courage and strength and health

I thought I could stop reading baby blogs.

And I have stopped reading a lot of them. But some of them- mostly the ones where the baby is brand new, or the mom is still pregnant... those are harder to stop reading.

Why do I read them? I don't consider myself self destructive or someone who likes to be in pain. In fact, I quite hate being sad and in pain. I tend to avoid it at all costs. I think though, the blogs make me feel connected still, to the things I lost. I lost the identity of being a pregnant lady. I lost the chance to ever have my "first pregnancy." I lost my husband's nightly talks to the little blueberry and the pride and happiness and love on his face when he did so. I lost the excitement of looking forward to April of 2011, knowing that we'd be a family of 3 by then. I lost a little piece of my heart.

I lost my baby.

But I think sometimes these blogs make me feel like it wasn't and isn't so far away. Though sometimes they just make me cry; and when that happens I just click back to something less sad to read.

Also, I wish I didn't have envy of pregnant people. I don't WANT to. I hate envy; it's the ugliest emotion, and it's completely useless. I guess I have little blips of envy; not constant, but it's there every once in a while. I hate it.

Today I was reading a design blog, and since the author is a new mother, she posted birth stories every Wednesday starting when she found out she was pregnant. They were so fun to read, because every story was different, and it really gave you a sense of how you just never know how your birth will go. I think reading some of the more negative ones would scare some people, but I liked having the knowledge and I also liked seeing the strength of all those women that went through hell, and in the end, it didn't matter, because they had a sweet little baby in their arms. But today's story was different.

It was a story about a woman who at 36 weeks, had a placental abruption, and the baby died in utero- but she had to deliver it naturally, because she was losing too much blood for a c-section. She had to go through labor, knowing her baby would not be alive when it was finally born.

It sounds so sad (and it IS) but she got through it, and derived so much strength from what happened, and eventually did go on to have a healthy baby. She really really inspired me.

I realize that what I went through is COMPLETELY different. My baby was only a little over 7 weeks old. It just doesn't compare to what she went through; but I still get a lot of inspiration from hearing her story and reading about her immense strength. You'd think that it would just make me horribly sad to read it (and it did, for a few minutes) but it also gave me strength. Courage. Knowing that I can handle this. It's hard; but I can do it.

On a slightly different note, last weekend (after pizza, 3 nights in a row of gin and tonics and dinner at a pub that may or may not have included splitting a pitcher of beer with my man) I decided I was done being self destructive. You see, though I was THRILLED to be pregnant, (and I was. I've never been happier.) I always was a little sad that I wasn't exactly at a healthy weight when I conceived. It wasn't a vanity thing; it was a concern for my baby and their future health. You read all of this literature about how being overweight when pregnant has been tied to children having problems with their weight later on in life. I didn't want that. I knew that most likely my child would inherit my genes for weight struggle, but I didn't want to add on top of that. However, I was pregnant, and I just decided that I would have to be as healthy as possible during my pregnancy.

Now that I'm no longer pregnant, this weekend I decided that for my future children, I'm going to do my damndest to lose some weight and be healthier before I'm pregnant again. I've not spoken to my doctor yet, but everything I've read said that you should wait 2-3 cycles before trying again. Not sure if that applies to me, since unmedicated, my cycles can last upwards of 3 months a piece. So, I guess we'll see on that front.

Now, don't get me wrong; I ate quite healthily before, but my body holds on to weight like crazy; so when I lose weight, I have to be VERY strict about calories in and out, portions, and I have to exercise a great deal. So, that's what I'm going to do. For the next few months, I'm going to push it, hard. I am motivated and get strength from the thought of my future children, and how I want to be the healthiest I can be when I carry them, and after. I re-joined Weight Watchers, and will start exercising twice a day- 5-6 days a week. This may sound like a lot; but lets remember that I'm sitting on my butt for at least 10 hours a day (1 hour commute on the subway both ways, and 8 hours of work), so 60-90 minutes of exercise in one day isn't actually too much. And, it's necessary.

Necessary to get healthier and lose some weight, and also to distract and empower me. I always worried about getting lots of exercise while we were trying to conceive, because they say that lots of exercise can screw up your cycle. Having a fairly screwy cycle to begin with, I was worried I'd make it worse. But right now, I don't care. My only focus is health. We can't try now anyway, and I'm not sure if emotionally we'd be ready to try if we could.

So, I do this for my future babies, my husband, and me. Every day is still hard. Today has been an oddly hard day. But, after reading that birth story, and realizing this weekend that self destruction with food and alcohol isn't going to make anything better, I'm committed to being healthier. And soon, I'm sure, happier.

~M