I was overweight when I got pregnant. I kept intending to do something about it before the big baby news came, but, well, a year slipped past and the weight stayed put. I'm gaining a normal amount of weight this pregnancy, but the actual number on the scale continues to shock me. How is it so high? How will I lose it all (and then some) once he comes?
I have a long, uninteresting history with my body and my weight. I wrote about it, in detail, in this post. I look back on that post, though, and realize I was determined to get pregnant at a healthy weight, yet I actually weighed more the day I found out we were pregnant than the day I wrote it.
It seems I also have a long, uninteresting history with making goals for myself that I don't keep. I have grand intentions, elaborate plans, conversations with friends and family, and then I abandon ship and let laziness win out almost every single time.
Despite the weight and the sickness and the exhaustion and the excruciating pains I feel in various joints when I roll over in the middle of the night, I have loved being pregnant. I have loved feeling him move. I have loved seeing Mike fit into fatherhood. I have loved learning and reading about motherhood and applying all I soak up to our own parenting theories. I have not let my unhappiness with my weight affect this experience except that I do probably take fewer pictures than I would if I were 40 pounds lighter.
I've also looked ahead, though, to when our boy is here, and I've thought about what my goals will be for getting into shape and losing not only the baby weight but the extra weight that's been hanging on for much too long now.
I have given myself a goal of July 25, 2009 to make some respectable strides in getting my weight under control once and for all. It's something I'm already journaling about, already thinking about, already excited for. I have it on my calendar. I will post on/near that day to update one way or the other. Please don't let me off the hook here, OK?
There is something about life changing in such a huge way (i.e., having a baby) that has made me take a much closer look at things and wonder what other changes are long overdue. Creating a budget for my family, finally checking a few things off the dusty life to-do list, making the dentist appointment I've been putting off, sending thank-you cards that have been in a pile for more than three months—all of these are things I've stopped making excuses for doing tomorrow.
I am 25 weeks pregnant. I have 15 weeks to go. My son is growing bigger by the day, and I still laugh every time he kicks. I'll be 27 this January and that same month I will celebrate being with my son's father for five years. Time has this funny way of dragging on and inching along and then knocking us over the head a year later, leaving us wondering how that possibly happened.
I'm going to be a mother.
My son deserves a life filled with many things, but his mother's excuses aren't one of them.
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Tell me some tricks you used for losing your own baby weight or some pesky weight that was hard to shake off. Also, I have Linda's blog bookmarked. Her weight-loss success is insanely inspiring.
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Also, Happy Halloween!