Today Fred and I went to the best mothers group ever: at blossom birth center, where I gave birth to him. It was incredible!!!! Mothers of all sizes! Babies of all ages!!! All breast feeding! So many boobs it was incredible! We all just talked.... About our births, feeding, products, sleeping, wraps, nursing bras, everything!!!! So many people with similar views as me but still everyone with their own experiences and views!!!! It was wonderful. I'm going every week from now on!!!! I just feel SO empowered and happy. Freddie is happy too. And coming home to my loving husband, was even more excellent.
Here is a video I got from marvelouskiddo.blogspot.com:
I cried through the whole thing!!
Giving birth is just the most insane, wonderful, emotional, crazy, awesome, LIFE-CHANGING and BODY-CHANGING thing ever. My body will never be the same. I have so many stretch marks. My belly sags. Lose skin. I am big. I get so hungry breast-feeding and want to eat all the time. And I don't go out to eat or eat fast food! We make all our meals and eat pretty healthily! But it's hard. And I see all these other women who are thin and gorgeous. Or women who don't have any stretch marks or get skinny again right away. I feel so so alone and down sometimes. I feel ugly. Even though Collin tells me constantly that I'm beautiful and sexy, I still feel self-conscientious when he sees me naked. But watching this video put things in perspective. I feel so connected to these women. I have an amazing son because of what I did. And I'll have more.
Please watch:
oh honey, you know i can relate on the body part, right? it is so hard. but everyone has different bodies and all women have body issues; trust me. but your body is amazing! look what it did: created a life. a living, breathing, human being. seriously. so worth it.
ReplyDeleteoh that was so beautiful. thank you for posting it. it was so nice to see other women that look like me. :)
ReplyDeletei think it's unfortunate that so many of us (men and women) have these unrealistic expectations of what motherhood and pregnancy is "supposed to" look like. it's taken me a while (when i saw my first stretch mark i cried--little did i know that dozens more would soon appear!) to accept my new body, but now i actually kind of...like it. (heaven forbid, right?)
we're always shown these taut, tanned, toned bodies and told, "this is perfection! this is beauty!" and there is so much shame associated with anything bigger. but you know what? i've spent the last couple of years observing other women, and i've realized that EVERYONE has something special, something beautiful about them. i hope that doesn't sound trite, because i mean it with all my heart.
for a long time after having the boys, i was so ashamed of my body, not even wanting to look at myself naked. but through my observation (and yes i mean staring at other people...haha) i've come to realize that i find the softer bodies more beautiful. you know the bodies depicted in greek paintings and statues? i think they are lovely. the softness is so feminine. real women don't have flat stomachs when they sit down. i think fuller hips are so pretty. when i was really thin in high school, before i started to fill out (late bloomer), i remember looking at myself in the mirror and wishing i had bigger hips and (wait for it...) love handles. crazy right? but i thought that a womanly shape was so much more appealing.
it took me longer still to decide that i could be okay, just the way i was. i feel like there's this pressure to always be better, fitter, thinner, prettier. so when i finally decided that i didn't have to be any different than the way i was, it was actually really freeing.
sorry this was so long, and kind of personal. i just wanted to tell you how beautiful you are, and thank you for sharing your thoughts. i think this is such an important subject, because body image is such a tough thing, especially in our society.
lots of love.
h
Hey Nikki!!!
ReplyDeleteThis post made me cry!! I SO feel the same way about how my body has changed after having Madeline...and she is almost one!! It is hard not to feel alone especially when it is only you and your little one majority of the time. I love how you so openly express your thoughts and feelings and it has given me the goal to not be so hard on myself. I can't tell you how many times I've felt ugly this past year or have even told Ben "don't look" as i hop in the shower, just because I was feeling extra self conscious that day. It is hard, so hard...I believe that becoming a mother allows you to truly find out who you are as a woman, and when I think of it that way I feel proud and blessed to be one and to have my sweet baby.
Love to you and your family,
Meghann (Finuf) Phipps :)
Nikki, thank you so much for sharing this video! I too have struggled with my new body, and I am still struggling. I still look at myself and think, 'this is temporary'. But really, no matter how many hours I spend doing pilates, I can't work off these stretch marks. They will always be there as a reminder of the fulfillment of my purpose as a woman. When I remember my body in the beginning of my marriage, part of me is embarrassed by how young and thin and straight I was. I wouldn't want to go back to having such an undeveloped body. I think as mothers we need to teach our daughters that our life is a cycle. We begin as small soft skinned babies, we become children, and then we turn into women. And being a woman is a beautiful thing. Eventually we will be old, and when it comes to that, we should embrace it and feel accomplished instead of envious as we look at our past self. Because I have three boys I think mostly about what I want them to know. I want them to be like Neal. Neal has loved me in my plethora of forms (TOO skinny, rotundly pregnant, voluptuously nursing and now curvaceous, (on my bottom half) and flat (on top).) I want my boys to have examples of real women all around them as they grow, instead of this airbrushed photoshop-trimmed version of women we see in the media. I think teaching them that has to start with me being confident in my own skin, and being thankful for my body, rather than ashamed of it.
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