This Was Never About a Choice

After a lengthy text conversation with a close friend on Friday, I have come to the conclusion that I want to definitively document (again, if I already have) how I view this pregnancy.  Don't worry!  It's GOOD.  Also.. **Potential trigger warning: I will talk about weight but I won't say how much I weigh/weighed etc.  But there will be pounds discussed.** 

Okay, so I'm 34 weeks and 1 day.  That's almost 8 months!  10 days from now will be one month until my due date (although the conception date was February 15th so I count the 15th as my month roll-over date, with a 7 day lag until the months-to-go roll over too.)  I have to say, I cannot believe how fast the time has gone.  I feel like I blinked and June, July and August passed.  September was a blur.  Now we're nearly 2 weeks into October and I'm having trouble fathoming the fact that I just typed those words.

So let's talk about that, though.  Because I know for a fact there were people who know me that didn't believe I'd be able to get pregnant in the first place, never mind eat enough to sustain the pregnancy if ever it occurred.  If you are one of those people, don't worry - I don't blame you. ;)  I wasn't sure I could ever get pregnant either, but I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I ever was lucky enough to carry a life inside me that I would never, ever do anything to jeopardize that.

      "Sure," People would say.  "But your eating disorder is so strong, you can't know for sure how you'll react."

This is very true.  My eating disorder was and still IS very strong.  Don't ask me how I knew I'd be able to nourish myself and my growing baby.  I couldn't tell you.  I just knew!  

I fully understand that there are people out there in the world who have lost their fetuses due to malnutrition from their eating disorders.  I am not casting judgement on these people, that's not my place.  To have to listen to that voice day in and day out, ignore it and eat anyway... is HARD TO DO.  I haven't always been in a place in my life where I could have done that.  I am extremely fortunate that the time at which this little miracle came into being that I was in a place where I could do that.

But the thing I want to make very clear is this: in my opinion, what I am doing is neither special nor great, nor is it necessarily even harder than what any other pregnant woman has to go through.  I'm not saying it's easy!  But for me it was never even a choice.  I wanted this, and I love my not-yet-born daughter more than I've ever loved anything in my life!  

My life was going along a path - a train track, let's call it.  Ahead of where I was, another track jutted out from the one I was on.  If I didn't throw the switch and end up on that off-shoot, I'd have continued on just as I was.  As I rushed toward that off-shoot track at 10000 miles per hour, I looked down at what I held in my hands and saw two, small, blue plus signs.  Two positive pregnancy tests.  At the very instant that I saw those plus signs, I realized that the switch had been thrown and I veered violently to the right and was on this new track.  

Everything that lay ahead on the old track vanished.  Everything that lay ahead on the new track became my reality.  All in less than a moment.  I conceptually understood everything that was going to happen for the next however-many months.  This is why I never had an "oh shit" moment.  Moments before I saw those positive tests, I was thinking about how to burn more calories, how many I'd already burned that day, how to lose weight, how to get out of eating, etc.  When I saw those positive tests, all those thoughts instantly went to a different part of my brain.  The  "not-now-I'll-deal-with-you-later" part.  

So when people ask me now, "How do you make the choice every day to eat and not restrict?"  I always answer, "It's never a choice."  It isn't.  It never was!

I've starved myself for years and years because, for whatever reason, I believe I deserve it.  But Mara does NOT deserve it.  (Sure, you could argue that I don't either but we'll save that for another day.)  Mara Soleil is an innocent, pure soul.  How could I do that to her?  How could I do that to her and live with myself?  I've gained 20 pounds in pregnancy, and HELL NO I don't like it.  YES I hate how I look half the time, but the other half of the time I realize it's really not that bad.  Sometimes I cry so hard I can't breathe when I realize what the number on the scale says.  But Mara kicks me hard in the ribs and reminds me why I'm doing this.  It's a number.  She doesn't care about that number, what she cares about is getting the nutrients she needs to grow.  How does she get those nutrients?  From me.  It is all up to me.  Nobody else can do this for her.  How freaking lucky am I?? I am entrusted 100% with this little tiny life and to feel her kicking every day... I DID THAT.  

What I really want to impress upon every single person reading this, no matter where you are in life, whether you're male, female, happy, sad, have an eating disorder, know someone who does, or just randomly found this blog, is this: no matter how hard the thing you face, no matter how scared you may be at the time of facing it, no matter who is telling you that you won't be able to do it, if YOU decide to do the best you can toward this thing, you WILL do the best you can.  I am not going to say "you will do it" because no matter how much of their best a dog gives to breathing underwater, they never will.  But the best you can do is all you can do.  And sometimes things happen that keep success from happening (I could have miscarried back in March or April despite doing everything I was told) but you can't do any more than your best.

If you are like me and have an eating disorder and are wanting to get pregnant but are scared to do so because of the weight gain, the anxiety, etc., let me tell you this: IT IS HARD.  It is terrifying.  But it is possible.  Time passes whether or not it feels like it does.  You will live through it.  And yes... it is absolutely, positively, TOTALLY worth it. :)