Damn girl, that's a lot of fattitude

It’s been one hell of a year, hasn’t it?

If you’ve stuck with me, I am grateful beyond words. If you read all of this, I am grateful beyond words.

I had a mini melt down with my Stend (I’m Befri and she’s Stend – a combination of best friend) yesterday and told her part of what has made this year so hard is that everything I’m dealing with is so taboo. You learn about pregnancy and periods and being a woman through friends, your mom and sex ed, but I never learned a damn thing about what happens when it all goes terribly awry. If you’ve never experienced it, you really can’t understand it, let alone talk about it.  I never learned just how common miscarriages are because no one wants to talk about miscarriage. 1:4 woman miscarry. Did you know when you have a missed miscarriage on your paperwork for the D&C they write, “missed abortion”, as though you forgot to show up for your abortion appointment? How fucked up is that? Like this was your choice. Your fault. Your wish. Also, you never know who might be pregnant. You never know who you might be scaring. You never know who it might trigger. And if you’re not pregnant and people don’t know your backstory, they want to know when you’re going to start trying. I mean, come on – you’re almost 31! No one ever thinks that maybe you have been trying for a year because no one wants to talk about infertility either, and when they do, the best piece of advice anyone wants to give is, “Just relax. It’ll happen when you’re not trying.” What a total crock of bullshit. No, it won’t. You have FIVE, let me repeat FIVE days, every month that you’re fertile and only a 20% chance of getting pregnant each cycle. These topics are difficult, so everyone is silent. And everyone loses.

My Stend encouraged me to let it all out (which I’m sure she regrets now), and I can’t thank her enough. Typically, when I ramble, which is what I do here, I process a lot. I work through things. I have my epiphanies. Honestly, after writing about it so much here, I started to feel like I was plaguing all of you with my struggle. Over a thousand of you have signed up to read about my weight loss and feel inspired and relate to my journey – not read about me being 25lbs from goal, getting pregnant, having a miscarriage and then regaining a bunch of weight, and basically sucking at life. There’s no motivation in that. I felt that I was really changing the tone of what I wanted and intended for SoMuchFattitude to be. So, I stopped. With so much on my mind, I was at a loss for words and kinda disappeared. With all of that being said, and my Stend’s support here goes…

I had my big, 6 weeks no scale, weigh in at the Doctors. -1.6lbs. One. Point. Six. Freaking. Pounds in six weeks. I felt disgusted and disappointed with myself, but slightly relieved that it wasn’t a gain. All hope didn’t feel lost. That part hadn’t come yet. The undress, wear this tiny ass robe, vag all hanging out, put the sheet over your legs part came and went. All hope didn’t feel lost. That part hadn’t come yet. He poked and prodded my lady bits and then just looked at me and said, “You’ve been trying for a year now. You have secondary infertility.” He said it the same way you’d say, “Fuck yeah, I like tacos. I could really go for some Mexican.” No big fucking deal here. My stomach hit my feet. Infertility. Infer-fucking-tility. THIS is not in my life plan. This is not suppose to be happening. I feel defective and like I’m less of a woman, some how. Someone wake me up now. Let’s just rewind the last year and pretend I never got pregnant, I never miscarried, we haven’t started trying. Let’s rewind to the time where I knew nothing about trying to conceive, my cervical position or my cervical mucus. Let’s rewind to where I was happy for everyone that did conceive, not wildly sad it wasn’t me, and just knew I wanted to be a mother some day. Unfortunately, I cannot. As I lost all feeling of hope, I asked him what that meant. It’s when you’ve successfully gotten pregnant once, but unable to after a year of timing your sex to match ovulation. The next bit was a blur, but essentially summed up as, “You need to do lots of testing and there is hope.” I ended my visit with lots of lab work and lab orders and tests to be run. After my first round of testing, they’ve ruled out PCOS and said that my egg production/amount is normal. I ended my visit with an ultimate game plan of probably taking a round of Clomid, to give me super human eggs, and doing IUI (essentially artificial insemination). Talk about taking the romance out of making a baby, but I guess that probably happened back when I basically raped my husband for 5 days every month. Mood? I don’t give a fuck if you’re in the mood. Take your pants off, get it hard and put it in. Blow your load. You have a job to do. I turned into a real monster. A total bitch.

In all of my venting to Stend yesterday, I really came to grips with just how much damage I’ve been doing to my marriage. I’ve said it before, but it never really clicked like it did yesterday for me. We went to dinner, had a beer and I apologized. I let it all out to Kevin. He just held my hand and told me he loved me and will always love me. But, the truth of the matter is, Kevin didn’t sign up for this – granted, neither of us did, but he didn’t marry the woman I’ve become. The woman I’ve become is not one I intend to keep around much longer either. The woman I’ve become is the most insecure she’s ever been. She feels reckless and out of control. She gives zero fucks about anything other than getting pregnant. I realize now that a big part of my problem has been the lack of control I’ve felt over my life. I feel like I have no control over my body, my weight, my athleticism, my fertility, my marriage, and even my career. A lot has changed for me in the last year. Prior to getting pregnant I felt in total control. I was unstoppable. Reflecting back to my “infertility appointment” I realized that I instantly felt better when we had a plan to handle this. We had scheduled times and dates to do tests, we had approximations of dates we’ll have answers by. We have a plan. I just need a plan to feel back in control. Who doesn’t?

So, here goes…

I am rejoining Weight Watchers with the actual meeting. Truth be told, as much as I like the freedom of “trusting my body” my weight is unhealthy, especially with my infertility, as it can play a factor. A large reason I’ve not rejoined prior to now is because of my “what if I get pregnant mentality.” The most successful I’ve ever been with my weight loss has been when I attend the weekly Weight Watcher meetings and can socialize, talk and process with others. I feel like I am in a different place in my life. Not having a scale at home will prevent the obsession, but I will still be held accountable every week with the option of not looking at the scale when I weigh in there, though let’s be honest – that’ll never happen. I rejoin tomorrow.

I am currently registered for a 5k and a half marathon – with several more races in sight. I will continue signing up for races and training. I am an athlete trying to get pregnant, not a pregnant woman trying to be an athlete. I need to remember that.

We have a game plan for our infertility and will continue testing. We will incorporate this into our lives, not make it our lives.

Professionally, I will continue pushing and working toward my ultimate goal of transitioning into a Project Coordinator/Management position. I will prove myself through my continued hard work, my work ethic, and my ability to learn and grow quickly.

Lastly, I’ve come to realize that I might not get pregnant. This might not be in the cards for us, but it doesn’t mean I can’t live a happy, fulfilled life. Because even if I never do get pregnant, I still have two nephews and a niece that I love dearly and am fortunate enough to see multiple times a week. They are the three most amazing children I’ve ever met. I know I’m probably biased, but you have no idea.

Kai (age 9) has the biggest heart. He is everyone’s biggest cheerleader. If you are his friend and his team is playing against you – he will still cheer for you and want you to succeed. He is a protector and a kind spirit. He is sensitive and loyal. He loves cuddling and is wise beyond his years. We went to a wedding this past weekend in Brooklyn and I asked him what marriage means and he said to me after mulling it over, “It’s when you fit together like puzzle pieces. And sometimes puzzle pieces don’t fit, so that’s when you have to push them together and make them fit.” And that is marriage – you don’t always fit, but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever fit, it just means you keep working at it until you do.

Brit (age 7) is a comedian and his own person. He truly is a rock star in that sense. He is adventerous and daring. He is brave. His confidence is overwhelming. He wanted to wear his nails painted to school one day, so he did. The kids teased him, but he didn’t care what they thought because he was happy and he liked it. I hope he never loses that sense of self. He loves making people laugh and is wildly protective of his baby sister, Charley – threatening to already beat up her boyfriend if he’s ever mean to his family.

And then there’s baby girl Charley (8 weeks) who is perfectly perfect. The only girl in the family with two doting brothers. She is surrounded by love. She sleeps through chaos and is unbothered by nearly everything.  She flew to NY and back without a tear being shed and not so much as a whimper. She coos and smiles. I honestly think I’ve heard her cry once in eight weeks – and we just shared an apartment in NY with her for 3 nights. She is pure happiness and brings a sense of beauty that only infants can bring.

Having come to realize all of this last night left me in a much better place this morning.

With all that being said, if you’ve read my novel of a post today, thank you. Your comments, support, and good thoughts are what have helped me get through the last year.