I can’t get rid of my baby belly... six years after my son was born!
SIX years after giving birth, Cheryl Castle is still being asked if she is pregnant.
Mrs Castle, 35, who counts her calories, goes to the gym five times a week and weighs just 8st 2lb, has had a large ‘baby belly’ since the birth of Liam by caesarean section in 2011. Now she has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £7,400 for a tummy tuck.
Mrs Castle said people stopped her in the street to congratulate her on her ‘pregnancy’, leaving her feeling depressed and with low self-esteem.
Her core muscles split during pregnancy, but she said she did not qualify to have an abdominoplasty – or tummy tuck – on the NHS because it was considered to be a
‘Clothes shopping is a nightmare’
procedure. Mrs Castle – who is married to 44- year- old Andrew, a mechanic – said looking in the mirror disgusted her, adding: ‘The problem I’ve got is that I’ve split the muscles down my core during childbirth and the later stages of pregnancy.
‘There’s nothing you can do to fix that yourself. Strangers often congratulate me on being pregnant and the reaction when I correct them is awkwardness.
‘Most people don’t know what to say or where to look. When I am having flu jabs, the nurses congratulate me on being pregnant, supermarket staff ask my son if he’s looking forward to being a big brother, lifeguards advised me not to use a spa pool as I’m pregnant...
‘Winter is easier – big coats hide most of it – but clothes shopping is a nightmare. I’m between a size six and eight, but buying trousers and skirts never ends well. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve come home empty-handed and very disappointed.’
Mrs Castle, a receptionist from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, said she had appealed the NHS decision three times. ‘I feel at a loss – I can’t possibly do anything more. I exercise hard, eat well and still nothing has worked. I feel like a failure. I feel fat and unattractive.’
She added: ‘I have even been classed as underweight yet I still have a big bulging stomach.’
She says surgery will change her life. ‘I will feel like a normal person. I can lie on a beach, take my child swimming, not having to worry about how I look.’