Well, it's Monday. However, I think this blog might have a little more optimism. Hubby and I talked Saturday night and I think he is beginning to realize how important having a baby is to me. He said that he wasn't completely serious about not being willing to have fertility tests done. He said he doesn't like the idea, but if it came down to it he would probably do it. So that is a huge start! I also mentioned it would be a great birthday present to me if he would try to take his vitamins on a regular basis without me having to remind him. I guess all of this makes me sound like quite the controlling wife, maybe I am? However, I guess it is the reassurance I need that I am not going through this battle alone. I try not to make him listen to all my fears or the research I have found. I find other avenues to really 'talk' when the whole trying to conceive thing is really getting to me. I just need to know that he wants the same things I do and is willing to do whatever it takes. I am not asking him to read up on stuff. I am not asking him to change his diet or exercise. I am not asking him to take all of these supplements that I have read good things about. I am just simply asking him to take zinc and a multivitamin. Nothing too extreme. I just want to know that I am not forcing him to have a baby if he isn't ready. So, our talk this weekend made me feel better. To me, there would be no greater birthday gift than finding out we are pregnant. Timing won't allow me that news around my birthday, but it might allow for me to share the news with him on his birthday at the beginning of September. Here is to hoping!
We are scheduling a vacation to Riviera Maya, Mexico next June with my family. It is a vacation to celebrate my sister's marriage to her boyfriend of over 10 years. They are just going to go to a courthouse, but this vacation is a way for us to celebrate together. We are all going to book this Sunday, August 5th with Delta Vacations. We are also opting for trip insurance, especially since we are trying to have a baby. Knowing that if I am in my third trimester at the time of the trip, I won't be able to go... trip insurance is crucial!!! Maybe booking this vacation will HELP me get that positive on a pregnancy test. You know, the whole Murphy's Law philosophy. I can tell you, the only thing that will keep me from going on that trip will be a baby, and I will GLADLY cancel the trip for that!
Today, once again, I am really trying to stick to a diet. I have plans to go to the gym after work as well. Maybe having the reassurance that my hubby is truly on board and is willing to do what it takes will help me 'do what it takes.' So, here is to hoping! :-) *fingers crossed*
Monday, July 30, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Another Day...
Well, the last time I posted (2 days ago), I did have a good diet day! I even went to the gym. However, I did not get the usual energy burst working out gives me. Instead, I was EXHAUSTED and sore. I just wanted to go to bed. I think now that maybe I was dehydrated. Yesterday the diet 'was' going well... mainly because I really wasn't that hungry and did not eat much most of the day. I didn't go to the gym, because I was feeling rough still. I guess I was making excuses. I really need to work on that and stay committed to my eating healthy and exercising routine. Maybe, had I ate more during the day, I would not have been starving when I got home. My dinner went way over my calories. Last night I was just too tired to care, that seemed to carry over to this morning. :-(
I cannot put into words how badly I want to conceive a baby of my own naturally, that should be enough of a desire to make me stick to a healthy eating and exercising routine... shouldn't it? However, it just hasn't been enough? Maybe I just need to change up my diet? I feel too lazy to make my IdealShape shakes in the morning. That sounds really bad, but getting everything ready for the blender and then having to clean everything up... it's a lot when I am groggy. Also, I have been varying the fruits and stuff I add to the mix, but I guess I have grown tired of it. A shame really, because the shakes DO fill me up and I DO get great nutrition from them. They don't taste bad... I just want something easy and good. Of course, then dinner will get complicated. If I do no shakes, then the prepared dinners (Weight Watchers, Healthy Choice, etc) that I do in the evening I will probably do for lunch. If I do them again at dinner, that is a LOT of sodium. Oy! Maybe I could still do a shake at lunch and that would be okay? One shake a day. I can make excuses until I am blue in the face, but I am only making them to myself. Truth is, I am just lazy! If I get my butt into the gym, the LAST thing I want to do coming home AFTER the gym is have to prepare a healthy dinner for myself. Vicious cycle of immense laziness... or maybe my depression and anxiety are creeping back.
Regardless, something has got to give! I want a baby! Losing weight is not a guarantee I will get pregnant, but it definitely needs to be done if I want a better chance. I need to erase the pointless thoughts from my mind. The thoughts that say 'What is the point? If you were meant to have a baby it wouldn't matter if you lose weight or not! Fat women get pregnant all the time! The chance of you losing weight and successfully getting pregnant are just the same as they are now!' THEN, the other voice creeps in... 'What if it isn't you with the problem? What if it is male factor infertility? How will we ever get pregnant then? My hubby has no interest in ever going to the doctor to have fertility tests ran. He just doesn't want a baby bad enough to do that.' After those thoughts hit my head... everything feels hopeless all over again. I have a male multi-vitamin and zinc that I bought for him to take since he eats very poorly, but getting him to take them regularly is like an act of God. All of these things just tell me that he just doesn't care. He isn't proactive. He wouldn't change his diet or begin to exercise, or take supplements if it meant that we could for sure have a baby then. It just doesn't mean as much to him. At least, that is what all of his actions show me and it breaks my heart. I love him, but his complete attitude towards the whole situation completely breaks my heart. I just wish for one second he could feel how bad I want this and how it eats at me. Until I can possibly make him understand that there is nothing more I want in this world, all I can do is try to take care of myself and pray that is enough. :-(
I cannot put into words how badly I want to conceive a baby of my own naturally, that should be enough of a desire to make me stick to a healthy eating and exercising routine... shouldn't it? However, it just hasn't been enough? Maybe I just need to change up my diet? I feel too lazy to make my IdealShape shakes in the morning. That sounds really bad, but getting everything ready for the blender and then having to clean everything up... it's a lot when I am groggy. Also, I have been varying the fruits and stuff I add to the mix, but I guess I have grown tired of it. A shame really, because the shakes DO fill me up and I DO get great nutrition from them. They don't taste bad... I just want something easy and good. Of course, then dinner will get complicated. If I do no shakes, then the prepared dinners (Weight Watchers, Healthy Choice, etc) that I do in the evening I will probably do for lunch. If I do them again at dinner, that is a LOT of sodium. Oy! Maybe I could still do a shake at lunch and that would be okay? One shake a day. I can make excuses until I am blue in the face, but I am only making them to myself. Truth is, I am just lazy! If I get my butt into the gym, the LAST thing I want to do coming home AFTER the gym is have to prepare a healthy dinner for myself. Vicious cycle of immense laziness... or maybe my depression and anxiety are creeping back.
Regardless, something has got to give! I want a baby! Losing weight is not a guarantee I will get pregnant, but it definitely needs to be done if I want a better chance. I need to erase the pointless thoughts from my mind. The thoughts that say 'What is the point? If you were meant to have a baby it wouldn't matter if you lose weight or not! Fat women get pregnant all the time! The chance of you losing weight and successfully getting pregnant are just the same as they are now!' THEN, the other voice creeps in... 'What if it isn't you with the problem? What if it is male factor infertility? How will we ever get pregnant then? My hubby has no interest in ever going to the doctor to have fertility tests ran. He just doesn't want a baby bad enough to do that.' After those thoughts hit my head... everything feels hopeless all over again. I have a male multi-vitamin and zinc that I bought for him to take since he eats very poorly, but getting him to take them regularly is like an act of God. All of these things just tell me that he just doesn't care. He isn't proactive. He wouldn't change his diet or begin to exercise, or take supplements if it meant that we could for sure have a baby then. It just doesn't mean as much to him. At least, that is what all of his actions show me and it breaks my heart. I love him, but his complete attitude towards the whole situation completely breaks my heart. I just wish for one second he could feel how bad I want this and how it eats at me. Until I can possibly make him understand that there is nothing more I want in this world, all I can do is try to take care of myself and pray that is enough. :-(
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Here is to hope!
I have decided to start this blogging phenomenon in hopes of bringing myself some peace. So much has gone wrong that it is hard to believe something can go right anymore. I know is sounds like a pity party now, but here is to hoping that will change! I know things can go right, I just do not have faith in the fact they will.
I was recently married in April and the wedding was perfect and so was the honeymoon. That went right, although I worried all the way up to the wedding day that something would go wrong. I could go into extreme detail of my life up until now in hopes of finding where it all went wrong and I stopped believing good things could happen to me... but that would take a lifetime! Instead, I will focus on how to fix life currently and think more positive.
What has brought me to blogging is my overwhelming desire to have a baby and the even more overwhelming fear it will never happen for me. I am going to be 35 years old next month, I have suspected (but not confirmed) PCOS, and I am significantly overweight. My husband tries to tell me I am not, but I think he is just being nice. At my lowest point of depression and anxiety back in 2006, I weighed 330lbs. I was recently out of a long term relationship. It just wasn't working and I left him. I had started to hate being a teacher. Working in Indianapolis Public Schools and MSD of Warren Township Schools had taken the love of teaching completely out of me. Sure I had the kids that I absolutely adored and at times would renew my faith in teaching... but for every kid that inspired me, there was another kid or administrator at my school that made my life a living hell. The last straw was having a principal at Stonybrook Middle School in MSD of Warren Township that was completely unsupportive and would yell at my in front of my students. He had no clue why I had disciplinary problems with kids in my class sizes of 60 or more middle school aged kids. It was horrible, and this teaching experience alone brought me to my breaking point. To the point I needed out immediately. I was so low almost everyday that I would consider the thought of driving my car into a pole just to be done with it. I did not care about anything and I could not think straight. I wanted out, but I did not know what I was going to do for a job if I quit. I had tried to find a new teaching job in northern Indiana, so I could be close to my family. I just could not find one. I knew that leaving in the middle of a school year would look terrible on a resume. I had taken the job at Stonybrook because the money was going to be good. It was a last minute thing. Being a year round school, I literally interviewed and was hired a week before school started in the summer. That should have been a sign right there. The fact the school had a different choir teacher almost every year for at least 5 years... it should have been a sign! I just couldn't see past the money. I learned fairly quickly that this wasn't the job for me. I started in July, but by Labor Day I was already sinking into a deep depression. This is when I really started to pack on the pounds and the scary thoughts were in my head. I felt like such a failure. Then add female health issues that needed treatment including freezing my cervix and a LEEP Biopsy... I was definitely at my breaking point. I was so homesick for my family and all I wanted to do was leave Indianapolis and never look back. So after reassurance from one of my best friends and my mother, I did just that. I moved back home in December 2006. I tried to find ANY sort of job for the next 3 months, but there was just nothing. Then the old liquor store I had worked at during college had a position open and they were able to get me back in. Within a year, I was managing my own location. The money wasn't what I was making teaching, but I was HAPPY! No more evil thoughts! I even began to lose some weight from working at in the store. I was no longer sedentary in my work place. After a couple years of not actively looking for a relationship, my age started creeping up on me. I knew that if I ever wanted to have a child, I needed to be looking for Mr. Right. I was already 32 years old at that time, and with my female health history there was no time like the present! In the fall of 2009, I started dieting and working out at the gym regularly. I was losing weight like a rock star, but without a personal trainer or even a workout buddy. When I started to gain my confidence back, I started using dating websites that I was referred to by my brother. I felt so good about myself and I WAS happy! I had a few dates that didn't really pan out, but I was still hopeful. I love almost 80lbs from September 2009 through March 2010. Then one of the worst things imaginable happened........
Easter 2010 was as awesome as any other holiday with my family at the lake. My Dad made sure eggs were colored with the grandkids, that there was an egg hunt, they had Easter baskets from the Easter bunny, and that there was a GREAT feast for us all to enjoy together. My Dad did all of this while not feeling good. He never let on just how bad he was feeling, not even to my Mom.
Of course, as usual... most of us had to work the next day and wanted to get home at a reasonable time. I, on the other hand, had met a guy that I did really like and he invited me over to watch a movie and play board games that evening. When I was getting ready to leave, my Dad just stared at me and told me how good I was looking and how stupid that boy would be not to want to be with me. He also told me how proud he was of me while he choked back tears. Little did I know those would be some of the last words I ever heard from my Dad. Not even 36 hours later, early Tuesday morning, April 6th, he started with delusional talk before starting with seizures. He had went to the family practice Mom was a nurse at on Monday, but they just diagnosed him with a Sinus Infection and an Ear Infection. He was prescribed meds, but he was just too tired to pick them up. He had apparently stopped for 4 naps on the 10 minute drive home from the Doctor's Office. Never once did he call anybody to pick up his meds for him. Instead, he just went home and went to bed. My Mom didn't know he didn't pick up his prescriptions until he woke up at 9 pm Monday night and told her about his drive home. She was frustrated because she could have picked up his meds for him. She wanted to take him to the hospital, but how do you convince a 400lb man that hates hospitals that he needs to go? By 4 am, he was talking crazy. Saying he needed to get his shows on and he needed to check the mail. Then he just wanted to lay down. By 6 am, Mom made the decision that she didn't care if he wanted to go to the hospital or not, he was going! She called 911. He was seizing so bad after they got him out of the park model at the lake that they ended up putting him in a medically induced coma. He couldn't be airlifted because of his size in combination with the weight of the staff needed to work on him, so they took him by ambulance. After a few days, we found out it was bacterial Meningitis, which with antibiotics is very treatable if caught early enough. We all lived at the hospital for the next few days waiting for him to wake up. The following week, I had to try to go back to work. It wasn't very successful. The only place I wanted to be was with my Dad, for when he woke up. Then on Wednesday, April 14th, my Mom called while I was at work and said that the neurologist requested to meet with us the following day, Thursday, April 15th. Of course we all had a feeling what that talk meant and I lost it right there in my store. Thank God my boss had decided to stay with me at my store that day. She immediately sent me home. She was going to drive me to the hospital (an hour plus drive) herself, but I told her I was fine. I really wasn't fine. Then on Thursday at the meeting with the neurologist, she told us that there was very little brain activity. She said it wasn't uncommon to have little brain activity when the patient is in a medically induced coma, but they only medicated him the first 2 days until they could stabilize him. They were unable to do an MRI because he could not be moved again to a facility with an open MRI and he wouldn't fit in a normal MRI. With an MRI, they would have known sooner that the damage was too great. Basically, she told us that without life support, he would not live but a matter of hours. I think that moment was the single worst moment of my life. All of a sudden I was filled with guilt of all the times Dad just wanted me to stay a little longer to hang out, but I 'had to go.' I was filled with all the thoughts on how I could have just been a better daughter. All things I am sure most people feel when losing a parent. I was 32 years old, I was NOT supposed to be losing my Dad! He was only 59!
We waited until my brother and my niece could get there. They were traveling from Illinois. Then after 7 pm that night, we took him off of life support. The nurses said it would be a matter of hours, but he held on until about 12:30 pm on Friday, August 16th. We are certain that was his willpower making sure that everybody had a chance to see him one last time. Most of us surrounded his bed as he took his last breaths and I am quite certain that this was the perfect way for us to honor a man who had devoted his life to his family. It was horrible, yet amazing all at once to see our family pull together like that for him.
The guy I had been seeing before Dad fell sick didn't work out. I guess it was too much too soon and he didn't know what to do for me. I get that. Everything happens for a reason. I met my husband a couple weeks later. I was happy on the outside, but on the inside I missed my father greatly. I felt lost again, like when I lived in Indianapolis. I didn't want to drive into trees or anything, because between my family and Jon (my husband), I was shown everyday I had something to live for. All the same, I still stopped taking care of myself. The weight all started to come back on until it was pretty much all back.
Today, 2 years and 3 months after my father's death, I weigh 315lbs. I have tried off and on to lose weight like I did before, but it just isn't easy anymore. I do not have as much free time. Before I was single, now I am married. I commute further to my job. A lot of things have changed, except my desire to have a child. I want that more than anything else. There is very little I wouldn't do to have a child of my own. I feel like it is my destiny. Sometimes I honestly feel like nobody on Earth could want to have a baby of their own more than me. In a more rational mind frame, I know that is not a fair assumption to make. I just know I want it so bad, and if I cannot have a baby I will be devastated. I will go back to that dark place where nothing matters anymore and my immense personal pain will make it hard to see things clearly. We have only been actively trying to have a baby since after our wedding in April, but I still just have a gut wrenching feeling I cannot shake, the feeling that I will never have a child of my own. For one reason or another, it just will not happen. I am doing about everything I can to make this happen naturally, but the weight needs to come off and that is the one thing I cannot get done. If I really feel I would do ANYTHING for a baby... why can't I just stick to a diet? It doesn't sound THAT complicated! I did it before. A baby SHOULD be motivation! Of course, knowing that there is no guarantee makes it lose motivation. Even if I lose 150lbs, there is absolutely NO guarantee I will get pregnant. Heck, infertility could be my hubby's problem and not mine for all we know. I can't make him change his eating habits or do medical things he doesn't want to do. This makes me feel like he doesn't care either way if we have a baby or not... and that hurts. Again though, without the 'facts,' it is not fair of me to presume. We have only been trying for 3 months. There is nothing to indicate problems on his end. My OBGYN told me that if we haven't conceived by January that we will start fertility workups and probably Clomid. Until then, she told me to take Pregnitude. There is a lot of success with Pregnitude in PCOS women. It helps them to ovulate regularly and improves overall egg quality in women. So, I am taking it. As far as I know, I am not as bad off as most PCOS women. I do ovulate on my own and have cycles on my own... just not as regularly as a woman without PCOS. I am also insulin resistant. Both of these things point to PCOS. Because I have not had the 'official' diagnosis handed down to me, sometimes I tell myself that maybe I really don't have it. It just feels better to think that way. For a woman that wants a baby of her own more than anything in the world, an official diagnosis of PCOS feels like a death sentence. So many women with PCOS cannot get pregnant and if they do, they have trouble sustaining the pregnancy and often miscarry. It's a huge mountain to climb and their are NO guarantees. If I do have PCOS, how can I use a baby as a reward to motivate me to get healthy? I should just want to get healthy for myself, and there is a part of me that does... but not enough of me I guess. I need a reward... something to motivate me! Before it was all about looking good and feeling good so that a man would want to date me. Trust me, THAT worked! It worked really well because I was convinced nobody I would want to date could love me at the weight I was. Typically at 315+ lbs, it's only men who have a fetish for large women that want you... and they don't want you to lose weight at all. It's not about health to them, it's about a fetish. That was not the kind of man I wanted. My husband met me when I was smaller, but loves me as I am. I have gained the weight back, but he still married me... and it wasn't about a fetish. That is great. He is definitely proof that good things can happen to me. However, now I cannot use the 'no man would want to date me' excuse to get healthy. It's out the window. I can't use the 'lose weight and you will have a baby' motivation because I know that it isn't necessarily true. So what is left to motivate me? My husband has no interest in eating anything close to healthy or working out. He is supportive of me trying to do so, but yet, by him not eating healthy or working out, he is indirectly NOT supportive. I have no team to help. Before I didn't need anybody, but now I just do. I want somebody who can hold me accountable without being a hypocrite! However, it is just not possible. My schedule won't really allow for it, unless it were my husband. So now it is down to a daily battle of 'am I going to be healthy today or not?' Most days, it is the latter. I spend more money than I would if I did eat healthy. I pay a monthly gym membership that just goes to waste because I rarely use it.
So, I have decided to blog in hopes that it will help me through the tough days and help me find a way to be healthy. I am not sure how it is going to do that, but I have read some pretty amazing blogs where it seems blogging has helped the people writing them. So, this blog will be my way to vent out all of the crap I keep inside. Looks like after this post I am already off to a good start!
I was recently married in April and the wedding was perfect and so was the honeymoon. That went right, although I worried all the way up to the wedding day that something would go wrong. I could go into extreme detail of my life up until now in hopes of finding where it all went wrong and I stopped believing good things could happen to me... but that would take a lifetime! Instead, I will focus on how to fix life currently and think more positive.
What has brought me to blogging is my overwhelming desire to have a baby and the even more overwhelming fear it will never happen for me. I am going to be 35 years old next month, I have suspected (but not confirmed) PCOS, and I am significantly overweight. My husband tries to tell me I am not, but I think he is just being nice. At my lowest point of depression and anxiety back in 2006, I weighed 330lbs. I was recently out of a long term relationship. It just wasn't working and I left him. I had started to hate being a teacher. Working in Indianapolis Public Schools and MSD of Warren Township Schools had taken the love of teaching completely out of me. Sure I had the kids that I absolutely adored and at times would renew my faith in teaching... but for every kid that inspired me, there was another kid or administrator at my school that made my life a living hell. The last straw was having a principal at Stonybrook Middle School in MSD of Warren Township that was completely unsupportive and would yell at my in front of my students. He had no clue why I had disciplinary problems with kids in my class sizes of 60 or more middle school aged kids. It was horrible, and this teaching experience alone brought me to my breaking point. To the point I needed out immediately. I was so low almost everyday that I would consider the thought of driving my car into a pole just to be done with it. I did not care about anything and I could not think straight. I wanted out, but I did not know what I was going to do for a job if I quit. I had tried to find a new teaching job in northern Indiana, so I could be close to my family. I just could not find one. I knew that leaving in the middle of a school year would look terrible on a resume. I had taken the job at Stonybrook because the money was going to be good. It was a last minute thing. Being a year round school, I literally interviewed and was hired a week before school started in the summer. That should have been a sign right there. The fact the school had a different choir teacher almost every year for at least 5 years... it should have been a sign! I just couldn't see past the money. I learned fairly quickly that this wasn't the job for me. I started in July, but by Labor Day I was already sinking into a deep depression. This is when I really started to pack on the pounds and the scary thoughts were in my head. I felt like such a failure. Then add female health issues that needed treatment including freezing my cervix and a LEEP Biopsy... I was definitely at my breaking point. I was so homesick for my family and all I wanted to do was leave Indianapolis and never look back. So after reassurance from one of my best friends and my mother, I did just that. I moved back home in December 2006. I tried to find ANY sort of job for the next 3 months, but there was just nothing. Then the old liquor store I had worked at during college had a position open and they were able to get me back in. Within a year, I was managing my own location. The money wasn't what I was making teaching, but I was HAPPY! No more evil thoughts! I even began to lose some weight from working at in the store. I was no longer sedentary in my work place. After a couple years of not actively looking for a relationship, my age started creeping up on me. I knew that if I ever wanted to have a child, I needed to be looking for Mr. Right. I was already 32 years old at that time, and with my female health history there was no time like the present! In the fall of 2009, I started dieting and working out at the gym regularly. I was losing weight like a rock star, but without a personal trainer or even a workout buddy. When I started to gain my confidence back, I started using dating websites that I was referred to by my brother. I felt so good about myself and I WAS happy! I had a few dates that didn't really pan out, but I was still hopeful. I love almost 80lbs from September 2009 through March 2010. Then one of the worst things imaginable happened........
Easter 2010 was as awesome as any other holiday with my family at the lake. My Dad made sure eggs were colored with the grandkids, that there was an egg hunt, they had Easter baskets from the Easter bunny, and that there was a GREAT feast for us all to enjoy together. My Dad did all of this while not feeling good. He never let on just how bad he was feeling, not even to my Mom.
Of course, as usual... most of us had to work the next day and wanted to get home at a reasonable time. I, on the other hand, had met a guy that I did really like and he invited me over to watch a movie and play board games that evening. When I was getting ready to leave, my Dad just stared at me and told me how good I was looking and how stupid that boy would be not to want to be with me. He also told me how proud he was of me while he choked back tears. Little did I know those would be some of the last words I ever heard from my Dad. Not even 36 hours later, early Tuesday morning, April 6th, he started with delusional talk before starting with seizures. He had went to the family practice Mom was a nurse at on Monday, but they just diagnosed him with a Sinus Infection and an Ear Infection. He was prescribed meds, but he was just too tired to pick them up. He had apparently stopped for 4 naps on the 10 minute drive home from the Doctor's Office. Never once did he call anybody to pick up his meds for him. Instead, he just went home and went to bed. My Mom didn't know he didn't pick up his prescriptions until he woke up at 9 pm Monday night and told her about his drive home. She was frustrated because she could have picked up his meds for him. She wanted to take him to the hospital, but how do you convince a 400lb man that hates hospitals that he needs to go? By 4 am, he was talking crazy. Saying he needed to get his shows on and he needed to check the mail. Then he just wanted to lay down. By 6 am, Mom made the decision that she didn't care if he wanted to go to the hospital or not, he was going! She called 911. He was seizing so bad after they got him out of the park model at the lake that they ended up putting him in a medically induced coma. He couldn't be airlifted because of his size in combination with the weight of the staff needed to work on him, so they took him by ambulance. After a few days, we found out it was bacterial Meningitis, which with antibiotics is very treatable if caught early enough. We all lived at the hospital for the next few days waiting for him to wake up. The following week, I had to try to go back to work. It wasn't very successful. The only place I wanted to be was with my Dad, for when he woke up. Then on Wednesday, April 14th, my Mom called while I was at work and said that the neurologist requested to meet with us the following day, Thursday, April 15th. Of course we all had a feeling what that talk meant and I lost it right there in my store. Thank God my boss had decided to stay with me at my store that day. She immediately sent me home. She was going to drive me to the hospital (an hour plus drive) herself, but I told her I was fine. I really wasn't fine. Then on Thursday at the meeting with the neurologist, she told us that there was very little brain activity. She said it wasn't uncommon to have little brain activity when the patient is in a medically induced coma, but they only medicated him the first 2 days until they could stabilize him. They were unable to do an MRI because he could not be moved again to a facility with an open MRI and he wouldn't fit in a normal MRI. With an MRI, they would have known sooner that the damage was too great. Basically, she told us that without life support, he would not live but a matter of hours. I think that moment was the single worst moment of my life. All of a sudden I was filled with guilt of all the times Dad just wanted me to stay a little longer to hang out, but I 'had to go.' I was filled with all the thoughts on how I could have just been a better daughter. All things I am sure most people feel when losing a parent. I was 32 years old, I was NOT supposed to be losing my Dad! He was only 59!
We waited until my brother and my niece could get there. They were traveling from Illinois. Then after 7 pm that night, we took him off of life support. The nurses said it would be a matter of hours, but he held on until about 12:30 pm on Friday, August 16th. We are certain that was his willpower making sure that everybody had a chance to see him one last time. Most of us surrounded his bed as he took his last breaths and I am quite certain that this was the perfect way for us to honor a man who had devoted his life to his family. It was horrible, yet amazing all at once to see our family pull together like that for him.
The guy I had been seeing before Dad fell sick didn't work out. I guess it was too much too soon and he didn't know what to do for me. I get that. Everything happens for a reason. I met my husband a couple weeks later. I was happy on the outside, but on the inside I missed my father greatly. I felt lost again, like when I lived in Indianapolis. I didn't want to drive into trees or anything, because between my family and Jon (my husband), I was shown everyday I had something to live for. All the same, I still stopped taking care of myself. The weight all started to come back on until it was pretty much all back.
Today, 2 years and 3 months after my father's death, I weigh 315lbs. I have tried off and on to lose weight like I did before, but it just isn't easy anymore. I do not have as much free time. Before I was single, now I am married. I commute further to my job. A lot of things have changed, except my desire to have a child. I want that more than anything else. There is very little I wouldn't do to have a child of my own. I feel like it is my destiny. Sometimes I honestly feel like nobody on Earth could want to have a baby of their own more than me. In a more rational mind frame, I know that is not a fair assumption to make. I just know I want it so bad, and if I cannot have a baby I will be devastated. I will go back to that dark place where nothing matters anymore and my immense personal pain will make it hard to see things clearly. We have only been actively trying to have a baby since after our wedding in April, but I still just have a gut wrenching feeling I cannot shake, the feeling that I will never have a child of my own. For one reason or another, it just will not happen. I am doing about everything I can to make this happen naturally, but the weight needs to come off and that is the one thing I cannot get done. If I really feel I would do ANYTHING for a baby... why can't I just stick to a diet? It doesn't sound THAT complicated! I did it before. A baby SHOULD be motivation! Of course, knowing that there is no guarantee makes it lose motivation. Even if I lose 150lbs, there is absolutely NO guarantee I will get pregnant. Heck, infertility could be my hubby's problem and not mine for all we know. I can't make him change his eating habits or do medical things he doesn't want to do. This makes me feel like he doesn't care either way if we have a baby or not... and that hurts. Again though, without the 'facts,' it is not fair of me to presume. We have only been trying for 3 months. There is nothing to indicate problems on his end. My OBGYN told me that if we haven't conceived by January that we will start fertility workups and probably Clomid. Until then, she told me to take Pregnitude. There is a lot of success with Pregnitude in PCOS women. It helps them to ovulate regularly and improves overall egg quality in women. So, I am taking it. As far as I know, I am not as bad off as most PCOS women. I do ovulate on my own and have cycles on my own... just not as regularly as a woman without PCOS. I am also insulin resistant. Both of these things point to PCOS. Because I have not had the 'official' diagnosis handed down to me, sometimes I tell myself that maybe I really don't have it. It just feels better to think that way. For a woman that wants a baby of her own more than anything in the world, an official diagnosis of PCOS feels like a death sentence. So many women with PCOS cannot get pregnant and if they do, they have trouble sustaining the pregnancy and often miscarry. It's a huge mountain to climb and their are NO guarantees. If I do have PCOS, how can I use a baby as a reward to motivate me to get healthy? I should just want to get healthy for myself, and there is a part of me that does... but not enough of me I guess. I need a reward... something to motivate me! Before it was all about looking good and feeling good so that a man would want to date me. Trust me, THAT worked! It worked really well because I was convinced nobody I would want to date could love me at the weight I was. Typically at 315+ lbs, it's only men who have a fetish for large women that want you... and they don't want you to lose weight at all. It's not about health to them, it's about a fetish. That was not the kind of man I wanted. My husband met me when I was smaller, but loves me as I am. I have gained the weight back, but he still married me... and it wasn't about a fetish. That is great. He is definitely proof that good things can happen to me. However, now I cannot use the 'no man would want to date me' excuse to get healthy. It's out the window. I can't use the 'lose weight and you will have a baby' motivation because I know that it isn't necessarily true. So what is left to motivate me? My husband has no interest in eating anything close to healthy or working out. He is supportive of me trying to do so, but yet, by him not eating healthy or working out, he is indirectly NOT supportive. I have no team to help. Before I didn't need anybody, but now I just do. I want somebody who can hold me accountable without being a hypocrite! However, it is just not possible. My schedule won't really allow for it, unless it were my husband. So now it is down to a daily battle of 'am I going to be healthy today or not?' Most days, it is the latter. I spend more money than I would if I did eat healthy. I pay a monthly gym membership that just goes to waste because I rarely use it.
So, I have decided to blog in hopes that it will help me through the tough days and help me find a way to be healthy. I am not sure how it is going to do that, but I have read some pretty amazing blogs where it seems blogging has helped the people writing them. So, this blog will be my way to vent out all of the crap I keep inside. Looks like after this post I am already off to a good start!
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