A Picture May Say 1,000 Words

But this one of me appears to be screaming them instead.

This is the only picture that came out of the trip my husband and I took to go to Chicago.  There I am, on the left, Brian, and his brother Justin and his girlfriend Sabina. 

I am absolutely miserable in this picture. I feel fat, bloated, gross, disgusting, ugly, embarrassed, ashamed, guilty. Just to name a few. 

Upon some self-reflection, I did a brave thing and signed up for Weight Watchers meetings as well as the online. So I have both of them now, for $43/month. I think it was worth it. The meeting was packed, full of different types of people, both women and men, young and elderly, bigger and smaller. It was great!

I have my official weigh in from Wednesday: 244.2 lbs. Here's to new beginnings.

The Dragon Born

Drake's birth story-

 Wednesday, January 4th, 6:00 am. We arrive at the hospital for my second induction. I had just scarfed down a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from Arby's in the parking garage. We get settled into our room and the nurse tells me we will get started on the medication as soon as registration enters me into the hospital computer.

 8:30 am: Still no medicine. I'm starting to get annoyed, but they send up breakfast- blueberry pancakes with sausage. This is important, as it turns out to be my last solid food meal for the next 36 or so hours.

 9 am rolls around and finally things get started. The nurse informed me that registration had so much trouble because the computer would not accept me as a patient. Apparently it was already entered in the system that I had the baby the other day. My progress is slow and the gel they give me is not softening my cervix.

At 3 pm, my doctor comes in and checks me. He says my cervix is still too hard and high, but I'm dilated to 4 cm, and 60% effaced, so he breaks my water. "One way or another," he says, "we're committed now." I certainly don't remember him asking me or telling me he was going to break my water. He just checked me and asked the nurse for a hook and went to work. PS- Don't listen to their bull shit when they tell you it won't hurt to break your water. It does. It hurts a lot.

Pitocin is started at this time and the contractions are coming hard and fast now that my water is broken. I'm given Nubane (or whatever) for the pain but it's not helping.

At 7, I'm crying and begging for an epidural. The nurse on call is a talkative bitch who keeps telling me it's not that bad. I'm crying during each contraction and cursing the anesthesiologist in between. I try really hard not to yell/scream/get short with Brian, who is looking absolutely terrified at the amount of pain I am in. He tries to comfort me by placing his hand on my stomach, to which I screamed "Don't. Touch. Me!! Just hold my hand." He just held my hand after that.

   At 8 pm the anesthesiologist arrives and I am determined to get the epidural in place correctly on the first try. I had a huge contraction during placement and they asked if I wanted to wait. "No!" I choke out and they proceed. It goes in smoothly and he gives me the first dose and it was wonderful. The pain didn't go away instantly but the intensity lessened significantly and my legs started to feel warm and a little heavy. The pain slowly ebbed away over the next 5 minutes and he stayed to make sure that the epi only affected me from the waist down. I was given a catheter and some Ambien and we slept.


 Thursday 3 am, my progress was checked and I was fully effaced at the time and I was 6 cm dilated. We stopped pitocin at 11 pm the night before so we were pleased that I was making such great progress on my own! We went back to sleep, trying to get enough rest to prepare for the big moment.

 6 am rolls on and I am at 9 dilated. Things are getting exciting. I haven't eaten anything since the day before and have only been able to take small sips of water, in case I need to have a c-section. I have terrible heart burn. I take a Tums and bear it out. My mom and grandma come up.

 9 am and I meet my labor and delivery nurse, Jenny. Jenny is a 20-something, no nonsense spunky girl who knows her stuff. She checks me and I am almost a 10. We start practice pushes.

 At 9:30, after practicing every contraction, we decide it's time! The nurse has me push once more to engage the baby.... And she has me stop pushing and tells me to hold on, she needs to get the resident dr and the ultrasound machine.

 At this point, all hell has broken loose, but I don't know it yet. My mom and grandma are in the lobby waiting, which is next to the nurses station. Jenny is on the phone yelling about needing the ultrasound machine and needing a resident dr. She's going on and on about how the baby is breech and this just turned into an emergency situation. My mom and grandma hear the whole conversation and start freaking out. I have no idea. Jenny comes back in and they check, yep, I'm breech.

She rushes out again and calls my dr, the anesthesiologist, and the nurses all break into action. Brian is tossed some scrubs and told to get dressed immediately. My mom and grandma come in and wish me luck, taking my glasses and jewelry, and I'm carted off to the OR with Brian right behind me.

 10 am. Prepped for surgery, shaved, strapped down, hooked up to more monitors and IVs than I can count. A curtain is erected and I can't see anything. I keep my humor throughout the whole thing. I won't go into detail about the surgery, but here's what is important: I'm anemic and have been the whole pregnancy. No one told me. There is a real serious possibility I might hemmorage during the procedure. I don't, but I'm given an extra 4 bags of fluids.

 10:38 am- our son is born, feet first! He has huge feet. The nurses tell us this and also "There is no doubt, you have a baby boy!" apparently he's well endowed haha. They cart off Drake and Brian goes out to tell my family the surgery was a success. He calls his family, and I'm stitched up before heading to recovery. It's at this point that I violently vomit all over the anesthesiologist. Nothing but bile. I feel better, though I am shaking violently. I'm moved to recovery where I hemorrhage. I stay there for an hour or so to make sure everything is alright.

If it looks like I am about to faint... it's because I am.

 Once out of recovery, I'm moved back to the room and they wheel in Drake and everyone ooh's and ahh's.
I'm no longer shaking, but I feel very very drained and it's hard to keep my eyes open. Thankfully, mercifully, everyone leaves us alone and lets me get some much needed sleep.

New mommy and daddy with the baby 

Friday I get 2 units of blood. I feel much better now.  I'm checked every two hours on blood pressure and heart rate and temperature, all of which are really high. I'm kept under close observation and given lots of fluids. My whole body is swollen with fluid from losing a lot of blood and no one can find any veins for blood draws. My feet swell way more than they ever did (including my toes). I'm given Percocet for pain.

Drake turns out to be a pig, just like his mama was! He could not concentrate on breast feeding because my milk had not come in and he could not get the colostrum fast enough. After struggling with it for a whole day and everyone becoming frustrated (baby, mom, dad, and nurses) we all decide he needs to eat, so we go for formula. I cry in relief. I have them bring in a breast pump for me to stimulate my breasts anyway.

Family comes to visit every day. We were so thankful to have every one visit. My parents and Brian's parents visited multiple times (new grandparents- they couldn't keep away!) and Brian's aunt Marti comes by as well.

I'm so thankful to the hospital staff. Everyone was great (minus one bitchy talkative nurse) and I received excellent care. I am not upset about being induced breech, because with how big Drake was, there was a high possibility I would have had a c-section anyway. The scariest part was learning (too late) that I was anemic and that I had hemorrhaged and needed a blood transfusion. That's all behind me now though, and I'm taking iron supplements to correct that. All that being said, there wasn't any other way I could think of to have my son. Sure it was one hell of a ride, but he came into this world on his own terms, and made the grandest entrance he could. I think he's a lot like his mama in that regard :)

I'm doing great today and Drake is thriving! He was given a clean bill of health from his pediatrician and all the nurses were sad to see us go. We were something of a favorite around the birthplace. I was always told what a great patient I was, and this charming little guy just had a way with the ladies. Must get it from his father :)

Sorry this is so long winded, but it has been an incredible 5 days and so much has happened!

Why I keep trying...

August 2007


Met the love of my life, Brian. We first started dating August 14th.
Pretty much became inseparable after I hit a deer coming home from one of our dates. I think he realized at that point, he had to be with me just so I could get around without killing myself or helpless creatures. (Side note: The deer was fine! He/she ran off, and I was left a shaking, quivering mess.)

So happy, so young, so thin.... 

April 2008

When I moved out of my parents', it was to start my first 'real' job. I had been offered a 9-5 position with a major company and it paid extremely well. I was still going to college full time, and I moved in with Brian and his two roommates

I had no idea how the real world functioned. I remember crying to my mom one time that I don't know what I would do if I got my own place, because when would they pick up the trash? How would I know this? What if my neighbors don't like me? At this point she laughed and said "like our neighbors like us now? psssht!"

It was very stressful moving, though I was excited by it. I got to live with roommates! I got to have my own place! I was on my own, with bills, school, and a job...wait... that's not exciting at all!!

Part of the reason I gained so much weight was the fact that I was living with three men. The other part of the reason was that I was literally making quadruple what I was before. I went from making $7.25/hr 20 hrs a week getting paid biweekly to making $14.50/hr, 40 hours a week getting paid every week. Which meant I could eat out at all of my favorite restaurants a lot more often.

And that is what we did. We ate out at lunch. We ate out for dinner. I grabbed some fast food on the way to class. I got milkshakes for when I did my homework.

I was a pig. And it showed. Very very quickly (in like, oh a month or two) I started gaining weight, rapidly! I was a size 14 and I weighed 175 lbs. Next thing I knew I was a size god only knows stuffed into a size 14 weighing 220 lbs.

August 2008

My weight steadily climbed, because 4 short months after moving out, I got engaged. Now I had a stressful job, college, and a wedding to plan all at once.

We quickly realized that our roommates were not right for us. For one, they HATED me. They despised Brian's decision to propose and told him so on a daily basis. One of them even went so far as to say "just because you have sex with her, doesn't mean you love her." But that is neither here nor there. We decided we needed our own apartment. Preferably closer to work, and further away from the room mates.

Let's fast forward to December 2008.

I graduate from college. I tried to locate my graduation photo but it seems to be MIA, which I don't blame it. I know its around here somewhere. I am pretty sure I didn't throw it away. Or maybe I did. It was a really really bad photo.

I had no idea this is how I actually looked. I didn't own a scale. I knew my clothes weren't fitting properly, I knew I was uncomfortable in the chairs at school and at the graduation, I knew that I was 'a little more out of shape than I used to be.' But Brian still loved me and never said a word about my weight. My family was asking me constantly if I was depressed or something, which pissed me off, because I was obviously in LOOOOVE why couldn't they see that??


January 2009

We get laid off from said job. Panic ensues. We had not saved even a nickel from our jobs, and somehow we incurred all this credit card debt, despite the fact that we were making $900 a week and our bills (at that time) were only $900 a month.

March 2009

Still jobless, but getting lots of money from unemployment and going to McDonald's 3 times a day.
Decided at this point to get married in 6 weeks. Drop this news on family and friends, with varying responses from "YAY!" to "OMG your life is ruined"

Decided also to lose a little weight. Picked a goal of 20 lbs in 6 weeks.

May 2009

Married! These are our wedding pics.

May 14th, 2009. Yikes. I was sooo uncomfortable.

Saying our vows

The kiss!

The venue. The Courthouse. It's such a beautiful building.

Yes I am really that pale
And yes, I do have my purse
And yes... I was aware of how awful I looked

Remember feeling hateful towards myself that I couldn't even lose any weight before I got married, not even a single pound. Tipped the scales at my heaviest, of 237.5 lbs.

Also remember that Brian kept asking where my purse was, and being surprised that it was on my shoulder. My arms were so fat they could hide (and probably still do) my Coach bag.

Somehow squeezed into size 16 jeans that I still can't wear, even though I've lost 20 lbs!

Got put on Xanax for anxiety medication, and also got put on Meridia to try and lose weight. Lost 23 lbs in a month by not eating and popping my medication.

Gained it all back by July.

Fast forward to January 2010

Became a Resolutionary. Joined Curves at 230. Went 3 times.

September 2010

Became overly depressed about life and decided I needed something more than just calorie counting. "Resorted" to Weight Watchers again. I had joined briefly when I was 18 with my mom and even though I didn't really follow the plan 100%, I lost some weight. I figured I would "never be able to do this on my own" so I considered it my birthday gift from my parents', since they gave me money. I was 230 lbs.



Where I Am Now

My goal was to stick it out for three months online and see how I did. If I decided that I needed to go to meetings instead, I would. If I didn't lose anything, then I would try something else. It's been 4 months and some change. And I do see a lot of change. Even if I only lost 12 lbs since I joined, I have lost 12 pounds!! I have also lost almost 20 lbs from my highest, and that is nothing to turn my nose up at!

I think I will go to a WW meeting and see how I like it. Maybe join up there. I saw something online how if you have a meeting membership, online is free? So I will have to think about that some. I definitely don't want to lose my online. I really like the recipes and etc.

My goals in relation to weight loss are still the same: I want to hit my 10% first (207), then under 200, and then finally, 175. This is 30 lbs above the recommended weight for my height, but I was a size 14 at 175 and I had a flat stomach. That is where I want to be again. I am currently a size 16W and weigh 218 lbs so who knows what will happen?

I often look back at the last almost two years and see how little progress I have made, and I start to get upset. Then I stop and think about the quality of my life now compared to back then and I am so much happier, so much more alive. Sure I lost 20 lbs in a year and a half, but it's still 20 lbs I lost, rather than 40 or 60 I gained.

I am happy with where I am headed, but I never intend to give up completely. Some days I may only give 10%, but a lot of 10%'s add up.