by Reena Daruwalla, guest writer for Nancy Hayssen.com

A lot of women feel fat and ungainly and huge and unattractive during pregnancy. Yes there is a feeling of being bloated and heavy and out of shape and off balance. Men however look at it differently: firstly there is an atavistic satisfaction that a man derives from knowing that a woman is carrying his child which he finds a tremendously moving; and secondly men seem to find the more rounded, more womanly shape of a pregnant woman exciting. Many men think of a pregnant woman as the ultimate expression of femininity and a personification of the feminine shape.

Yes pregnancy, childbirth and breast feeding alters our bodies irreversibly, all the things that get added, like the love handles, stretch marks, saggy skin, expanded waist line, baby apron (what a very interesting term don’t you think?), and the less than perfect, even mismatched breasts the list goes on…. But you know what? It’s ALL OK! There is beauty in all those supposed imperfections.

I found this really wonderful site called the shape of a mother.com where women frankly and I think very bravely talk about all their experiences with motherhood, both the good and the bad. Women here have talked about how pregnancy and child birth and breast feeding have altered their bodies and how they wear their scars more like stripes!

I think it is unbelievably brave for women to show their bodies; how they really look, saggy bellies, stretch marks, Caesarean section scars et el. Also unbelievably brave is to be able to put up your before (great looking) and after (irretrievably altered) photos simply so that other women can see them, and realize that they are far from alone and so that they can take inspiration, encouragement and even solace from them.

What I find wonderful is how we women learn to accept our altered shapes and love them, “even though it’s not the one I started out with on this journey” with the “hope that our daughters (and their partners) will have an easier time of loving the female form than we have.”