In the first weeks of pregnancy, I received an issue of Self magazine, with an article about eating disorders and pregnancy. It was full of women so terrified of gaining weight that they developed serious health and mental issues during their pregnancies.
At the time, I thought myself immune from such an extreme self image.
But at that time, I also still fit into my pants.
The simple, complex truth is that I've been overweight my whole life. My. Whole. Life. And everybody made sure I knew it: My brothers, my classmates, my eventual boyfriends. I knew, regardless of how much people in my life said they loved me, they thought I was fat.
Fatness hasn't been something I've been able to overcome as of yet. But I was really hitting my Weight Watchers stride around July, hitting my lowest weight of my adult life, excited about the idea of hitting Goal someday. Ready to buy a size-down pair of jeans.
And then I got pregnant. And when you've been on a diet program for essentially four years, you don't know how to eat for pregnancy. They say you need 300 extra calories a day ... but 300 extra from where? From what I was eating at conception, or what I would be eating for weight-maintenance? Because I have no idea what that is.
And then there is all the trauma you get from baby experts, websites, friends, etc., about all the risks associated with obesity and pregnancy: Diabetes, preeclampsia, blood pressure issues, stress, preterm labor, unhealthy babies, longer, more painful labors and recovery times. Egads!
And then there's my baby book, my tome of all things pregnancy, which has a nice diagram of where all the weight goes when you're knocked up. The only problem was the math: The book says if you are overweight when you get pregnant, you should gain less than 15 pounds in those nine months. But an 8 pound baby, plus several pounds of water retention, plus 50 % more blood, plus breast growth equals ... more than 15. I pointed this out to TJ and he innocently honed in on the number that said women gain a few pounds of fat in pregnancy. "Maybe they assume overweight women already have that?"
I forgave him.
So here I am, 16 1/2 weeks. Officially second trimester. I've gained less than 10 pounds, I think. Admittedly, my daily scale routine has died. I don't go near the thing. But the pair of 16W pants I bought baggy in Week 8 fit now. Perfectly. And my jeans don't, at all. But neither do my maternity pants, as I don't yet have a stick-out belly. Most of my shirts still fit, but I have retired all my cute bras in favor of stretchy ones without wires.
I stare at myself every morning in the mirror and assess the situation:
Breasts: Enormous. I swear, you can actually watch them grow. Sometimes I catch TJ staring at me and I think that's what he's doing.
Belly: Filling out, but not really sticking out.
That's the most frustrating part. Despite my state, I neither feel pregnant nor look pregnant. I'm not glowing, I'm not over-the-moon. I'm no longer nauseated. I never got morning sickness. I can't feel my baby move yet though the doctor swears that it's heart beat we're hearing. All I have is a little ultrasound photo and the continued absence of my period to reassure me that yes, there really is something going on in there.
So instead of feeling great and full of God's little miracle, I feel fat. Well, fatter. And my greatest fear in life -- right now -- is being one of those women who never gets to look pregnant. Who never enjoys walking into a room full of strangers and having her life stage be that obvious. I fear just being That Fat Chick. Already I want to grab skinny chicks in the store and scream at them, "THAT ICE CREAM IS FOR MY BABY!"
It's not a rational fear, but it's a fear. The only time in my life that I'm allowed a little splurge, a little extra. That I don't have to obsess about how many points are in everything. When I can eat real bacon and real beef. And all I can think about is whether I look pregnant, or if I just look fat.
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