Betrayal is such a heart wrenching thing.. no matter the direction it comes from. Most times people refer to being betrayed when another person has committed the act. Other times maybe it is their very self doing the betraying to someone else. When I think of betrayal, my mind doesn't automatically go to someone or myself doing the wrong. Maybe its ironic that my mind works in that way.. maybe its not.
I believe that my frame of mind on this subject is probably skewed because of certain trials my family has gone through the past few years. How could it not? The betrayal I immediately think of is that my body has done to me. Most would probably say the acts I committed against myself. More specifically my inability to conceive for so very long. Five years for an infertile can be a lifetime or it can be an unknowing beginning to a much longer road of struggle. Either way, its a tough row to hoe. Its not easy by any means.
The ease and surprise of getting pregnant with my son was such a shock I naively assumed the second or any subsequent pregnancies would be as well. NAIVE being the key word here. I took so much for granted during that pregnancy,, a pregnancy that made me wholey miserable almost the entire time, the birth that wasn't what I wanted and the recovery of which seemed to take eons. While I cherished what my body was able to produce, a happy healthy boy, I wasn't prepared to go through that again very soon. I knew surely though when he turned two that I would be more than ready.. and I was.
I gained an ungodly amount of weight while pregnant with him. It was the first time in my life that my already overweight body had a "reason" to eat whatever I felt like and not have to walk around with my stomach sucked in.. another "reason" to have a belly. So by the time I had him.. I was at my highest weight at that point in my life and even after losing the initial weight .. it staggered back up to pregnancy weight and beyond. Almost 40lbs more than my weight the day he was born. OBSCENE weight.
I tried half hearted and whole heartedly to lose back down to at LEAST my prepregnancy weight all to pretty much no avail. As much as I wanted another child I had convinced myself that my weight had nothing to do with my inability to conceive a sibling for Austin, because I was a big girl when I conceived him afterall.. so it couldn't possibly pertain to my secondary infertility. HA!
After toying with the idea of bypass surgery for almost four years.. I decided that what's one more year of difference between our kids..as long as I was able to have more that's what mattered. So we went ahead as you know with the surgery.. and I started losing, much more than weight at this point, but I digress. Low and behold 9 months after surgery I got those two lines.. I was worried at first (way down deep I was worried)that my body wasn't ready to carry a child, would I have the miserable 9 months I had with Austin to look forward to again? Of course at this point I didn't care if I couldn't move the whole time.. I was PREGNANT!
Turns out that this pregnancy would not only give me the little girl we were hoping for but also the most uneventful pregnancy and HEATLHY pregnancy a woman could hope for. I am still about 100lbs from my goal weight... so we're talking about 100lbs less than I was before I was pregnant with Austin. Also turns out that apparently it was my weight that kept me from getting what my heart desired the most,, another baby. Complete denial is what some ..no strike that.. what all people call that state of mind.
As I breezed through those 9 months, in and out of uneventful OB visits each month.. the day I had been waiting on for years was finally here. It was completely surreal. Sometimes it still hasn't sunk in that I was pregnant and I have a baby girl now. My body is continuing to lose weight, its also providing nourishment for my baby girl. Its feeling better all over.. inside and out. I am able to do so many things now that I couldn't before, most of all take care of a newborn and a 7 year old.
Either way you look at it.. I have been betrayed by my body or that I have betrayed the body I have myself.. its been through a rollercoaster for sure. While some people would be so very thankful for the renewed health .. and I am of course.. somewhere else deep inside its not thanks that I feel.. I feel redeemed. My body, however broken and repaired its been has finally redeemed itself to me. Its probably finally thanking me for taking care of it the way I should have to begin with.. So while Thanks is something we both feel.. Redemption is the word I have chosen to associate what I feel. There are few things that make a soul feel better than that of REDEMPTION.
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