Fat.

I'm fucking fat.

The whole time I was pregnant, I openly worried about how big I was getting, but deep down I really didn't care.  I knew it would all be worth it.  Plus, I had that awesome jogging stroller that I was gonna take Nina out in.  She would sleep peacefully while I jogged away months of flab.  I would attend postnatal yoga, connecting with my child, and my breath, and the earth.  And OMG breastfeeding!  It burns so many calories, I really wouldn't even have to worry about the baby weight!  And what was the hurry, anyway?  I would have a beautiful baby girl, all I've ever wanted.  I was sure I wouldn't even mind being overweight for awhile.  I knew it would come off eventually.

Well.  Expectations change.

I DID drop 20 pounds of baby, blood, and various other bodily fluids in the first couple of weeks since Nina-Lou's birth, but I still have 30 pounds to go, and they have been stubborn thus far.  It sucks.  I am still wearing maternity shirts, because all my other shirts are fucking crop tops at this point.  I have one pair of non-maternity jeans that fits over my muffin top.  I have a saggy gut, which, if I'm not careful to suck in, looks pretty much like an 18 week pregnant gut.  I get winded jogging for more than a minute, and I doubt I could pull off a legit pushup.  I feel gross.  I feel old.  I feel trapped in someone else's body.

I walk down the street, and I'm not a big pregnant lady, I'm not the woman with a newborn still carrying some of the baby weight, I'm just a fucking fat lady.  A 35 year old, childless fatty who has been wearing variations on the same outfit for the past 6 weeks because nothing else fits.  I know I'm not ugly.  I know that it's not the end of the world and that I can lose the weight.  But I am bitter.  My body has been changed from this experience, and not for the better.

Oh!  And as a sweet bonus, I have become one of the many women who must cross her legs when she sneezes, lest she fucking piss herself.  So, yeah.  Total pity party, over here.

I know how to lose weight.  I've done it before.  When I moved to the Bay Area in 2004 I weighed 205 lbs, which, at 5 foot 6 inches, is pretty much considered morbidly obese.  I joined weight watchers as a last ditch effort to get healthy, and lo and behold, was able to drop a shit ton of weight.  I have, for the most part, maintained that weight loss for many years.  Pregnancy scared me, because I knew I'd get kinda fat again.  And I did.  I maxed out at 210.  I knew a lot of that was baby, but it turns out that most of it was me.

So, I'm back on the weight watchers train.  I'm doing a couch to 5K program.  I am skating again.  And I'm pretty sure I'm gonna drop this weight just like I did before.  I have all this extra motivation now because if I'm gonna get knocked up again at some point, I have to get back down to a reasonable weight.  That shit is going to take some time, effort, and discipline.  But I know I can do it.  Aside from making a baby, I've pretty much always accomplished shit that I want to do.  It's not hard; you just have to be willing to work for stuff.  I wish that were the case with baby making... but, not so much.

I don't want to be worrying about weight loss.  I want to be worrying about breastfeeding, diapering, nap schedules, and baby-wearing.  I got so cheated out of so much when Nina-Louise died.  I hate the way my life turned out.  I believed that my life was going to end up a certain way according to my vision, my plan.  I was wrong.  I feel... duped.  I feel so stupid and sorry for myself, it's sickening.

My friends are pretty amazing, though.  They listen to me bitch, hold me when I cry, or just sit with me in awkward silence while I stare blankly at the ground.  They join me for walks, and read my texts late at night when I just have to tell someone that I'm sad.  They believe in me.  They love me.  They love my daughter and they hold onto hope for me and Turner and the family we want to build.  They feel angry for what we lost and they tell me they have my back.  I love them for it.  I feel like a large part of why I've been able to survive this far out, and put on mascara, and go to the grocery store alone is because I know that they are always there, thinking of us, holding us up.

I hope they can hold us for awhile longer.  This shit is a marathon, and there are ditches and snakes and sand pits and land mines all along the way, and I am getting exhausted.  I have no idea what the finish line looks like.  I'm done envisioning my future.  I'm just trying to keep my eyes open during the day, close them at night, do what my couch-to-5K app tells me to do, and chill out on the wine and chocolate.  If I can at the very least accomplish this weight loss goal, it will be something.  I sent my friend a text today that said I hope that someday I can look back on all of this and know that it was the worst and most challenging experience of my life and be grateful that I somehow survived it.  That's all I want, right now.  To survive this and have better times in the future.  I know Nina's not coming back.  I know that a future baby will not fill the hole she left in my heart.  I know that I will not ever be the same, innocent, fun loving person I used to be.  But if this is the worst of it (and jeezus fucking christ, I hope it is), I just hope that I can say I survived it.  I hope it doesn't kill me.  I don't think it will.

I'm trying.  I'm working hard.  I know I'm still in here somewhere, and that I'm not forever trapped in this body.  Like I said in my last post, I'm alive.  I'm changed, and pretty much broken wide open, but I'm here and I want to live a good life, a FULL life.  I won't let this experience steal any more from me than it already has.  So, gimme all your good vibes, because I really wanna beat this thing.  I really want to heal and live again.  I really just want things to get better.