Week 18 - My fertility/Weight Loss Story

I lost 3 pounds this week!! Now I'm up to a total of 35 lbs weight loss! Only 2 more pounds to reach my first weight loss goal - my pre-Aubrey weight.

For those who haven't known me long or do not know me at all, may not know that I suffer from an infertility condition called Poly-cystic Ovary Syndrome. They don't know how exactly it is caused, but they have learned that one of the symptoms is gaining weight rapidly which causes a shift in your hormones and makes it both really challenging to take off the weight plus ovulation is no longer regular.

When I got married my lifestyle changed drastically. Before I had been walking from my apartment and up two flights of stairs to school/work and then back home again everyday. I also went dancing and played racquetball quite frequently. I rarely bought or ate junk food. My roommates and I didn't have a TV or a computer and so my nights were spent studying or socializing and rarely sitting and eating junk food. Anyway, I get married and now have a car and get a full time job at a computer. My hubby loves to watch movies and eat junk food and does not like to dance or play sports. So now my nights are spent running to the convenient store across the street (which I could swipe my work ID and have the junk food taken directly out of my paycheck) buying snacks and watching shows. I started putting on weight (obviously). When I tried to diet, as I had always done in the past, I couldn't loose the weight like I had always been able to. I tried several types of diets and nothing worked. So, I pretty much gave up.

Fast forward about 7 years. We hadn't prevented getting pregnant for almost those entire 7 years and then had been actively trying and going to doctors and taking medicine and doing treatments for 6 of those years. Still no baby. I decided to do some research on my own. I found out about the hormone shift for those with PCOS and how it caused rapid weight gain and then was challenging to loose the weight. I learned though, it is not impossible to loose the weight, and if you can take off 5% of your weight then the hormones start to shift back to normal and you both can loose the weight easier and your ovulation starts to get back to normal. No doctors had given me this information. I don't know if they were even aware of it, or if they just thought  it was easier to give out pills instead of explaining the more natural cures. (I am glad that doctors are now finding out that the natural cures are both more effective and healthier for you. I hope the medical field continues in this direction.)

I started working really hard dieting and exercising and after about a year I managed to loose 60 pounds! It was quite an accomplishment for me. I was off all fertility medicine and hadn't gone to a doctor about it in about 3 years. And guess what - I got pregnant!

My plan was to continue to exercise and eat healthy and try not to gain much of it back. Unfortunately that did not happen. I continued doing my exercise bike, but a few weeks into my pregnancy I started cramping. I know that this is normal, BUT, I was so terrified of having a miscarriage, I was not taking ANY chances. So, I stopped exercising and at any sign of a cramp, I laid down immediately. Luckily I did not have any morning sickness and so could eat totally normally. I am completely grateful for this, and wouldn't have chosen any other way, however it did mean that I did not have the weight loss at the beginning that many pregnant women experience. (Once again, I'm not complaining about this, just explaining. I do not envy any woman who is sick during her pregnancy. It sounds completely horrible to me.) About 20 weeks into my pregnancy I started getting terrible back pains. It started with my sciatic nerve and then moved up into my upper back and shoulder area. The pain was so bad that it was extremely painful to work at my computer (I was a graphic designer at the time and so was at the computer ALL day long) I would want to cry my entire car ride home and I think I did a few times if I hit too many red lights. It was pretty brutal on me both physically and emotionally. Being in that much pain constantly made me feel extremely anxious. Anyway, when I am feeling anxious and in pain, I want yummy food. Of course, I felt like I deserved any good food for all of the pain I was experiencing, so I didn't hold back. Thus, my goal of only gaining the minimum weight gain during pregnancy was not met. I had planned on taking it off when Aubrey was born, but she ended up with jaundice and acid-reflux and pretty much felt miserable and cried and wanted to be held ALWAYS! She woke up all night long until she was 10 months old. Plus, she had extreme stranger/separation anxiety (that started at 6 months old) and would scream at the top of her lungs if anyone but me came near her. I was exhausted and completely spent and the thought of exercising and dieting flew right out of the window!

Almost immediately as my cycle began again (I nursed for 13 months and did not have a cycle during that time.) I got pregnant again with Brooke. I had an almost identical pregnancy with Brooke and also had a very active 1 year old on top of it, so of course I put on more weight.

Thankfully, I did not put all of the weight back on, but I did gain back a good portion of it (37 lbs to be exact). When I originally got pregnant with Aubrey, I had not completed my weight loss goal. I had wanted to lose another 40 lbs, so I would total 100 lb weight loss (I thought that sounded really cool, to loose 100 lbs.) Of course that was a very lofty goal because it would get me back to my high school weight, but I figured, why not aim high! So, now I am first trying to reach my original weight loss (2 more lbs to go!) and then get back on track on my 100 lb goal. Unless, of course, I happen to get pregnant again along the way. I am happy to report that in the last few weeks my cycle has once again become normal - which was one of the main reasons I've been working so hard.

So that's my story for anyone who is at all interested!