what effect did pregnancy and childbirth have on you?

Jenn, you're sure right about the effects of time and gravity on the body. We just don't have the opportunity to see much of real women, over 30, naked! That was one experience I was particularly glad of living in Japan - going to the public baths with other women really lets you know what you're in for down the track...

One of those peculiar facts about being married to a doctor is that they've probably seen a lot more of your gender unclothed than you have. With DH in cardiac, those people are generally old, so he is perfectly aware of what older bodies look like, and reassures me that what I worry about is "just natural".

On another note, I also think that being 31 when I gave birth resulted in a very different experience than if I'd been younger. On the whole, younger would probably have been better physically, but not mentally for me.

[Michele]

My body is different. I'm back down to pre-preg weight but don't fit into any of my clothes. At least Russ likes the new me better...even if I don't yet. I agree that reliving and telling the story is therapeutic. I try to just tell Russ but it was such a big deal to me that it's hard to not bring it up...especially when others are talking bad about c-sections/OBs and prenatal screening. I try not to ever say it to newly preg first time moms though.

Jenn, you're sure right about the effects of time and gravity on the body. We just don't have the opportunity to see much of real women, over 30, naked!

I agree. I think I factor this in a bit. The body I have now is...the body I have now. I'm mostly comfortable in it. I have scars and reminders of other aspects of my life just like reminders of having children. I know my body would be different than it is today if I hadn't had children but not exactly as it was 7 years ago.

[PrincessFiona]

I agree with Jenn and the others. Sorry ladies, but w/o the help of plastic surgeons, your face, boobs etc are going to sag eventually anyway. This will sound harsh, but sue me...if you are more concerned about your clothing size and being able to wear stuff from highschool I am 1. calling What Not To Wear because I'm sure you are a candidate and 2. telling you to wait to have kids via adoption or otherwise until you feel more ready. The changes that motherhood brings on an emotional level are nothing compared to sagging boobs.

Deal with learning disabilities, gross motor issues, homework, bullying, crying, sickness, sleeplessness, pride, protectiveness, the desire to suddenly give up your whole life to give to another human being....and your boobs don't really play a role anymore.

Do I wish that I could wear perky victoria's secret undies? sometimes...but I sure wouldn't trade my kids for it.

[Meenah]

Kris, I couldn't have said it any better than that!!

[Stella]

Hey, that's why I'm waiting! All you moms are awesome!

And I told SO that we were waiting until we could afford my tummy tuck, too...

[Gwendolyn]

WARNING: Novela ahead. Reflecting preggo on deck :mom2b: .

I couldn’t agree more with the birth/death connection. We found out that DH’s grandfather had advanced metastasized cancer when I was about 4 mo. Pregnant with DS. He was on DNR hospice in my last few months and I spent a lot of time thinking about the connection between his wait for death and my wait for life. We didn’t know when it would come, just that it would and it would change everything. At night I would wonder if I would go into labor before morning. Then in the morning I would wonder if my water would break before I went to sleep that night. I truly felt a kinship with DH’s Grandfather. A desire to get it over with but a true fear of what it would be like when it actually happened. It is hard to find words for it, but it was like being on the edge of a precipice. I knew I had to jump, but I had to stand there and my body would compel me over when it was time.

He passed away three days before DS was born. In our family we sort of carry an image of them giving a high five as they passed each other. Having a brand new baby at the funeral really put a different spin on things for everyone.

On to the body and emotional changes…

What lies ahead might be frightening to the never been done crowd, but I share because it truly heals every time I share the story.

Pregnancy was normal and “easy.” I insisted on a 3D ultrasound despite DH’s admonition that ultrasound is a diagnostic tool, not a toy . While we were there, DH noticed an enlarged kidney on the US and the tech tentatively confirmed repeating again and again that this was not a diagnostic tool and she was not a Dr. A few more ultrasounds later DS was diagnosed with inutero hydronephrosis. The delivery was fairly uneventful. My water didn’t break until I was nearly 8 cm dilated and I only pushed for about two hours for a 10 ½ pound baby . His apgar was great and the epidural mostly worked.

I had a FP resident assigned to my case and she was talked through my suturing.

The next day, DS had still not latched on and I gathered enough courage to reach down and assess the damage to my vagina. I knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. Everyone was saying how swollen I was, but what I felt was not swollen skin. A part of my labia had been sewed outside of the stitch line. So I had a piece of skin about 2 cm in diameter that was hanging off the bottom of my vagina. When my doctor showed up she wouldn’t even look at it. When the resident was nice enough to stop by (she didn’t need to) she did look at it and confirmed my fear that my vagina had been sewed back together wrong and a piece was hanging off with out any blood supply. She thought they might go back and fix it. When my Dr. showed up she laughed and said, “don’t worry it will just die and fall off.” aranoid: :thud:

This was happening while we had pediatric cardiologists telling us that DS might have a major heart malformation, a pediatric urologist telling us that DS might need surgery, and the audiology screening people saying that DS was failing all of his hearing screenings.

With in two weeks the only concern that remained was DS’s hearing and that piece of my vagina did, for the most part, die and fall off . I say for the most part because I was left with a nub that would rub and catch and pull. When I insisted that I see my Dr. at a two week visit instead of her NP, the office balked. When I showed up I got the NP and burst into tears. As she talked about the symptoms of PPD I could hear the Dr. who wouldn’t see me talking about how she was excited to hit the road for her vacation as soon as she finished paperwork. I cried hard enough for the nurse to grab her. She told me a story about how after her second child a gush of water fell out of her vagina after she went swimming as a way to illustrate that things change and I would be fine. :thud:

Needless to say, I didn’t go back to her for my 6 week, but instead went to the resident’s clinic, where I had to have the nub burned off so it would stop pulling a little tear at the bottom of my vagina every time I sat the wrong way.

At the time it was a very emotional, traumatic situation. It was not medically urgent, but it was a huge hit to my sense of self. I also returned to school a week and a half after DS’s birth and DH started residency interviews a few weeks later. DS never latched on so I was pumping every two-three hours. I honestly don’t remember much of the first three months because I was just trying to survive. I think around 6mo. I started to feel like I had a handle on things.

I gained a lot of weight (almost 70lbs) but that was all my own doing. I seriously ate dessert for breakfast lunch and dinner and a few snacks in between. When I wasn’t eating dessert, most of my food came from a drive-through window.

With a 10 ½ lb baby, I lost about 30lbs in the first two weeks. It took me about a year to lose the rest, but that had a lot to do with trying to stay on top of my doctorate program. I did lose all of the weight and my belly looks pretty normal. It does settle differently. My boobs are bigger, but they too settle differently. My vagina is fine now and has become a sick joke between DH and I. honestly, now I am probably the only one who would look at it and see a difference.

ITA I don’t feel that anything has happened that wouldn’t have happened on its own in time. All of the above was worth it twenty times over if it means having a beautiful child like mine :babyboy: . (I did not experience an immediate love, by the way. I think that is another huge myth of motherhood. I felt an intense need to protect and care for, but the magic took a while to grow. Maybe that is another thread.)

Clearly, I needed share this story, or maybe reflect as I am settling into this pregnancy. :mom2b:

Thanks for hanging in through my essay . I have really enjoyed reading everyone else’s stories!

[Vishenka69]

I never gave pregnancy or birth much thought until DH was well into 2nd or 3rd year of med school. Once his class started doing OB rotations and swapping stories, I got progressive more nervous and paranoid. Several of his close friends are OB residents and of course the stories saved for the dinner table are the most interesting and freaky. As a result I only hear about cases when something goes out of whack.

I think I'm scared for life now. I'm not as concerned about the physical changes to my body but the experience and the internal changes. Most of our non-medical friends already have kids and every time I hear about them having a problem sitting on hard surfaces for several months or not being able to have sex for over 6 months or having problems with sutures, I totally freak. If I could walk away with just some sagginess of stomach and boobs, I'd be fine. It's the other stuff that scares me. At this point I'm not so sure that knowledge is power. But I do wholeheartedly agree that ignorance is bliss.

Dear God Gwen. That is a trauma ... and I can't believe that crappy doctor!

[Michele]

Goodness!! I'm actually kinda glad (in some ways) that Daegan's birth didn't really affect me 'downtown.'

She thought they might go back and fix it.

What a traumatic experience--I am sorry to hear about this!

Why wasn't the resident who did the sewing held accountable for this mistake? Why wasn't this fixed right away?

[Gwendolyn]

I have occasionally thought about sending the story to Eve Ensler (Vagina Monologues). The Dr. was horrible. Honestly that is the part I am still angry about. I used to watch those shows like Oprah where they talked about some horrible medical mistake and wonder why those patients never got a second opinion. I now get it, and I will never, ever let anyone tell me that a gut feeling is wrong again. Not a doctor, not my husband, no one. Honestly, I realized something was wrong 5 or 6 hours after, but it was another 4 or so hours before the resident saw it and another day before my doctor saw it. By then it was too late. "Fixing" it would have been worse. The tissue had already started to die.

Really when you have a doctor laugh at you for voicing a concern when you are one day post partum with everything else we were dealing with, you assume the problem is you. That is the lasting scar for me. I probably could have perused some procedural or legal action. I even looked into re-constructive surgery, but when I plan on having more kids, it seemed like a silly thing to do right now, and again, now that it is healed there is not much difference. No one would look at it for the first time and wonder what the heck happened down there.

Really, the resident did everything right. I know that I was a particularly difficult stitch job and she was ready for action when something could have been done. My Dr. was the negligent one. She sat on it and decided that my vagina was of no consequence.

Now, I will always be a PIA patient or mother of a patient as long as I feel like something is wrong. I now understand why there are patient advocates. It is better to push the system and still get an all-clear than trust that everything is happening the way it should. It also helps to get a trustworthy doctor

[PrincessFiona]

But I do wholeheartedly agree that ignorance is bliss.

True, true!

I remember being overdue with ds #1 and being at a barbecue (yes, a barbecue in germany ) My rotund shape reminded all of the women there of their birthing horror stories and I truly...truly became so terrified that I couldn't sleep that night. I could not, for the life of me understand why they would choose to share these awful things with me right before I was due to give birth.

kris

This will sound harsh, but sue me...if you are more concerned about your clothing size and being able to wear stuff from highschool I am 1. calling What Not To Wear because I'm sure you are a candidate and 2. telling you to wait to have kids via adoption or otherwise until you feel more ready.

I really not that bad. I wear normal clothing to work and grocery shopping(suit and heels), etc., but around the house where it doesn't matter how I look, I still wear t-shirts from 15 years ago.

And, yes, I do know that I am not ready for kids, I am just weighing the issue at this point, and want to have as much info as possible. It would be irresponsible to not spend an adequate amount of time (whatever that may be for each person) learning about pregnancy, birth, and childrearing. I know that I can never understand what it is like to go through it all, w/o actually experiencing it, but I do find all that you guys have written fascinating and informative.

I agree with Vishenka about ignorance being bliss. Back when DH was in med school, we had a pregnancy scare, and we were into looking at baby socks and thinking how cute they were, etc. We were NOT at all realistic about it. I think we are more so now, which only makes the leap that much more difficult.

I think what you ladies have been through and shared here is amazing. You all are much braver and courageous than I because you knew what was coming, and still had the guts to take that leap. Although, this thread is one of the most interesting I have read, it has really freaked me out!!!!!!

[Vanquisher]

A few things from my corner:

1. the Shape of a mother website terrified me. Some of that doesn't look entirely fixable even with a good plastic surgeon. Adopting is looking better and better to me.

Seeing the reactions to this websiteonly further makes me feel bad about my body. I'm not sure what you mean by entirely fixable, even with a good plastic surgeon. I am sure I fall into that category. I have stretch marks and scars that will never go away, but I plan to have plastic surgery in the future all the same.

Yes, some people's bodies do turn out that way. I really, really hate my body, and this thread in parts has been quite depressing and reafirming of the fact that apparently I have every right to loathe myself because most women don't look like the appalling ones on that website.

Edited to add: OK, now I've clicked around the other pics on the website and I have to say I honestly don't have as extreme a post-pregnancy body as any of those pics! Seriously! If I had never had kids before I would think it was a really scary site, too! And, most of my friends in real life that have had children look better than I do post-babies (ie I really don't know a lot of people with bodies that look like that after children)! I wonder if that site is really just about one-ups-manship on "Oh yeah? Well my body looks worse than yours!" Sorry, that website is not my reality or the reality of most of my friends irl.

I posted regarding this comment earlier, but deleted it after I thought better of it. I just feel like an utter failure. Why am I less of a good person if I *do* look like some of those women. Does anyone think I like looking like this? I guess I just didn't work hard enough, and I'm too lazy because apparently, unless you bounce back into a terrific tummy you aren't worth your salt. It isn't one-upsmanship. It is real women who want to feel better about their bodies. After some of these comments, I only feel worse.