Tag: motherhood

“I’m not sure if it crept up on me slowly as I advance towards 30 or if it has hit me like giant hormone fuelled rubber mallet, but in the last 6 months my ovaries have been rocking out.”

I have gotten to that age where I love babies.

I’m not sure if it crept up on me slowly as I advance towards 30 or if it has hit me like giant hormone fuelled rubber mallet, but in the last 6 months my ovaries have been rocking out. I used to not really care about pregnancy/children/being maternal but suddenly it all seems so appealing. Now the prospect doesn’t fill me with nausea and dread, but rather a feeling of wonder to see if I can do it.
The problem with this though is that the minute I try and talk about this I am instantly met with eye rolls and patronising comments. It is infuriating to be constantly confronted with the expectation that because I want children in the not distant future somehow I cannot be trusted to not get knocked up. Something I have successfully managed all through my adult life. I cannot help but feel that I cannot be trusted with such important decisions. Something that is very obviously highlighted by the slow erosion of female reproductive rights globally. Society does not trust us enough to choose when to have or not have a baby.

There is such a double standard about when you choose to have children now. If you decide when you are younger you are trapping people, giving up on life, like somehow you are letting the team down. If you wait then you are too career orientated, immature and selfish.

Women cannot win!

But what can we do to change this?

We can rally together, to make childcare more affordable, to talk and let people coo and not deride them for wanting to do something natural or equally give them support when they don’t want to.

Posted on by taithannah 0

“My relationship with my body is love/hate – mostly hate.”

TW for bulimia.

My relationship with my body is love/hate – mostly hate. I have a 1 year old little girl and she has COMPLETELY changed my body! Before I got pregnant I was pretty curvy but felt fine about myself. I did always want to look like they did in magazines but not enough to actually do something about it!

I was about 30-something weeks pregnant when I started getting stretch marks and I felt horrible. I felt fat, bloated and ugly! Then I gave birth by cesarean and have been left with a scar that makes my belly look weird and saggy. I was sick of feeling fat and ugly so I did something about the weight. I lost 2 and a half stone within 6-8 months. I felt great physically but mentally still ugly.

I follow hundreds of clean eating and body building pages on Instagram and I want to be like them but I am so mentally drained with being a single mum that I have no motivation. I weigh myself everyday and if I put on a few pound I sometimes make myself sick. It’s so stupid. Sometimes I look in the mirror and feel great and think, “well, I look pretty hot for a mum!”, but that’s soon wiped away and I look closely at my stretch marks and lifeless boobs and feel like a deflated balloon.

Posted on by taithannah 2

Haikus about my body, my being

I’m a college lecturer in Media and English, a book reviewer and blogger.

Motherhood was and is a challenge for me. Not because I don’t feel like a mother or feel too lazy to bother about what it takes to be a mother. But because, I have a day job, I read a lot and I balance a household’s work. And add a two year old to it, and you have a masala! But I love it. Absolutely have no regrets about having conceived when I did, and having had a baby when I did! And by God’s grace, my husband and long-time friend, Terence Joseph is a gem. Hehe I know all wives would say that!

Below are a few Haikus I wrote after childbirth, last year.

Every drop of milk
of mine
is yours forever.

At the breast –
serene face,
watchful eyes.

Come, my child
let’s play
just you and me.

Shhh, he’s asleep
dreaming dreams
of tomorrow.

Starting to speak,
but even mama,
can’t comprehend.

A lover’s bed
unmade
memories that linger on.

And a short poem:

My body, A vessel

We were one,
You took shape inside me,
grew your limbs and eyes.

A speck that you once were,
a mere dot in a vast sea
now a little man yourself.

Our hearts used to beat in rhythm,
Now you lie on my chest,
my heartbeats lulling you to sleep.

My belly grew as you were designed,
The ridges and valleys still visible
on my stretched tummy.

The weight of life inside,
each day a new beginning,
each night a new feeling.

They told me it’d be sleepless nights,
now I wait for your sweet laughter,
to ring in my dreams.

Pain it was, searing through me,
Ripping my being apart.
I held back tears and groans,
Knowing it was you all along.

I gave you life,
And you gave meaning to mine.

I am a mother. A vessel.

Shana

Posted on by pinkapplejuice 2

“After having a baby I am proud of my body.”

I’ve never been completely happy with my body and I’ve never felt like a completely skinny girl, but after having a baby I am proud of my body. Not really for how it looks but for what it’s achieved!

My little boy is almost a year old and recently I’ve thought a lot about the last 2 years. How I went from feeling completely comfortable in my skin and wearing what I wanted and having so much freedom to, in a short amount of time, meeting someone, falling in love and falling pregnant within a few short months. I have to say, although I felt quite sad about the changes that my body was going through, I loved being pregnant! It’s not like how you see in the movies or on TV but it’s an amazing feeling.

I would coat my swollen stomach in gallons of cocoa butter and constantly look at my growing tum. I was bloated from the day I found out so by 4 months I looked about 6 months but I wasn’t worried.

At around 6 months my stomach started to get a few stretch marks, even after using loads of creams, lotions and potions. They were deep and red and even started to bleed later on but again I was amazed at how much my body was dealing with and just embraced every moment. My favourite part of pregnancy was the movement. In fact I would bathe for long periods of time in my later months just to watch the little guy wriggling around. I know that everyone has a pregnancy story and if you’ve not been pregnant it sounds like a bore but when it’s happening to you it’s too amazing for words.

Anyway the time came where he was ready to make an appearance. Gestation ends at 40 weeks but can give or take a week or two. I was lucky in that I had been in and out of hospital for bleeds and such things, and on my last visit I requested a membrane sweep to speed things along (basically a doctor just pulls the membranes away from the neck of the womb). Anyway that night at 3am my waters broke and so began the labour journey. I was 38 weeks and 6 days along. Having your waters break is odd. At first I felt a trickle but felt like when you come on at night and you don’t expect it – anyway, I moved my leg and it gushed everywhere (nice!).

We went in and was told that my contractions weren’t coming quick enough so to go home and wait. By 6pm the next day the pain was unbearable so off we went to the hospital again to be told that I still wasn’t far along so we went home and waited again. Finally by midnight I had had enough but was afraid if I went in I’d just get sent home so I did what every scared girl does – I phoned my Mum! She asked if the pain was worse, I didn’t know because it had been going for so long I just didn’t know if it was worse or if I just couldn’t cope. She said that it’s likely that he’s on his way so to go back in.

Luckily this time the midwives took one look and offered me the gas and air! Well I was 4cm dilated at 1am and after pethadine and gas and air by 7am I was 10cm. I was ready to push but the midwife wouldn’t check me as her shift was changing over. Once the new midwife had come in I had already been pushing almost an hour without there being anyone to deliver him if he did come. After another hour of pushing with the midwife assisting me in every way there was no way he was coming out. I was tired and sick and couldn’t cope. The midwife suggested we go to the main delivery unit and try a ventouse (a small suction cap) in the operating theatre. This part feels blurry as I was so tired and could feel every twinge! I remember being prepped for theatre and asked to sign all these forms to say that if there’s a complication I’ll have a hysterectomy or blood transfusion!

So in theatre I had a spinal block, which was amazing, and then I had to try and push while completely numb which wasn’t easy. After numerous attempts with the ventouse and forceps they advised I would need a Caesarean section. Finally at 10.04 AM he was born at 9lb 1 oz.

After being taken to the recovery room with him and giving him his first breast feed I felt so proud of my body. It’s not till you go through that that you realise how amazing a woman’s body is, to go from delivering to feeding my child with my own body – it’s amazing. I was upset I couldn’t deliver naturally but just happy that he was delivered healthy.

My stomach now is stretched and has small scars from blood thinning injections I had after, and I have my C-section scar, but it feels more beautiful than ever cause I now know exactly what my body can achieve and I’ve never loved it more. My little boy is one at the end of the month and is still nursed. Some people think I should have stopped by now but the thought of my body doing nothing for him scares me a little and when my milk dries up I’ll shed a little tear. Saying that, he won’t be breast fed when he’s old enough to ask but I can see why some mother get obsessed as it is a incredible bonding experience.

So that’s my body story and I feel glad to share it with you. It’s quite predictable, yes, but if it’s you or someone close to you the experience is completely amazing and just goes to show how strong and beautiful our bodies are.

image

– by an anonymous woman

Posted on by taithannah 0

“… I sometimes love my body but now when I put myself down I think about my girls and how they’re proud of their mum.”

What can I say about how I feel to be naked? I’ve loved my body. I’ve hated my body but I suppose I should really start at the beginning. I developed and became curvy very young. I was the only person in my primary to start her periods and have breasts and I was bullied for it.

In high school I quickly became prey and men took advantage. I became hateful about everyone and everything. I didn’t know or understand what love was because I’d never experienced it. In my middle and late teens I never had a problem with being naked, with wearing very skimpy clothes, I looked good and I knew it. I was a size 10-12, toned, rock solid dancer’s legs, my breasts were neither too large, nor too small for my body (although I wanted bigger) my hair was waist length and I had confidence by the bucket load.

I started going out with someone when I was 18 and slowly I changed. I stopped paying attention to my hair – it just got washed. Make-up – there was none. Tight flattering clothes – changed for baggy jeans and big jumpers. Secretly I hoped that my ex would fight for me and want me back (I lost count the amount of times he told me ‘I love you’) Obviously not enough. He started going out with someone, who I perceived at the time to be hideous. She told me she would have and take what was mine and I told her to try, she got him and I got my confidence destroyed by someone all wrong for me, and I went to a very bad place with drink and drugs. I stopped most of it, although I continued to binge drink and smoke a lot of hash.

I eventually went out with someone 21 years my senior, I quickly became pregnant and my first daughter was born, we were married the following year and a year and a half after that my second daughter was born. I thought we were happy. Sex was wonderful and plentiful but as I became larger and my body changed so did our sex life until eventually it became non-existent. I went back to college and he stayed at home with the children; all through that course he made my life hell with the constant put downs and heavy drinking. I started exercising and became toned again back to my small size 10-12 and his attention changed as well. I put on weight again and as the weight came he went and sex again became almost non-existent. I went back to do a different course, the girls were in school all day and so was I. I loved it! I made some amazing friends that I still have to this day and he even got his drinking sorted, although every time he had a relapse I’d get the constant put downs and snidy comments. My aunt told me he was jealous and to just give him time – ‘his male pride’s been hurt’ she would say to me. All through that time I couldn’t look in the mirror. I hated what I saw, because when I looked in it I saw a fat, frumpy, old house wife that’s long past it and I was only 30.

At 31 I fulfilled a life long dream and attended a course at the RSAMD where I found out about Trilogy and I had the privilege and honour of taking part in its final ever show. It was a sisterhood of strong, independent, amazing women, of all ages, shapes and sizes dancing naked together and for the first time since before my children were born I was PROUD TO BE NAKED AND A WOMAN. I often describe that time as a life changing experience because in many ways it was. I was so proud of all of us that I decided to show (who I thought were) friends the cast photo of us all. Suddenly my amazing experience that I was so proud of was turned into something sleazy, dirty and something to be ashamed of and I was asked to leave the job were I was because they’d put in a complaint at management level. I retreated way into my shell, although no-one would know because I hid it well, except from my oldest daughter. She pulled me up one day saying ‘mum, you’ve stopped exercising’ and I asked her how she knew and she told me it was because the scarf wasn’t covering the mirror anymore, I always covered the mirror when I exercise and here I thought no-one noticed. I started to cry and she gave me a cuddle and said ‘mum, I wish you can see what I see. You’re amazing, you’re gorgeous, you’re beautiful both inside and out, you’re talented, you have the biggest heart of anyone I know and I want to be just like you when I grow up.’ My 12 year old has become my rock when I should be hers (although she assures me I am) it’s because of her I started and continue with Egyptian belly dancing (although some of the costumes make me feel very self conscious) she’s my inspiration.

How do I feel to be naked? At the moment – I mostly hate my body and I avoid looking in the mirror. In certain clothes when they suck everything in I sometimes love my body but now when I put myself down I think about my girls and how they’re proud of their mum. I think about my Trilogy girls and the time we had. The girls are proud that their mum had the guts and the confidence to stand in front of an audience and dance in her birthday suit and deep down although sometimes I need reminding – so am I. I’m an artist – I love the human figure in all its glory of any shape and size. I just wish I could love my own again and I hope the next time I tell my story it’ll be from a happier place.

– Anon

Posted on by taithannah 0