!!! x

I'd rather have my dc's than a perfect tummy! I think of the lines the same way I think of the lines now starting to adorn my eyes...they are the story of my lfe! I have laughter lines and and baby marks...things could be worse!

You are so not alone. I am in the same boat with you re: the stretch marks, the small frame and the disproportionately wrinkley bag of tummy. Pre-pregnancy I was a size 4 and I had 3 beautiful good-sized babies weighing nearly 8 lbs each at birth which completely stretched out my tummy to irreversible proportions.

I love going to the beach in hot countries but have had to ditch the bikini ever since my firstborn came along 8 years ago. I watched Embarassing Bodies on C4 and saw one lady on it with exactly the same tummy as mine and I knew I had no chance of it ever pinging back to what it was - or even just for it to ping back to something that looks more normal. On my last visit to a beach in Catalonia, I felt like I was the only young-ish (I'm 32) mummy there who wasn't in a bikini and even caught sight of a few older and portlier Spanish ladies strutting around in bikinis (but I envy them now because at least they have "normal" tummies that go along with the rest of their bodies. I don't.)

I reckon a tummy tuck is the only thing that will get rid of it. Even then the stretch marks are probably gonna stay. I look at celeb mums on mags - like J Lo who has had twins - and think how on Earth did she manage to get her bod back after that to what it is now? Good genes I suppose. I exercise at least 3 times a week and thanks to that, I do feel good about my body in general despite the massive wrinkley bag of tum which I normally hide under my clothes. The idea of going under the knife is still too repulsive for me and I hope I can grow old relatively gracefully, saggy tum or not!