Since I started this blog, I have never reposted an entry before, but as I was doing some thinking tonight, I reread this post, and it truly hit a spot that is on my heart and mind right now.  This was posted back when I was trying to get pregnant... of course, as you know now, things have not turned out as we ever planned, even though I did get pregnant, and the mistrust of my body, and the immense sadness I feel because of that is back... so why rewrite, what I said so well back just a few months ago.

I've been thinking a lot about failure and trust this week. Specifically the past failure of my body and now my resulting inability to trust it! William D Brown said, "Failure is an event, never a person." The past failure of my body does not make ME a failure. It was simply a series of EVENTS that happened in the past.


So why do I mistrust my body? Well... pretty much ever since I can remember I have been battling Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome - widely known as PCOS. It has caused me to stop ovulating making it impossible for me to conceive a child without "help." It also makes me prone to miscarriages. People with PCOS have a 50% rate of miscarriage. In addition to the PCOS, once I got pregnant with my son "L", my body failed to appropriately nourish him, causing him to be born with Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) at 35 weeks, and giving me HELLP syndrome. On top of all of that my body doesn't process sugars correctly giving me both gestational diabetes during pregnancy, and insulin resistance outside of pregnancy.

Yeah... So as you can see I have some valid reasons for the complete mistrust of my body. I guess since I posted this, it isn't necessarily a secret that my husband and I have decided to try and have another child. This is not a decision we came upon lightly - due to all the past difficulties, along with the physical and emotional pain of my past pregnancies. Tonight I was reminded of how this new journey is going to be for me. You'd think that 4 years would have erased it all. But it clearly hasn't. All of the struggles of the past came rushing back to me as I sat in the bathroom tonight with a Dixie cup of pee and a small stick in my hand. NO it is not what you think. I was NOT taking a pregnancy test. I was taking an OPK - otherwise known as an ovulation predictor kit for those of you lucky enough to never need one (wish I knew how that felt even for one moment). The test was negative. It should at least be moving towards positive any day now... and it isn't. So far everything points to NO.

NO, you will not be normal.

NO, you will not ovulate.

NO, weight loss did NOT help you in this area.

NO more kids for you! (OK, I had a brief flash of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi there for a moment... but I digress).

I so desperately want to be normal for once. I so desperately want my body to work as it was intended to. I hate it. I mistrust it. It fails me, and in turn I feel like a COMPLETE failure!

I know, I know, I just need to relax you say, give my body some time to adjust to being off of synthetic hormones, I need to stress less, and have fun, I need to appreciate what I have - this wonderful, beautiful, little boy (and I so so so do):

But I just can't trust that my body will ever work. That he'll ever have a sibling, that anything will ever change for me, and that makes me incredibly sad. It's a sadness that slowly trickles through you body and kind of feels like it is tearing every muscles as it ripples through you. No, its not sadness... its more like despair.

I'm trying to be positive - unlike my pee stick - but sometimes I feel I have nothing to hold on to. With all the failures of the past, how likely is a success. I'm trying desperately to believe that I have done all that I can do, I must trust my body to work as intended, and give the rest up to a higher power.
But for now... me and my pee cup sit alone, and we wait and wait and wait some more, and both of us try so desperately to be positive.

"Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now, and do it." -- William Durant, founder of General Motors

I originally wrote this part of this post on Thursday, March 3rd....

Today was bittersweet... you see, it was a day I have waited for since I began this journey to lose weight back in October of 2008.  Getting to this day has meant more to me than reaching 100 pounds, goal, or even lifetime.  And yet it is a day I have in many ways dreaded since I began my journey 2-1/2 years ago at the very same time. 

See... today I attended my last Weight Watchers meeting!  No, I certainly don't think "I'm done", or that I don't need Weight Watchers anymore.  But the fact is today I revealed to my CWWL and my whole gang that

Four years ago in November 2006, I sat on Thanksgiving sad and fearful for the future.  I had a horrible year.  I had become pregnant earlier in the year only to suffer a miscarriage, and then be diagnosed with PCOS and resulting infertility.  I was told that because I was so fat, I would have difficulty conceiving a child.  I was told that if I did conceive I would have a 50 percent chance of a miscarriage.  I was disheartened and broken!  I felt betrayed by my body and forgotten by God.  I weighed about 125 pounds more than I do today.  I didn't see how I could be given a different future. 

On New Years Day 2007 - only a little more than 1 month later, I woke up on New Years morning to a positive pregnancy test.  I was both overjoyed and unbelievably scared.  I spent the next 7-1/2 months throwing up, stressing out, checking blood sugars, and my pregnancy culminated in an emergency C-section with 3 pound 4 oz little boy who spent 27 days in the NICU.  Regardless of the circumstances, I was blessed.  The first year of my son's life passed quickly but I still found myself 115 pounds heavier than today.  My future certainly had been changed with the long-awaited addition of a child, but I still felt like I didn't have much of a future at my current weight.  I certainly couldn't me the mother I wanted to be at that weight.  And then I was told by my doctor that my weight was a contributing factor in my pregnancy issues, and would likely result in infertility for me if I wanted to have any more children.  I needed to change something.  I needed to change my life.  This was probably one of the last pictures that was taken of me as I started this journey...

Me Thanksgiving 2008

Fast forward four years since that Thanksgiving, which now seems, so long ago.  I am lighter in weight there is no doubt, and my future has certainly been changed beyond what I could ever have believed, but once again I feel heavy in spirit.  My heart longs for another child.  In a way, I feel like I am back in that same spot that I was 4 years ago. I feel the same despair that my future will not be changed, and this time I can't blame it on being fat.  For some reason, being able to blame it on fat seemed easier.  I at least had a scapegoat.  I held up my end of the bargain.  I took control of what I could, I lost the weight that was creating the issues... the problem is... the issues didn't go away.  So what do you do with that?  Tonight I want to cry and swear and eat too much and drink too much.  I want to cover my head up and lay in bed and not come out.  The thought of going through a holiday season with this burden is overwhelming to me tonight - and it came suddenly out of nowhere very quickly today.  It feels so eerily familiar.  It takes me back to a very dark time in my life, and I hate it. 

I've been thinking a lot about failure and trust this week. Specifically the past failure of my body and now my resulting inability to trust it! William D Brown said, "Failure is an event, never a person." The past failure of my body does not make ME a failure. It was simply a series of EVENTS that happened in the past.


So why do I mistrust my body? Well... pretty much ever since I can remember I have been battling Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome - widely known as PCOS. It has caused me to stop ovulating making it impossible for me to conceive a child without "help." It also makes me prone to miscarriages. People with PCOS have a 50% rate of miscarriage. In addition to the PCOS, once I got pregnant with my son "L", my body failed to appropriately nourish him, causing him to be born with Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) at 35 weeks, and giving me HELLP syndrome. On top of all of that my body doesn't process sugars correctly giving me both gestational diabetes during pregnancy, and insulin resistance outside of pregnancy.

Yeah... So as you can see I have some valid reasons for the complete mistrust of my body. I guess since I posted this, it isn't necessarily a secret that my husband and I have decided to try and have another child. This is not a decision we came upon lightly - due to all the past difficulties, along with the physical and emotional pain of my past pregnancies. Tonight I was reminded of how this new journey is going to be for me. You'd think that 4 years would have erased it all. But it clearly hasn't. All of the struggles of the past came rushing back to me as I sat in the bathroom tonight with a Dixie cup of pee and a small stick in my hand. NO it is not what you think. I was NOT taking a pregnancy test. I was taking an OPK - otherwise known as an ovulation predictor kit for those of you lucky enough to never need one (wish I knew how that felt even for one moment). The test was negative. It should at least be moving towards positive any day now... and it isn't. So far everything points to NO.

NO, you will not be normal.

NO, you will not ovulate.

NO, weight loss did NOT help you in this area.

NO more kids for you! (OK, I had a brief flash of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi there for a moment... but I digress).

I so desperately want to be normal for once. I so desperately want my body to work as it was intended to. I hate it. I mistrust it. It fails me, and in turn I feel like a COMPLETE failure!

I know, I know, I just need to relax you say, give my body some time to adjust to being off of synthetic hormones, I need to stress less, and have fun, I need to appreciate what I have - this wonderful, beautiful, little boy (and I so so so do):

But I just can't trust that my body will ever work. That he'll ever have a sibling, that anything will ever change for me, and that makes me incredibly sad. It's a sadness that slowly trickles through you body and kind of feels like it is tearing every muscles as it ripples through you. No, its not sadness... its more like despair.

I'm trying to be positive - unlike my pee stick - but sometimes I feel I have nothing to hold on to. With all the failures of the past, how likely is a success. I'm trying desperately to believe that I have done all that I can do, I must trust my body to work as intended, and give the rest up to a higher power.

But for now... me and my pee cup sit alone, and we wait and wait and wait some more, and both of us try so desperately to be positive.

"Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now, and do it." -- William Durant, founder of General Motors

You know the saying "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels?"  Since I've been losing weight I've seen it everywhere.  I actually kind of hate it.  I mean, I have lost over 107 pounds, and I still don't feel thin.  I don't know if I'll ever actually feel thin, but I sure as heck know how a really, really good piece of cheesecake tastes.  I certainly understand the intent of the saying though, and after today I think I've finally begun to appreciate it, but I'll replace it with my own version:

"Nothing tastes as good as having OBESITY permanently erased from your medical record feels."

NOTHING!  Seriously... NOTHING! 

Today I had my yearly checkup.  I am down 40 pounds from my last checkup, and 110 pounds from my checkup 2 years ago... the one that put my plans to lose weight into motion.  And today... while reviewing my medical record, my doctor said to me, "I think we can go ahead and get rid of this now."  And with a couple of keystrokes I watched as he erased the diagnosis of Obesity from my medical record.  It was a silent, yet powerful moment had between a doctor and a patient in a cold exam room, on a random Monday in October.  There were no trumpets that sounded or magical confetti that flew down from the ceiling as he pressed backspace and hit save.  There were no high fives exchanged.  But regardless, it was one of the top highlights of the last 2 years of my life!  He erased it, and just like that it was gone, then he said "You have done well." and we moved on.  Simple, yet incredibly profound.

We moved on to the blood pressure part of the exam.  I have never had a problem outside of pregnancy with my blood pressure.  But when I heard my current blood pressure, I would not believe it belonged to a now formerly obese, once severely preeclamptic, prediabetic like me.  98/62.  Let me repeat that 98/62.  I have never once in my life seen my blood pressure with the top number below 100. 

I have never been so tangibly reminded that I am no longer obese, that I am a regular exerciser, that I am a runner!  I am not who I once was.  The health problems that plagued me in the past are nearly erased.  This is a new game now.  I game that I feel lost in because I don't know any of the new rules. 

Obesity Erasure.  And with that there is one remaining item on my medical history that I can't wait to see erased... PCOS. 

Obesity, you lose and I win.  PCOS, you better watch your back, just ask Obesity.  Bring it... I'm ready!  GAME ON!

So... you've lost 106.4 pounds, what are you going to do next? 
I'm going to Disneyland.... oh oops... wrong answer, but I wish :-)

But it does beg the question, after losing 106.4 pounds where do I go from here?  Well... this time the answer is fairly easy.  Keep going down.  See, while this might be the goal my doctor and I set for myself, it is not my personal goal.  It is actually still 9 pounds above the weight that Weight Watchers REALLY wants me to be - I have a Dr. note for my current goal.  So... I want to continue to lose weight, and right now I'm thinking I want to lose 15 more pounds. 

So you are probably wondering why I set my Weight Watchers goal 15 pounds above my actual personal goal aren't you?  Is it because I'm cheap and don't want to pay for Weight Watchers anymore?  Nope... although after paying for nearly 2 years, it will be very nice to not have to pay here in about 5 more weeks.  It's basically because well... my clock is ticking.  Yes... THAT clock - the biological one.  I want to have 1 more child, and because of all of my risk factors (HELLP syndrome) my doctor very strongly prefers this all to happen before I'm 35... Let's see that gives me... YIKES, not very much time!  Considering that I struggle with PCOS and fertility issues.. it gives me even less time.  So... that's the reason behind the different goals.  My current Weight Watchers goal is the goal my doctor and I set for me to reached before I could "try again" so to speak.

Now that that cat is out of the bag... onward and downward until Weight Watchers boots me out for being pregnant (Yes CWWL has informed me that it must happen as soon as she knows, and she does read this blog so... mum's the word around here for a long long time).  I'm certainly not looking to lose weight if I get pregnant.  I am just looking to be healthy, and continue my healthy eating habits and enjoy a controlled gain.  I am also at risk for gestational diabetes, so I especially need to watch my carbs and sugars and keep on exercising. 

My first weigh in today after reaching my goal weight, and despite having no access to a gym all week - closed for maintenance - I think I did decent. 

See... I told you to stay tuned, because like I said before... we are just getting started here!