Abilene Stars
Just beginning...
Jan 22, 2014
Yesterday my gynecologist told me that if I didn't lose weight I wouldn't be able to have a baby. Because of all the extra tissue, my body is producing too much of the hormones that are needed and my poor little uterus can't filter it all. I have an appointment on Friday for a uterine biopsy to make sure that the thickened lining they saw on my ultrasound doesn't mean that my uterus is turning to a giant cluster of cancer cells.
She doesn't know it, but those simple words pushed me into one of the biggest emotional tailspins I've been through in a while. I'm normally a pretty upbeat person. I greet my husband and our pets warmly when I walk through the door. Yesterday I just came home and hung up my keys. When my husband asked how my appointment went I quietly said, "I don't want to talk about it" and then I went to bed, pulled the sheets over my head and cried. When he came in to check on me 20 minutes later (and managed to drag out of me what happened), I sobbed. I cried like I haven't cried since I went through my divorce. Gut-wrenching, hiccuping, stomach spasming and not breathing SOBS.
I've been overweight for as long as I can remember. I started gaining weight in the second grade. By the time I graduated from middle school I was 200lbs. I hit 300lbs in my early 20s and I've stayed there ever since. My 36th birthday is a week away and my current weight is 331.4. There are two more important pieces of background information for you to have: 1) I have wanted a child since I was 12 years old and 2) I never EVER wanted to have weight loss surgery.
I am having a tough time reconciling all the horrible things I told myself about people who have bariatric surgery with the fact that I will most likely be one of those people soon. I told myself they were weak, that they were cheaters, that they didn't have it in them to do it the "right" way. I looked down on them. And because of that, I'm looking down on myself right now. I have no idea where I got these notions, either. Obviously having bariatric surgery isn't easy. How did I ever get the idea that it was the easy way out? Healing from any surgery isn't easy! And the care and commitment that it takes both pre-op and post-op is hard, too. Yet, for some reason, I still feel less-than because I can't manage to keep the weight off on my own. I feel like a failure because I need help.
I've been on Weight Watchers three times, I've used Sparkpeople once and Myfitnesspal twice. I have Runkeeper on my phone. I always manage to lose the same 30-40lbs, and then once that image in the mirror starts to change I freak out and gain it all back. Hell, I'm even using an alias here because I don't want my friends and family to watch me fail *yet again*.
But my gynecologist said something that I internalized differently and it struck a cord with me. She looked at my chart and said, "You're 35. You don't have a very big window." My brain changed that to, "You're 35. You don't have time to dick around anymore." If I want to have a baby I don't have time to try to lose this weight on my own again. If I want to have a baby I don't have the time to say, "Well, give me a year and then we'll see if I've lost it, and if I haven't, let's talk about weight loss surgery." Because if history is any indication, I won't have lost it and I'll be right back where I started except that I will have lost yet another year and my window will be even smaller.
I fought it hard when I was in the gynecologist's office, but once my brain flipped it into harsher words, it lit a fire under my ass. I have an appointment on Monday with my PCP to talk about it so that she can put in the referral with my insurance. I'm a little concerned about some of the requirements that my insurance lists on their website. I also don't know how having a tiny stomach will effect a pregnancy. I'm worried about not getting the nutrients that I need to support both myself and my child, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
And bless my husband for holding me yesterday while I sobbed. Bless him for being willing to start this process all over again with a new child, when he already has a 16 year old. Bless him for being willing to be 60 when our child graduates from high school. He once told me that he never wanted to be the "super old dad," when his kid was in school, but now he's willing to do it, for me and if that doesn't tell me how big of a heart he has and how much he loves me, nothing will.
"The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." (Randy Paush, The Last Lecture) And dammit, I want this BAD. I have wanted this for nearly two and a half decades. If having weight loss surgery is what it takes for me to get it, then weight loss surgery I will have. In the meantime, I'm going to have to come to grips with how much of an ass I was to other bariatric patients.