Bandiversary

Today is my 1 year bandiversary. What a year it has been. I had been looking forward to making this post and reflecting on my weight loss and all that it had done for me, including allowing me to get pregnant again. Now, the impact of my weight loss has been dwarfed by a much larger loss.

My life has changed completely in this last year. I’ve lost and I’ve gained. I lost 100 lbs and I gained my health, my life, confidence, and strength. The weight loss did help me to get pregnant again. I gained another member of our family, a precious daughter who will be loved and remembered forever. I only had her for 20 weeks in my womb and two hours in my arms, but I feel so blessed to have had that time at all. If someone had told me a year ago where I would be today, I wouldn’t change any of it (unless I could somehow change the outcome). In the words of Garth Brooks, “I could’ve missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.”

One thing I’ve learned is that losing weight doesn’t bring instant happiness. It has improved my life a lot, definitely. But I used to think that if I lost the weight, everything would be ok and that was the one thing that made me so unhappy. Now I realize that life is what we make it, no matter what size we are.

A year ago, I:
weighed 350 lbs
wore size 30 jeans
wore size 5x tops
had very severe sleep apnea
had high blood pressure
had severe PCOS
had a resting heart rate around 100

Today, I:
weigh 250 lbs
wear size 18 jeans
wear size 1x-2x tops
have minimal sleep apnea and I’m no longer dependant on my CPAP
have normal blood pressure, even while pregnant
got pregnant on my own
have a resting heart rate around 70

I’m going to take new pictures soon. I have an appointment with my surgeon Dr. M this week and hopefully will get a fill next week. He doesn’t know what happened yet, so I’m really not looking forward to that appointment.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, the 18th, we will bury our baby girl. Please pray extra hard for us. This pain is unbearable. 😦

Very sad update

I am copying and pasting this from LBT because I just can’t write this all out again.

I’m sorry if this is jumbled, but I am really out of it right now.

On Sunday 2/8 at about noon, I had some slight vaginal bleeding and called my doctor. He had me go to the hospital to get checked. I was having a small amount of cramping, but nothing unusual. When I was checked, they found that I was 4 cm dilated and the bag of waters was bulging out of my cervix. I was put head down in the bed for the rest of the day, but at about 8 am on Monday morning, my water broke. I was monitored throughout the day for infection and my temp was creeping up and up. Late afternoon, my temp was 100.4 and it was determined that I had an infection and must deliver. Being only 20 weeks, we knew the baby couldn’t make it.

Pitocin was started in the evening and I labored through the night. Sydney Alexis was born at 4:30 am on February 10 and even though she was only 20w4d gestation, she lived for two hours and then passed away in my arms. She was perfect in every way and looked just like her older brother.

Please say a prayer for us. I am hurting so badly, I don’t know how I can make it through this time. I am still in the hospital, probably until tomorrow and will spend as much time with the baby as I can.

TIA for any thoughts and prayers as we can use all we can get right now.

It’s a…

GIRL!!  We had our major ultrasound at the hospital today.  We are having a healthy baby girl!  She’s growing great and is right on track.  I was surprised because I’d had a very strong boy feeling all along, but I guess not.  LOL  The ultrasound was very cool.  We saw so many different parts–the four chambers of the heart, kidneys, bladder, fingers, toes, nose, lips, it was really amazing.  Eric says she has my nose, which is kind of an ongoing joke.  The day we had our ultrasound with Christian, he said that Christian had my nose.  When he was born, that was the first thing Eric said.  Both Christian and Hailey have my nose, and it looks like little Sydney does too.  LOL

Here are a couple of pictures of her.  🙂