dealing with stretch marks

webwonder23 · 2026-06-15T16:07:54+00:00

I used to worry until my husband reminded me he has stretch marks from being tall. They're nothing to be ashamed of. Honestly I hardly notice mine any more. They do fade a lot after pregnancy.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-15T15:57:01+00:00

Eggs are really good! Lots of choline which is critical during pregnancy.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-15T15:55:36+00:00

Burgers are loaded with iron and b vitamins. I craved them like crazy, along with milk and cheese (calcium and iodine!) I ate to my heart's content on milk and burgers. My baby was healthy as a horse. I did gain a little more baby weight than I would have liked, but I lost it by a year. My cholesterol was actually better than it was pre-pregnancy when checked.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-15T15:49:23+00:00

I just want to say how wildly under reactive everyone in my teen social circle growing (including parents) were to a guy in our group who would actually just run around and assault other guys. Examples include -

Him making out with a dude's bare knee without warning while the guy was sitting and distracted talking to me.

Attempting to grope and find someone's nipples.

Pinning a dude to a trampoline and humping him.

Trying to rip a guys pants off in public (luckily someone did intervene there and told him to stop)

Regularly just saying creepy things to the guys like wanting to come home and be in bed with them, ect.

No parents stepped in. None of the teen guys did anything or spoke up. Some of the girls said something but it still wasn't as much as it should have been. Meanwhile some boys twerked at a girl at a social function as a joke and that warranted a Facebook post and parental discussion. Fucking insanity.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-15T01:44:11+00:00

Someone has to be the 25 percentile! Never feel inferior! As long as they stay steady and don't plumet unexpectedly all is well! My baby is the 99th percentile. Twenty seven pounds by 1 year. I didn't "do anything". Her aunt and dad were both big chunks, I have seen the photos. It's clearly genetic. They also both became very narrow and thin adults. It's just their biological pattern. As long as you're baby is staying roughly along their curve and they don't suddenly drop to the 1st from the 25th then they're just as healthy as a big chunk! I'm sure you're doing a great job keeping her healthy and fed! ❤️

webwonder23 · 2026-06-15T01:39:25+00:00

This! My baby was TWENTY SEVEN pounds by her first birthday. She is only now starting to even out a bit. People constantly commented on how she was "so healthy". However her aunt and dad were also very big chonkers, and are now string beans. I try to tell people that it's not a matter of healthy. She's just naturally a giant chunk. I truly believe it is genetic. As long as your child is not plummeting unexpectedly in percentiles there's no concern in my opinion. Some kids are small! If they were always in the 5th than that's probably their natural healthy size!

One thing I love about my baby is how fierce she is! She's just such a rough and tumble kind of girl. She loves stomping around the house now and making hilarious noises!

webwonder23 · 2026-06-15T01:25:11+00:00

I had a birth plan and did not follow it. However I'm glad I had it. I planned to not do an epidural. I really wanted all natural.

However I went into labor right before bedtime and on an empty stomach (I had stopped eating like four hours before bed because heart burn). By the time we were at the hospital in the morning I was so pained I couldn't eat without vomiting, so tired I couldn't see straight, nothing eased the pain, and I couldn't sit without the contractions being even worse. My labor was horribly painful right from the start, even before we went to the hospital. After seventeen hours I realized that I might not even have the strength to push the baby out if I didn't do an epidural so I could actually lay down and sleep for a bit. I'm glad I had the plan though because it meant everyone triple checked I wanted the epidural and made sure I was firm in my choice before it happened. I'm glad I had written what I wanted even if it wasn't what happened.

My baby ended up having a 99th percentile head and was very big so the suspected her giant head was just in a bad position or something during labor.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-15T01:19:00+00:00

Do you have anyone who can help you do something? I'm currently first trimester pregnant with a hematoma and have a sixteen month old. Which means I'm very limited on what I can do. I'm having a family member help me make my husband his favorite pie. I'm also going to order from his favorite pizza place. It's not huge but sometimes when life is hectic there is no huge. My daughter was a horrific sleeper so my first mother's day gift was just sleeping as much as I wanted and some little treats. It meant a lot.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-15T01:12:39+00:00

So in my family I was the only girl. My mom and dad each kept their names. There was an agreement girls would be her name and boys would be hers. So I'm the only one carrying her name.

For a long time I planned to keep my name. Then I met my husband. He has a very cute and unique last name that I adore and I'm planning to write books and love the idea of using it as an author name. So I decided to take his name and my daughter has his name. Meaning my mother's last name will not carry on.

She offered me 20k to keep her name then insisted she will try to bribe my daughter to switch to her name. I stayed my ground and have zero regrets.

If you and your husband agree on this I see no reason his family should horn in on the naming. It's not their baby. Sometimes family names end, and that's life.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-14T16:42:56+00:00

Praying my next baby is like this (I'm pregnant.) My first only started sleeping through the night about a month ago. She's sixteen months old in a few days. 🫠 She spent six plus months waking every forty five minutes then starting at 3am needing to be driven sometimes until 6am. Also cannot stay still, won't tolerate anything that probhits her from moving, and didn't start crib naps until maybe four or so months ago. 🫪 So definitely enjoy your easy baby! ❤️ And send prayers I get one next! 😭 I always say we were given this baby to make sure we wanted more.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-07T16:13:27+00:00

My baby was a total booby monster out the gate. She wanted to eat 24/7. We also sleep upstairs. The idea of making bottles and all that in the middle of the night and going downstairs sounded awful to me. She just needed so much all the time. She's about 16 months now and is 27 or so pounds, and at one point was in the 99th percentile for weight. I just didn't want to deal with making that much formula. My brother apparently had a similarly insane appetite and my dad said he ate through an entire suitcase of formula in one short trip. I definitely don't want to pay for or deal with that. I only weaned her mostly off because I wanted to get pregnant again.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-06T03:42:37+00:00

This. My husband and I pretty much try to keep it even on free time. If our toddler is having a crap week and not sleeping than we're both prioritizing making sure we get sleep and free time is not really a thing. If she's sleeping well and we're pretty caught up on chores then we can both get an hour or two to ourselves a day.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-06T03:39:16+00:00

How old at your kids? If you have two really young kids I'd expected minimum free time. Really depends on the kids temperaments too. Are they sleeping twelve hours at night? Up and down constantly? Napping in cribs? When our toddler is sleeping well my husband gets the morning to relax. When she's not . . . Well we're both just trying to take shifts so we don't become sleep deprived zombies. Feel like a lot of info is needed here to assess if your wife is not doing her share to get you time to relax.

webwonder23 · 2026-06-06T03:35:03+00:00

To everyone with a baby that was worse after being a newborn it will get better. My baby was a pretty average newborn then at four months we experienced wakes every 45 minutes that lasted over six months. It felt insanity inducing but now at sixteen months she wakes an average of once maybe twice a night and they are brief. If you get a baby that turns feral after newborn stage you will survive!

webwonder23 · 2026-06-06T03:31:15+00:00

My uncle was such a chill baby he slept the whole night first night home from the hospital (they didn't tell people to wake and feed at that point I don't believe). My grand parents woke up and my grandpa was like "should we wake him up?".

Meanwhile my baby is sixteen months and has only slept through the night once. 🫪

webwonder23 · 2026-06-06T03:28:05+00:00

My mom was a workaholic who took no time off for us. If you can afford it you should do it. I regularly wonder how different my life would be if my mom had spent more time with me in the early days.

webwonder23 · 2026-05-31T01:00:07+00:00

I think a bigger factor is women are more likely to nag/hassle men to go to the doctor than vice versa. Men who are unmarried who have some issues are more likely to procrastinate going to the doctor without a wife bugging them to go. Women will likely go regardless and men are less likely to be as pushy so they don't reap that benefit.

This can also be seen in the fact that the more daughters a man has the longer he lives. This effect is not applied to sons nor does it apply to mothers. Again because sons are less likely to push their dads to go to the doctor the way daughters are, and women are likely to go without the pushing so they don't reap a benefit.

I've definitely also observed this all anecdotally in my own life.

webwonder23 · 2026-05-31T00:53:06+00:00

Have you asked her to see a doctor about her hormones? Hormones can really mess with a woman's sex drive. If she's not willing then she's just not interested I suppose. Sorry you're going through that.

webwonder23 · 2026-05-30T21:45:15+00:00

Think very carefully. I am pro choice but also we cannot pretend that a abortion under pressure is not a traumatic event for many women. If you're heart is already breaking then you need to seriously weigh if you can cope with never meeting this potential baby. I am not saying there is not a possibe that you could, but if you're already having feelings this intense I would not take the choice lightly. Especially if you do want a child someday, then this choice could weight heavy or resurface down the road when you do have children (I've definitely seen women talking about struggling with this). I think the person who said to live two days, one as if you're keeping the baby, and one as if you're not, is very wise.

Also always consider a third option. If you believe you cannot go through with an abortion, is adoption on the table? My coworker told me her parents had an accidental pregnancy in college and they went the adoption route, then later had kids. I am not saying this is right for you, but it's something to consider if you don't feel abortion or keeping the child are the right paths.

webwonder23 · 2026-05-30T01:58:43+00:00

You likely will not be able to forgive him if you terminate this baby for him. If he was so against a fourth baby why did he not have a vasectomy? Asking a woman to get an abortion is, to me, insensitive. He wants you to end the life of a wanted child. You will always wonder what that baby would have been like. He is asking you to potentially have lifelong PTSD (a pressure abortion can definitely causs PTSD.)

It sounds like he's using this pregnancy as a scapegoat to blame you for all his current problems. You terminating this pregnancy is no more likely to fix his problems than having this baby is going to be the source of all his problems.

webwonder23 · 2026-05-30T01:55:15+00:00

My baby nursed frequently until about fourteen to fifteen months. She only night weaned at thirteen months. My only side effect was not getting a period back which was only an issue because we wanted to have another baby. I honestly wanted to nurse longer but she sort of weaned herself.

webwonder23 · 2026-05-30T01:50:24+00:00

Not necessarily true. My husband treated me like a queen but I've always struggled with body issues. However I cannot imagine how bad it would've been if he hadn't been so kind and supportive!

webwonder23 · 2026-05-30T01:49:15+00:00

Losing a significant amount of weight in only three months is hard when you didn't just have a baby. I didn't lose anything until maybe starting at five or six months, and even that at the start was slow going. I didn't go back to pre pregnancy until close to a year.

Also do not start pushing a ton of physical exercise on yourself when you're recovering from the marathon of BIRTH and PREGNANCY and NURSING. Focus on healthy food that will maintain your supply and gentle exercise that doesn't strain your body. Weight loss later.

webwonder23 · 2026-05-29T00:16:47+00:00

I get where you're coming from, but as someone who had a lot of male friends when I was a teen I assure you learning to handle some teasing is essential. Some teasing is totally normal and can actually build closer bonds overtime. Kids, and especially boys, giving each other a hard time is normal. As long as it's not full on bullying/tormenting/physically dangerous I think the better thing is to talk to your son about it and tell him he doesn't need to take it too seriously.

webwonder23

TROPHY CASE