STRETCH MARKS & HORMONES

Stretch Marks & Hormones I have carried 5 beautiful babies in my body (4 in the last 5 years). I have had the privilege of nursing each one for over a year. I have gone through so many emotions and hormones that my body has no idea what its normal state is. I have so many deep stretch marks that I’ve lost count. Let alone the hope that they will ever fade. My body has literally been used to birth and take care of babies for the last 8 years. And it’s been beautiful and wonderful and all of those things. But….

It’s also been a complete and total disaster, and hard. So, So hard. The body appearance, anxiety, depression, sadness, excitement. It’s all felt at once. And yet, every time I get in the shower and look down at my stretched out saggy skin, I don’t think of the fact that that my tummy housed my babies for 9 months. That it grew and grew so that we could love and enjoy each one of our new additions. I don’t think of the fact that when I’m nursing that I have nourished our children with vitamins and nutrients for the first year of their life, I just think of how they don’t sit where they used to and how I need to use a bra for the rest of my life so I don’t scare anyone. And it’s sad. Our society has put such a  deadline on new moms. We feel the pressure that we need to be “normal” again at 6 weeks. “That’s when my doctors “check up” is, so my body must be back to normal! Why am I still feeling this way? Why do I not feel normal? “ It sends us to dangerous downward spiral of comparing ourselves to other moms and trying to figure out what we need to do to make these feelings go away. And we feel like a failure and weak, when we’re supposed to be strong. As new moms, we need to remember that our bodies took 9 months to change, grow and nourish our baby and it will likely take that or longer to start to feel like ourselves again. No mother is perfect right after they have a baby. No mother has it all together and falls right back into their normal self. And trust me, their Facebook and Instagram pictures are all a lie if that’s what it looks like. We need to give ourselves some grace, that first year of that sweet little baby goes by so fast. And you will never get that time back. You will never get to enjoy the “first coos”, “first smile”, “first laugh” or the total dependency of your baby needing you to survive. It’s ok if it takes you a couple years to lose a few pounds. Its ok if your emotions are so completely out of whack that you go from completely happy to crazy in less than 30 seconds. Enjoy this mama, because before you know it. Your baby daughter will be a new mama herself and will need you to support her and love her just the way she is.