Stretchmarks - enough to make you cry?

[Kellybelly]

Hi Everyone, this is my first message as I registered today.

I am 38 weeks pregnant and feeling terrible. My emotions are all over the place, high one minute and so depressed the next. I am told thats normal but try explaining that to a husband!!

Anyway my main reason for posting a message is due to the depression I feel since stretckmarks have appeared on my tummy. I did have some that came on my hips at about 28 weeks (which have progressively worse) however I have never really been that bothered about them as much as I am now about the ones that have appeared on my tummy over the past two weeks. One minute I didnt have any and the next as soon as one apeared, that was it - there are on a mission of their own - total obliteration of the skin!!! I really could cry. Am I being over paranoid? My husband is sick of me saying things like - 'but I will never look the same' 'How can you fancy me with these'. He really says he isnt bothered but I just fail to believe that.

I have become obsessed with looking at them just to see if more are appearing. I have 2 weeks left till DD and I am so scared that they will continue to get worse.

Please someone tell me that what I am feeling is normal?

 

[Tanisha]

perfectly normal. i noticed my stretch marks last week and literrally cried b/c my mom said she didn't get any so i didn't think i was gonna get any but i got them and they are all over the bottom of my tummy and dark purple. it makes me cry whenever i look at them. i just feel so unpretty. so yeah, you're normal.

 

[Kellybelly]

I totally understand. I cry on my own quite often as hubby thinks I am pathetic to let them upset me. But I used to have good skin and looked good. I cant stop beating myself up about how my husband must see me now. He says it dosent matter but it does to me.

 

[Tanisha]

i know that feeling, hubby says he doesn't care about them either. men just don't understand how we feel about our bodies. maybe men should carry the children, then they would understand. i told my hubby i am gonna go buy a permament purple marker and draw squiggily lines on all over is belly and see how it makes him feel.

 

i dont know if this will cheer you up, but i dont let mine bother me, just think of them as lines of motherhood. they will fade. i got them quite bad when i hit puberty but now all them lines are near on impossible to see.

my partner is quite understanding, he has been doing some body building and got them himself, so hes very sympathetic.

they are just a reminder of the besautiful baby u have shared your body with for the last 9 months


good luck with the rest of ur pregnancies


elaine and bump

 

[Kellybelly]

Thank you for your positive reply elaine but I cant help thinking that as you have a hubby who also has them as a consequence of training its something that he can understand and you can be reassured by.

I know I should feel positive too, but at the moment whilst I continue to grow with a fear of them getting even worse, I just cant. I dont know if I am being paranoid but since they have got worse, when I show hubby he just looks and dosent say anything - I find myself then making my own conclusions that it must be because he finds them repulsive and just dosent know what to say! I am very conscious of them and I suppose that as my mother-in-law finds it necessary to remind me that neither she nor my sister-in-law (who has just had a baby) didnt have them it dosent do much for my self confidence.

 

[Rooander]

Hey girls try not to worry about them. I had my son 8 yrs ago, no husband or boyf at the time. I got them major on my backside and all down my thighs, horrible purple lines that look like train tracks. My mum, who unfortunatly isnt with us any longer, she told me she didnt get them when she had me. I felt terrible, no one will ever love me again, i never want to wear a bikini again, I couldnt even bear to look in the mirror. But you know the minute my son was born I forgot about them. And in time they did fade. Ok they have never gone, theres too many of them, but they are just white now and theres a fantantic cream out called Bio something and it makes your skin smooth out the stretchmarks. This I will be trying when this little one comes out.
Honestly though try not to fret about them, its an unfortunate thing that happens to some of us, men as well. I mean I neednt of worried, I now have a lovely husband and think sod it when i put on a bikini. And stretch marks on your bum make your celluite look bad as well, but ah well! We cant all be glamour pussys and have the perfect body. (As much as I would love too)

 

http://pregnancy.about.com/cs/pregnancy ... 3index.htm

if u look at this site u can see lots of belly pictures, and see most woman have quite bad strecth marks, hope this cheers u up


elaine and bump

 

[-Cat-]

I understand completly. I gained stretch marks when I was only about 24 weeks! all over the backs of my thighs. I keep crying about them and OH doesn't understand, I never realised they would look as bad as they do. My mother has an awfull stomach from having children, and I couldnt bear to look the same. My figure was always my crowning glory and I was proud of the way I looked. I cant bear the thought of losing it at only 24. I think if it gets too bad Im going to give up entirly and not even bother trying to get back ino shape afterwards, whats the point I might as well sit on my arse and stuff my face and get fat, OH will find me repulsive to look at anyway and I will end up a fat single mum, far to fat and ugly to ever get a man again.
Thats how I feel at the moment!

 

[crystalize]

i have a tree on my tummy!
my stretch marks look like a tree with really big branches spreading across my belly!
i am SO trying to learn to love them, but i think they look gross.
i keep having to buy longer and longer t-shirts to try and hide them when i leave the house becasue who wants to see that!
they're not too deep or paticularly dark red so i'm hoping they'll fade quite a bit.
but then again as costas said in the film shirley valentine (and i'm not quoting exactly) "don't hide them, they are beautiful, they show you have lived"
the way i try and see it is that our bodies will change, we haven't got any choice, but at the end of it, we will have beautiful little babies
xxx

 

[Rooander]

Try Bio Oil afterwards girls, it works my friend is using it now and hers are fading alot quicker than mine ever did. I certainly will be using it after this one is born.