New Year, New Mom!

Baby G, I have the worst kept secret in the world. I am currently a fat mommy.

My story begins around the age of 8-9 years old when various factors in my life sent me running for food whenever I was feeling sad or lonely. Mix in an addiction to junk food with a lack of proper boundaries when it came to portion sizes and sprinkle in hours and hours spent alone and you get a fat child, who turns into a fat teenager, who blossoms into a fat adult. I have been overweight for over 20 years and I'm only 31 years old.

My struggle with my weight has always been my "thorn in my side" because if there was ever one thing to magically change about myself, I always picked that. My weight kept me from doing things I wanted to do. I remember trying out for volleyball one year in junior high and failing to secure a position on the team. I wound up being the team manager instead. I tried out for drill team another year and I was cut in the first round. I also became the basketball manager because I knew my weight would keep me from doing well in try-outs so I didn't even try. Eventually, I knew the only real "team sport" I would be able to do was marching band. Thankfully there were no try-outs for that so they HAD to take me. *sarcasm*

I maintained my overweightedness (Made up a new word! You heard it here first!) throughout high school and really only varied my weight + or - about 10 lbs depending on the time of year (Marching band was actually good exercise so during Football season I was usually on the low end of my average weight). Looking back on that time I was actually fairly active physically, I just had issues with food and portion control. I wasn't really teased all that often about my weight in school, surprisingly. I attribute my awesome personality and my ability to be friends with nearly everyone to keeping me sheltered from a lot of the "fat hate" that kids experience in school. I was simply too nice to make fun of regularly, I guess. I had crushes, crushes were had on me, I had a lot of friends, dressed normally, and didn't really let my weight stand in the way of doing fun things.

The summer after my senior year of high school I took a waitressing job at a small greasy spoon German/American restaurant. The mixture of constant exposure to grease and oil along with the 10+ miles each day I would walk inside the restaurant turned me into a person who was exercising regularly and began to eschew greasy junk foods for fresh salads. I lost about 20 lbs over the course of the three months I worked there without even trying. I arrived at college thinner than I had been since junior high and with an exciting outlook for my future! I sought out the college Rec Center, began trying to run for the first time since childhood, and I felt AMAZING. Eventually several factors (including a 24-hour open kitchen, late night pizza/chinese food deliveries, a heavy course load, a sprained ankle, and a car accident) conspired against my new lifestyle and as time went by I began to put the weight I had lost back on and then put more on top of that. By the end of my Freshmen year, I had bypassed the Freshmen 15 and went straight for the Freshman 30. Each subsequent year saw me put more weight on top of the weight I had already amassed until, eventually, when I graduated college I weighed nearly 60 lbs more than I had in high school. 60 lbs in 4 years. Unbelievable!

You would think that would be enough of a wake-up call for me to get my ass in gear and lose the weight, right? Sort of. I dabbled in dieting over the next couple of years. I would lose 15 lbs, put 20 back on. Lose another 10, gain 5, lose that 5, then gain 10 more. When your dad and I met and got married I was back up to my post-college weight where I thought I was totally miserable. However, your dad and I both have some issues with food and portion control and together we gained even more weight. I hit my highest weight in June of 2009. I had troubles bending over to tie my shoes, I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without feeling like I was going to die, and I couldn't get pregnant. A visit to the doctor confirmed that years of eating poorly and a predisposition to metabolic issues meant that I had developed Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome. I knew that the only way to ever have a baby would be for me to drop the weight and reverse some of the symptoms of PCOS.

I decided to enroll in the Metabolic Research Center here in town. It was the best decision I could have made! Over the course of the next 9 months I was able to lose over 100 lbs and, eventually, become pregnant (surprise!). The diet at MRC was very strict and offered little in the way of wiggle room so upon finding out I was pregnant, I went a little nutso eating all of the things I hadn't been able to eat in such a long time. Over the course of my 9 month pregnancy, I gained back about 75-80 lbs of my 100 I had lost. Ugh. Imagine how pleased I was to lose about 40 lbs in 3 weeks after birth! I figured losing the baby weight would be no big deal. I was wrong. I quickly put that 40 lbs back on because I was still eating like I was pregnant. Thinking I needed to do something, I joined the Scaledown Challenge at work and succeeded in losing 20 lbs during the 9 week program. After the program ended, I put it all back on again. I was feeling pretty helpless.

This week I made the decision that the only way I'm ever going to get this weight off once and for all is to go back to the Metabolic Research Center, lose the weight, finish the program (without getting knocked up this time!) and finally conquer my food demons. I need this for my own health, but I need it even more so I don't become a terrible example to you, Baby G. I never want you to have the problems I had/continue to have. I want you to lead a healthy life full of awesome foods, physical activity, and a strong sense of self-worth. Pretty soon you will be old enough to realize you have a fat mommy. I hope for a day where you will look back at pictures of me right now and ask me why I looked so different back then. I want you to have a mommy who goes out on the playground with you instead of sitting on the bench. I want you to WANT to be just like me... and for me to be okay with that because I'm worth patterning after.

So, it begins. I'm back at MRC, did my initial weigh-in, and started eating on plan. I go into this knowing I can do it because I did it before. In fact, my before/after pictures from the first time are prominently displayed on the walls at the center as an extra personal "hey, look at how great you looked? Don't you want to get back to that???" I'm not looking forward to people recognizing those pictures are of me and then wondering why I got so big again, but for someone like me weight will always be a struggle and I will always have my ups and downs. I haven't truly lost unless I quit fighting and as long as I have you, Baby G, I simply cannot quit fighting.

Wave goodbye to fat mommy, Baby G. Healthy mommy is on her way!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Baby G, I swear you are changing every single day.

It hasn't even been two weeks since you decided it was time to stand freely and now you're walking upwards of 4-5 feet in one go! Sometimes it's one step forward and two steps back, or one step forward and a sideways stumble, or step.... step.... stepstepstepstepOMGFALLING, but no matter the result there is no one more proud of your accomplishments than YOU! I love watching your face light up when you do something you know is amazing. Your little squishy-faced grin, your hands clapping, your high pitched squeal... it's all so freakin' cute!

Sometimes I look at you and I'm blown away by all of the subtle changes you have going on right now. Your sense of humor is perfect. Your comedic timing rivals the best of the best. You think daddy and I are HILARIOUS at the most random times! You've started mimicking us and, I assume, the day care kids you're around because I have no idea how you learned to do the fishy face but it comes out all of the time now. Your "sniffy face" is one of the funniest things I've ever seen and the mischievous grin that follows it tells me you know you're the one who is making my sides split and you LOVE IT!

Behold! The sniffy face!

You've also started coming up with your own words for things. A cat, in any form, is now known as a "nyah nyah." We often call cats "meow meows" in our house and "nyah nyah" is your way of saying that. I know this because you point at each and every form of cat in the house and proclaim loudly (and in a high pitched tone) "NYAH NYAH!!" Not only is that totally adorable, but it really impresses me that you understand a real cat is the "same thing" as a stuffed cat puppet or a kitty on TV or a kitty in one of your books. They're all "nyah nyahs" and you understand that. I guess I thought that sort of abstract understanding came later but as sure as can be, you'll greet the real kitty as "nyah nyah" and then go over to your cat puppet and ask for that "nyah nyah" too. BLOWS MY MIND!

It also impresses me that you're very willing to try new foods. Your dad and I have a rule when it comes to eating at restaurants. You eat what we eat. This means if we go out to eat at a Mexican restaurant, you eat Mexican food. If we go out to Japanese, you eat Japanese. I'm not having my kid sit down at a perfectly delicious Chinese restaurant and order chicken strips! So far you've LOVED Mexican food (beans and rice and beef and guacamole, etc) and at least been willing to give Japanese food a try (you had some tofu and ate various parts of my cooked sushi roll with chopsticks, nonetheless! Yes, I was manning the chopsticks, not you, but you ate from them like it was no big deal! PROUD OF YOU!). You've had hummus and liked that, too. Oh my goodness, baby. There is a whole world of delicious foods out there that you will love! Your daddy and I are trying so hard to introduce you to things early on in hopes you won't become the same sort of picky eater we both were when we were kids. So far, so good. Keep up the good work!

All of a sudden you are discovering things and their purposes. You now know that flipping that small switch near your changing table will either bathe the room in bright light or make it so dark you cannot see anything. How fun! (P.S. It is not fun when I'm trying to change your diaper, by the way.) If you see a button, you simply MUST press it immediately. This is awesome when it comes to your toys! It is less awesome when you decide it's time to shut down the XBox or when I'm trying to pay for something and you try to push all of the buttons on the credit card scanner. To you the world is one big old button waiting to be pushed and there better DARN WELL be something awesome that happens when you push it. It is adorable and infuriating at the same time, as are many of the things you are learning to do!

Sometimes your changes are very welcome (I simply cannot WAIT to be done with formula! I'm so sorry I had to give that to you because it smells awful, tastes awful (yes, I tried it), and is CRAZY expensive! Believe me, milk is WAAAAY more tasty!), and sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed by them (we totally need to baby proof this house RIGHT AWAY because you will not be happy to stay in the living room forever and you're already starting to make breaks for it every now and then). But with you in the house it is never a dull moment! You've made our lives so much fun and so full of excitement!

Baby G, you terrify me...

From the point of Baby G's conception (most likely on a trip to the zoo in Omaha, Nebraska... sorry, TMI!) up until this exact moment it has been about 20 months. 20 months ago we had no idea we were getting ready to head into the most exciting journey of our lives. 20 months ago we had no idea we would be planning a baby's first birthday party instead of my 31st birthday party. 20 months ago I had no idea what it meant to be truly terrified that something is wrong with your precious baby.

Baby G, you terrify me...

Motherhood has been the most amazing thing I've experienced so far in my life. I've been so lucky to experience highs that make Mt. Everest green with envy. I've also experienced moments of sheer terror where I thought either I had something terribly wrong or the fates were playing the saddest of ballads on my heartstrings. In the last 20 months I have experienced exactly 9 times where I thought my heart would burst free of my chest because of Baby G. Here they are, in chronological order:

1. Fear of miscarriage: Finding out I was pregnant was extremely exciting! My very first thought was, "MUST TELL EVERYONE!!" My very second thought was, "What if I have a miscarriage and I've already told everyone??" We found out when I was about 6 weeks pregnant, which is still in the very real danger zone of losing a pregnancy. I tried my best not to think about the possibilities, which meant going with my first thought of telling everyone, but it was always in the back of my mind. My mind eased after the passing of the first trimester, but when I read singer Lily Allen lost her baby at 6 months gestation, my fears of losing my precious baby girl ignited yet again. I never stopped worrying about losing her until the day she was born, which of course gave me a hundred other reasons to BEGIN worrying about her, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

2. Where is your heartbeat??: When we went in for our first OB/GYN visit I was about 8 weeks along. They actually don't see patients until they are 8 weeks along, which made me sad because I couldn't wait to hear the heartbeat! I felt like it would make it all seem more real if I could hear that little flutter. We waited anxiously in the waiting room surrounded by other mothers-to-be in various stages of pregnancy and soon found ourselves in a room with our OB and her small hand-held heart monitor device. She squirted cold and slimy goop on my belly and set to work trying to hear the heartbeat. She moved the wand this way and that way, up and down, here and there... nothing. My own heart dropped to the floor thinking, "This is it. We've lost the baby." Our OB ordered an ultrasound just to be sure I was actually pregnant with a live baby. I got gooped up again and nervously waited for the technician to find our tiny baby, which of course, she did! We got our first glimpse of our little bundle of joy and she looked like a gummibear! *Sigh of relief*

3. Stupid... so stupid: One of my favorite parts of being pregnant was feeling all of the fluttery movements early in the pregnancy. As Baby G got bigger, those fluttery movements turned into crazy alien-like rolls and kicks, but I still loved feeling all of it because it reminded me of the special parcel I was carrying. I tried being super careful while I was pregnant, as I am naturally a total klutz, not to bump my belly into things or fall or do anything that might jeopardize my kiddo. So, imagine how stupid I felt when, one night while playing Rock Band, I was being over-dramatic about not getting 100% on one of my vocal solos (totally robbed!) and flopped dramatically onto the couch. Looking back, it probably wasn't all that hard of a flop, but for someone who was trying so hard to be careful, it felt like a huge mistake and I instantly regretted doing it. As if to teach me a lesson, Baby G didn't make any movements for well over an hour after I did that. I spent that hour shimmying, shaking, poking, and prodding my belly to get her to move so I wouldn't keep worrying that I'd hurt her. When I finally felt her move, I was elated. No more drama-queen for me.

4. To everything, turn, turn, turn: On my very last OB/GYN appointment, we found out Baby G was STILL head-up in her comfy little womb. She never once went head down. At that appointment we found out she was potentially 9 lbs already and would probably never go head down on her own. For someone who wanted a natural birth (not even an epi!), this was sad news. It meant I would get a C-Section, my worst nightmare. She said we would need to decide right then if we wanted to have Baby G that night before she left for a one-week conference in Mexico and that we could try to turn her for one last shot at a natural birth. We weighed the pros and cons and decided to go for it. I was told there was a chance while turning Baby G that the placenta could tear, which would mean an immediate emergency C-Section so I wouldn't bleed out, but that it was rare. I gave it a shot and OMG worst decision EVER! It was a pain like no other pain and I instantly began to worry that I'd made a decision that could harm Baby G. Once we realized it wouldn't work, we went ahead and decided on the C-Section. I said some quiet apologies to Baby G for putting both of us through that.

5. What are we doing wrong???: On the night we brought Baby G home from the hospital we were sure that we knew what we were doing. Baby G had been SO good in the hospital and things were easy-peasy lemon-squeezy! We had the feeding schedule down, we were on top of diaper changes, Baby G would fall asleep nearly everywhere at anytime so that wasn't an issue. Then, later in the night things took a nose dive! Baby G wouldn't stop screaming no matter what we tried! She screamed and screamed and screamed until we figured something just HAD to be wrong with her! The volley of phone calls made during those tense hours taught my husband and I one very important lesson. "You're on your own, folks!" The hospital wouldn't help, the on-call Dr. at her office had no real suggestions other than, "babies can cry for a really long time sometimes." We were at our wits-end! Finally, one of us suggested we try to feed her more. We had been so indoctrinated into the hospital's feeding schedule that it seemed almost sacrilegious to go against it. Bingo! That was the problem. Baby G scarfed that bottle down like we'd never fed her. I was so terrified that something was wrong with her when all she wanted was some sustenance. Clearly, I had a lot to learn.

6. "Here, total stranger, take the most important thing in my life.": I had one month at home with Baby G before I had to head back to work. I was ready to go back, actually. *dodges all of the rotten tomatoes thrown her way* No, seriously, I needed some adult interactions! What I wasn't really ready to do was hand my precious baby over to a total stranger I had just "met" recently. Starting day care for Baby G was really difficult for me. I knew it had to be done and I was ready for some time back at work, but I was terrified to give her over to someone I barely knew. It didn't help that I started seeing news reports about bad things happening at day cares (which I'm sure were out there all along, but I noticed them a lot more after I had Baby G). Then, when we had to transfer Baby G to a new day care after the first one didn't work out, I was scared again! How will she respond? Is this a good fit? Will Baby G be happier here? Things have turned out great at this new day care and we are happy to say Baby G is happy there, too. Still, handing your baby over to someone for the first time is scary. It's like saying, "here, please take care of the only reason in this world my heart continues to beat" to someone you barely know. Excruciating!

Baby G LOOOOVES her buddies at Day Care!

7. Scary trip to the ER: I believe Baby G was about 5 months old when her nasty cold started turning into something even nastier. Over the course of her day at her first day care she started getting a temperature that grew and grew and grew until, finally, her care provider called me to let me know it was over 102 degrees. I rushed over to the day care to pick her up to take her to the doctor, but realized there was no way I could drive from one end of our town to the other end where her doctor was located in enough time before they closed. I took her to a Minor Med place, instead. There they told me she had an ear infection and prescribed some meds. I went home and tried to soothe my sad and sick baby but as the night wore on, her temperature got worse. Finally, after several calls to the on-call doctor and several temperature readings that were going up instead of down, we got one final temperature reading of over 103.5 degrees. We scooped up Baby G and rushed her to the ER. During our ER stay she was so amazed by all of the nurses and equipment that she smiled and barely fussed at all, which made us look like over-reacting idiot parents, of course! Still, she was fighting a major double ear infection so they gave her an anti-biotic shot, a boatload of ibuprofin and Tylenol, and tried to make her drink some Pedialyte (no-go). In the end, she was fine. But, I will never forget the horror of hugging your baby when she's screaming and her skin feels like it's on fire. No bueno.

8. Your mama is a dumbass: One day on my way out and about with Baby G I made a mistake. I opened the garage door and started the car. I was loading Baby G in the car, got her carseat locked into the base, and then spent a couple of minutes loading the car up with necessities, all the while leaving the car door open so Baby G wouldn't get too upset that the car wasn't actually moving yet. Finally, I was ready to go. I closed all of the car doors and we set off. We weren't a full block from the house when I looked back and saw Baby G asleep. I thought, "Wow, that was really fast even for you, Baby G!" Immediately, I remembered that even though the garage door was open at the time, I had left car doors open in a semi-enclosed environment with a running car and a baby. "OMG," I thought, "I've given my baby carbon-monoxide poisoning!!!" I started yelling out Baby G's name to get her to wake up and respond so I would know she was okay, but even my loudest yelling wasn't getting her to twitch an eye. I frantically pulled the car over, jumped out of the car, flung her car door open, and tried to get her to respond to me. Of course, she did. She was just really sleepy, apparently. I still wasn't satisfied. I turned the car around and went back to the house to fully rouse her so I would KNOW without a doubt that she was okay. She was fine. I didn't poison my baby with invisible gasses. Still, I felt dumb for all of it.

9. Fat-thighed Baby G: The other night as the hubby and I were putting Baby G to bed, we realized we could barely zip up her footie-jammies over her big ol' right thigh. It's been a joke around the house that Baby G has some chubby thighs and I'd even started stretching out some of her jammies to give her more thigh room if they felt too tight. This night, however, we started to notice that one of her thighs was actually significantly chubbier than the other one. We went ahead with the bedtime ritual and put her to bed, but as I was giving her the night-time bottle, I kept feeling her thighs and, yes, they were very different. After putting her to bed I jumped on my iPod and started Googling the hell out of anything I could find hoping to find out if this was normal or something worth being scared over. I instantly found 2 terrifying possibilities: hip dysplasia and hemi-hypertrophy. I worried. I fretted. I even got a lecture from my hubby who has been known to be an extreme hypochondriac in the past about the horrors of Googling symptoms, but I didn't care. I was terribly worried that I was about to find out something was very wrong with our perfect little baby. After talking to the on-call doctor I decided I was going to take her in to the doctor first thing the next morning. Next morning, I went in to wake Baby G. I put her on the changing table and went to work studying her thighs. Yeah, they were totally the same size again. They've been fine ever since then, too. The only thing I can figure is maybe we had her diaper too tight on that side or she had some odd localized swelling. We're still keeping an eye on it just in case, but I'm going to do my best not to Google her symptoms anymore. I assume I'll have zero luck sticking to that.

I'm sure this is just the first 9 instances of roughly a million-billion different times Baby G will terrify me. I know this. I'm not going to pretend it won't happen again. It does, however, make me feel like I owe my parents an apology for all of the dumb things I did to worry THEM when I was little. Sorry mom. Sorry dad. I'll be good from now on!