Barb H.
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Hello, hello! I guess I don't need to say that this is my first post, as that is pretty obvious! I decided I should start from the beginning when I start my story:

I am a 35 y/o mother of 2 wonderful girls. I was married to their father for 6 years back in the 90's. He was a cheater and always made me feel bad about myself. I always had a weight problem, but being married to him and having two kids, "made" me gain more weight. Then, in 1997, a miraculous thing happened! They came out with this beautiful little pill called Phen fen! Woo-Hoo!! I lost 40 pounds in a month!!! I was miserable in my marriage, but dammit I felt good about me for the first time in 6 years! Well, that ended about as soon as it began, they took my miracle pill off of the market! I did, however, get a taste of confidence, and weight loss, so I left my job as a healthcare provider and applied for a job with the state, which kept me very busy, but paid the bills enough for me to leave my husband!!
I met a nurse and I don't know if it was a rebound thing or what, jumped into marriage with him in February 2000. He and I went on the Atkins diet together, and I had lost a total now of 80 pounds!! Woo-Hoo again. Well, he turned out to "Not be a kid person" (his words), and was so mean to my girls! So, after just a little over a year of marriage, and at only 29 years of age, i was going through another divorce! The only good thing that came out of that marriage was the weight loss, and I kept it up until I was all the way down to a size 12!
Fast forward to January 2002. I am enjoying my nicer body and being single! It is the best I have felt about myself in years...since before I had kids! I was ready to date!!
I already knew that I would never date a co-worker again, and I surely was not going to expose my kids to a jerk again, or meet anyone in a bar! I took a neighbor's advice and got online to a dating site, just to see what was out there. I chatted with a couple of guys, and I don't know if they were married, lonely, or what, but they were nasty! Gross! I was totally turned off by the online dating thing. I closed my account at that site, and browsed through lavalife.com, and "smiled" at a guy that looked way out of my league in so many ways. But he was sooo cute!
Well, to summarize what happened next would take forever, so I will give you the really short version. I met the great love of my life that day, and we were married almost 2 1/2 years later! He has since adopted my kids, and since I am happy, I have (woops!) gained all of my weight back, plus some!
I am now a size 22! UGH!! That is hard enough, but what really brought me here was the fact that I cannot get pregnant.
I had surgery in January 2005 to have a tubal ligation reversal surgery. We had to pay $12,000 out of our own pocket! I actually got pregnant twice, but miscarried shortly after, which I now know was due to the pregnancies being ectopic. We (Ryan and I ) had considered in-vitro when we found out that my tubes scarred shut, but then I did a lot of research and found out that they don't generally do that if your BMI is over like 30. So...I didn't need to pay the $300.00 consultation fee to be told that, then have to know for the rest of my life that I was too fat to get pregnant. We had a good long talk, and decided that I would focus on my health just for health's sake, and if we get pregnant naturally, than that would be great, and if not...it wasn't in God's plan.
There you have my very long story...a bit more than a story on weight, I know. I thought I would go to OHSU here in Portland, but they apparently charge about $20,000 for self-pay LAP-BAND, and I can get it done down in Coos Bay for half of that, so that is our plan.....I am waiting on the packet, which they sent yesterday. **fingers crossed!*