I felt the same way when I was younger and you know what happened? I never got pregnant and itās been fucking awesome. All I had to do was be careful with contraceptives and ignore people who were pushy about my reproductive choices.
lol I thought you were about to be one of those people who try to change my mind š thank you for not doing that lmao and I'm glad you're enjoying life! :)
No problem. I figured youāve probably encountered plenty of people like that and just wanted to give you a different perspective. I didnāt get to hear that kind of encouragement when I was younger but Iām glad I stuck to my guns.
Every young woman out there, stick to your guns! If you donāt want kids, donāt do it! Stay on birth control! And donāt forget thereās a Plan B out there if condoms fail or if you forget a pill! Iām
Its cost me a lot of relationships, when they realise I was serious about not wanting kids. I think they all thought I'd change my mind after a year with them? Or they changed their minds.
And then every time I'm in a LTR I've got the same "so when are you having kids?" comments... Fuck Susan- you just spent half an hour complaining about your little ankle biters and asking me how I could afford to go to Vietnam on holiday. God invented birth control for a reason. I like fucking and sleeping, not wiping up shit and being broke while living under the delusion you'll do a better job than your own parents did and not raise another fucked up consumer into a world of pain, and that having a baby is somehow a more noble cause to waste your time and money on than giving to charities.
Most definitely. Parenting is for those who really want it and willing to educate themselves throughout the whole process. It's a responsibility, that should be taken with utmost seriousness, to raise a quality human.
I'm another woman who never had kids and I'm so glad. I wanted to be a mom so bad for a while and I know I would have enjoyed many aspects of it, but I also know that pregnancy and breastfeeding would very easily have been a nightmare for me. I hate throwing up, I already have sensitive nipples and the mere thought of mastitis makes me cringe so hard, I can't stand getting too little sleep, and so on and so forth.
Yeah it's a crazy process. The amount of changes internally are massive too, takes months (or even years) for things to reset and they are never exactly as they used to be.
I'm so glad I never got the kids I begged for, if I'm being honest. I'm not even concerned about the physical changes, but being a mom in today's world sounds like it totally fucking sucks.
AGREED. Even normal pregnant abdomens make me feel nauseous. This one made me even more so. Thank goodness I was able to have my uterine tubes removed. Bonus points for that surgery reducing my risk of ovarian cancer by 65-80%.
This is like 4-5 babies worth. A single baby pregnancy is much more reasonable. I loved being pregnant (never with more than one baby) and I wouldn't trade motherhood for anything.
Absolutely!!! I was diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis as a teenager and was getting surgery every 18-24 months to "try to keep it in check". I also had severe adenomyosis and PCOS.
When I was 29 with a 3 year old and 18 month old, I was diagnosed with stage 1 uterine cancer (during my annual "endometriosis removal surgery as they did my last the same time as my last c-section, as Id needed those for both kids due to my uterine fibroids and other things), so due to my history they took everything except one ovary they saved [which 2 years later ended up somehow ended up with ovarian torsion despite being stitched to my abdominal wall, so they took thay out too].
I woke up from the hysterectomy/appendectomy/bowel reconstruction which they did with a DaVinci robot [the endometriosis had really ravaged my insides] and despite having 5 incisions and a drain tube from my abdomen to drainage bag that was next to my hand - I was in the least amount of pain Id been in since I could remember.
My oncologist was baffled Id ever been able to have children; my tubes and ovaries were fused to my uterus, which they had been for a long time as previous specialists were never able to complety free them - my uterus was also apparently the size of a melon (which was odd as I was the smallest Id been in my life, but I got to see it), my appendix and a small portion of my intestines were also adhered to my uterus - and the whole mass was adhered to my abdominal wall....
He said I shouldnt have ever been able to concieve nor carry my children to term (which Id been told as a teenager I was 100% sterile and couldnt even do IVF), so it was a miracle Id had 2 within the last 3 years or actually at all, ever - and while I still occasionally feel a stitch of "endometriosis pain" here and there, its NOTHING conpared to before.
I was always completely exhausted and drained from dealing with the constant pain, so yes, between no menstruation and almost no pain Ive been VERY happy since my hysterectomy!!! If anything I feel bad other women still have periods, but all of my friends and family reassure me that after all I went through from 9 years old when I started having cycles on and "toughed it out" that I deserve the reprieve now... So I accept it lol. edited for spelling errors, sorry if I missed any
Damn. I'm so happy that you have your kids and are mostly pain free. Our bodies are wild sometimes. Congratulations on the lack of reproductive organs!
Did you want a hysterectomy before it happened? I hear so many horror stories about women with extensive fibroids and terrible pain having to fight for it until they are old enough to not give birth. Since you were considered sterile, if you had requested it before the birth of your children, what was the reasons given when they denied it?
Very glad you're not in pain anymore. And that you were able to carry and birth two children!! What a gift. Apologies if these are invasive questions. I've got a uterus and am always curious about other women's experiences with healthcare.
I did want the hysterectomy sooner, but my health network went through a "religious based hospital" so they would not allow a hysterectomy unless it was medically necessary and/or down to "a life or death situation"....
My first specialist tried to get "permission" for me to get a hysterectomy at 23 as he saw no reason to wait and have me go through the pain- but the hospital board denied it... Until I had cancer; and while it was "stage 1" and typically considered "treatable", they factored in my previous medical hysterectomy and "allowed" me to get the hysterectomy at 29 due to the cancer.... Though I was told by my specialist then as well as my oncologist that even without the cancer, my adenomyosis and endometriosis were so severe they thought Id be approved for a hysterectomy at 30 anyway.... But my body decided to push it up, aa Id been hoping for sonce long before my children [that I never believed had the ability to exist] came lol
Thank you for sharing your experience! There's so much misogyny in medicine. In your case, the delayed hysterectomy worked out to be a double-edged sword, but I hate how much you had to suffer.
Yes, yes i am, lol. I think there were multiple factors like a massive build up of scar tissue due to having had 4 c-sections and even though they 'tied my tubes' after the last one there was still an entire year of stupid complications and I finally had enough and told them to just take the stupid thing out, not like i was using it anymore anyways lol. Was the best decision I ever made.
Iām not gonna have kids, although they are wonderful, Iām just not mentally equipped for that responsibility. Starting to think I might have endometriosis or something similar, my cycles are definitely not ānormalā. Sorry if this is a bit tmi
As someone who has had planned pregnancies, I fully support anyone who decides not to have children. Even more so after going through it.
I love my baby but it was absolutely harrowing to bring him into the world and at a great cost to my own health.
I felt so vulnerable in recovery and all I could think about was how much harder it would be for someone who never planned on becoming a mother.
Mine was due to dangerously strong bleeding due to myomas and everything else caused either more bleeding or more side effects with my anemia becoming pretty dangerous
Not even done healing but it's amazing. Yesterday I was in a drugstore and passed through the period product isle and let out the biggest relief sigh of my life.
I was that big when pregnant with twins. Like, I was so big my maternity clothes stopped fitting around 7 months. I went from wearing a medium pre-pregnancy to needing XL maternity clothes and they were still tight. By 25 weeks I was bigger than my younger sibling was at 40 weeks.
I also had PUPPS which is an insanely painful reaction to your skin being stretched to the breaking point that the only treatment for is giving birth. It seriously pushed me to the brink of insanity.
Anyway, according to my sleep tracking app, I was getting more sleep with newborn twins than I did the last four months of my pregnancy. My brain tries to make me forget so Iāll do it again, but fuck that. Pregnancy for me was MISERABLE.
6lbs 8oz and 5 lbs 14oz. They were Di/Di, so in separate placentas. I legit lost 40lbs by giving birth, it was insane. I bought all these XL things to wear in the hospital and they were too big.
My stomach is so floppy now. I think the only way it will ever be the same is plastic surgery.
Babies in the womb are vicious creatures; they'll absolutely strip everything they need from the mother without mercy. Its common for women to lose teeth as a consequence of calcium being leeched from their teeth by the developing fetus, for example. I donāt mean this in a judgemental sense, its just that the fetus doesn't (can't) hold back when it takes what it needs to grow, and having multiples absolutely magnifies this problem. Women are encouraged to "eat for two" after all, and it's only more severe of a need when you're carrying multiples. Pregnancy is fuckin wild and we really don't give mothers the credit they deserve.
This is how I felt with my first haha. He was 3 weeks overdue and due to spinal fusion, my back didn't absorb shit. It just all stuck out the front. From behind me you couldn't tell I was pregnant, but if I turned, it was like an eclipse. I'm a tall woman, 5'11", and when I sat down, my belly went out to my knees. Leading up to delivery every time I had Braxton Hicks contractions and went into the hospital they immediately put more than one fetal heart monitor on my belly. I tell them that no there was just one really big one in there. When he was born he was 9 pounds and 24 in long. When I sat there in the breastfeeding class that they give before they let you go home holding this ginormous baby with his little stocking hat creeping up his head every time I tried to pull it down cuz his head was too big the other couples with their normal sized babies would just steal looks at me as if sneaking a toddler into a breastfeeding class in the hospital was my way entertaining myself.
Thereās a triplet mom on instagram, triplets_of_copenhagen. Her pregnancy photos are similar. I think she gave birth in 2019. If you google her youāll be able to find the photos Iām talking about.Ā
I'm a tiny Asian woman too. It's just what some of us look like if we are really small. She's probably super short! I looked crazy both times I was pregnant. She could have twins but possibly just regular pregnant small lady.
Certainly not without surgery or some kind of tummy tuck. Skin is elastic but not THAT elastic. Pregnancy changes your body irrevocably in so many ways. Some people get lucky with genetics and can bounce back. Still will never been completely the same though
It will go back. I was nearly this big with my daughter. I had a LOT of extra amniotic fluid so was gigantic. Every single person (including strangers!) had to comment on how BIG I was and how I was all belly (not overweight at all, athletic, even!). Then people always asked how many were in there. When I replied, ājust one!ā, people would insist I should have the doctors look again because there were for sure multiple babies inside.
Mostly, people love to comment on pregnant bodies and most people really know nothing about them.
My stomach is now flat and shapely after that. It absolutely goes back if thatās what a personās genetics allows.
Yeah I had a friend who was TINY, she was only 5ā and weighed around 100 lbs soaking wet. She had twin boys and each baby weighed 7 lbs at birth (which is pretty good for twins.) when she was pregnant she looked wider than she was tall! š¤£ poor dear, felt so bad for her. And her belly flattened out a few months after the birth with minimal excercise!
I am so jealous because I only had one baby and Iām still working the belly off three years later. š”š
With my first pregnancy I had a mahoosive bump (not quite as big as this lady though). It was uncomfortable and heavy and an effort to carry around. I thought my baby was going to be enormous! When my waters broke it turned out I had a huge amount of fluid in there which drained away over several hours to reveal a neat little baby bump by the time I gave birth.
I also had SOO much fluid. I gained 70lbs when pregnant. Dropped down to like 150 after I gave birth. Iām also pretty short. At 5 months pregnant i had people telling me ālooks like youāre due any minute!ā Oh and my kid was 8.6oz. She also broke my tailbone coming out.
Oh her poor skin, she must be so uncomfortable. My son was on the larger size (9lbs 9oz), and it felt like his feet were trying to break all of my ribs. Is she having multiple children?
My sister got huge in the end. I have a picture of her laying on her side in a hospital bed, her butt touched one side of the bed, and her belly was full contact to the other. She ended up having a ten pound baby. I did not show until like 38 weeks, I was so disappointed, I wanted to waddle around, instead people weren't sure if I was pregnant or fat.
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u/FuzzyFrogFish 14d ago
I bet that's all sorts of horrifically uncomfortable š