Eli was due September 25, but I knew there was no way I’d make it that long. My doctor estimated he’d be about ten pounds, so she scheduled the C-section for the earliest possible date: September 14. I felt like I could live with ten pounds; both my father and Michael’s father were that big at birth. And thank goodness I was having a boy—everyone likes a big, healthy boy, right?
I had such guilt over inflicting my poor health onto my son, and I just knew everyone else would judge me for it, too.
Labor Day weekend was especially uncomfortable for me. I was having sporadic pains, but because I’d never had contractions on my own with Emma (my water broke, but I had to be induced), I wasn’t sure what exactly I was feeling. I called Michael’s aunt, an ob nurse. She said to take two Tylenol and take a nap. If I was able to sleep, then the pains weren’t real contractions. I took the medicine and took a nap.
I slept for four hours.
When I woke up, I was groggy and sure that what I’d felt was some sort of fluke. I still felt kind of weird, like I didn’t really want to sit down, but I just chalked it up to being big and pregnant. I had eaten dinner and started to settle in for the night when I started noticing that the weird little feelings were forming a definite pattern. I was having real contractions! But I was more than three weeks early … could this really be it? I called the on-call doctor, and he told me to meet him at the hospital.
I half expected to get to the hospital and be told I wasn’t in labor, although the pain was becoming more intense. The nurses checked, and I heard them call the doctor to deliver the news: I was almost ready to push! Push?! I was supposed to have a C-section! I’d pushed with Emma for several hours but had to have surgery because she was stuck. I was sure this baby was bigger than she’d been—how would I get him out?! Panicked doesn’t come close to describing how I was feeling.
The nurses calmly explained that the doctor was on his way and that they would do an emergency C-section. I immediately started to relax … and to get a little excited. I was so ready to meet my son, and so, so ready to not be pregnant anymore. And he was early! Maybe this meant he wouldn’t be so big after all!
It was after midnight when everyone gathered in the OR. The on-call doctor wasn’t one I knew very well, but I wasn’t too concerned. He seemed like a nice enough fellow, so I really didn’t mind—I was so uncomfortable, I just wanted the baby out, and I wanted him to be okay. As he was preparing me for surgery, the doctor looked at my previous incision. “Jennifer, I’m sorry, but because of the position of this baby, I’m not going to be able to cut you in the same place,” he told me. At that moment I really couldn’t have cared less, and I decided a little levity was needed. “Oh, that’s okay. Not much chance of me ever wearing a bikini anyway!” I joked. This doctor didn’t even crack a smile. I couldn’t believe it! I could tell the female nurses were smiling behind their surgical masks. But Michael said this is also an important part of the man code: A man should never laugh about a woman’s weight, even if she makes the joke. On second thought, I’m thinking perhaps that’s the best policy.
As they all prepared for the surgery, I warned them that I thought the baby was pretty big. They laughed good-naturedly, saying they were sure they could handle it. The C-section was different than the last one I had had. The doctor was working harder—there was more pulling and tugging. Later one of the nurses commented they’d never seen this particular doctor break a sweat before, but this time he had. And we soon knew why.
Eli’s first cry was healthy and robust. I didn’t get to see him right away, but everyone assured me he was fine … and big. “I told ya so,” I said, rather weakly. I couldn’t see anything, so I was listening as hard as I could. At one point I turned to the nurse whose only job was to stand by my head and make sure I was okay and said, “I think I heard someone say twelve pounds.”
“No, honey,” she laughed. “That’s not what they said.”
“Twelve pounds, seven ounces!” a male voice gleefully announced from across the room.
The OR erupted in applause. Several people went over to see them working on my baby. I was in shock, and I think Michael was, too. More than twelve pounds? And he was three weeks early?
Soon they whisked by me with baby Eli in the glass bassinet. He was on his way to the NICU, as promised. I got to see him briefly, and he was a sight: big, red, and wrapped tightly like a burrito. He had a shocked expression on his face, one that I was sure mirrored my own. “Look at all of that hair!” the nurse exclaimed, pulling back his cap. Tufts of jet-black hair stood straight up. So that would explain all of that heartburn! Promising I’d see him soon, they took Eli away and I waited for them to finish closing me up.
In recovery, I didn’t sleep like I had with Emma. I wanted to know how Eli was doing, I wanted to make sure he was okay. Because Eli was in the NICU, Michael couldn’t go be with him, so he was as clueless as I was. Hours later, when they put me in a room, I found a nice surprise. The NICU nurses knew it would be a while before I could go down to the unit to see him, so they’d taken a picture of Eli and printed it out for me. There he was, with all kinds of tubes and wires in his mouth, his nose, and his arm. I wept, filled with worry and exhausted from the night’s events. Michael assured me our son would be fine and I would see him soon.
Eli was born a little past 1:00 a.m., but it was almost noon before I got to see him. Michael wheeled me down to the NICU in a wheelchair—I was just starting to get feeling back from the epidural. I felt impatient as I went through the sanitizing routine before entering the NICU—I wanted to see my baby now! Michael wheeled me past rows of teeny, tiny babies in glass Isolettes—some no bigger than the palm of my hand. I was relieved my baby wasn’t going to look like that, but I was also a little apprehensive about meeting him for the first time without the haze of a C-section and the bright lights of the operating room.
When I finally reached Eli, the dam burst. He was all alone in his little glass bassinet, no baby on either side of him. Truly, in this unit filled with underweight preemies, he was in a class by himself. I stared at him, memorizing all that I could about my new baby. He was wearing only a diaper, and his chest rose and fell so quickly with his little breaths. He was sleeping, but it was fitful, as if he were missing something—or someone. He’d been here for hours without me, and all I wanted to do was take him in my arms. Only, I couldn’t. He was still hooked up to an IV, and I was scared to death I would yank something out or pull something loose. I touched his arm, my hand trembling. “I’m sorry,” were the first words I spoke to my son.
Eli was in the NICU for three days, much longer than I’d anticipated. His blood sugar levels went down to normal pretty quickly, but then the doctors were concerned about his breathing. In trying to figure out that issue, they discovered a small hole in his heart—something they told me was pretty common and would likely repair itself, but a problem that would require more monitoring. In the midst of all of it, I somehow knew he would be okay. My usual MO would be to panic and jump to the worst-case scenario, but not this time. Something just told me that Eli would be fine.
I, however, was not fine. I blamed myself for his being there, for not being in my arms. He should have been in a regular hospital room with me, being passed around by cooing family members. Instead he had to be monitored round the clock, poked and prodded with every test under the sun. I couldn’t forgive myself. When he was finally cleared to go home, when I could finally hold him and rock him and whisper lullabies in his ear, I still wasn’t okay. My inability to control myself, to get a handle on my health, stared me in the face every time I looked in my son’s eyes. And it almost destroyed me.
The hole in his heart did close. His blood sugar stabilized, and he lost weight. Every day, he proved to be a normal, healthy baby boy. I was so relieved, so thankful that he had been spared the consequences of my lack of discipline. I pledged to do whatever it took to keep him healthy, to keep him safe and happy. I became fiercely protective of him, vowing
never to let him down again.
But I was letting myself down each and every day. I couldn’t get my weight under control. No longer pregnant, I ate with a renewed vengeance, to the point of bingeing. I drank soda almost nonstop. On the surface it was my usual routine: I felt bad, and the only thing that made me feel better was to stuff myself with food, even if that “better” feeling only lasted a little while. But deep down I knew this time was different. It was as though I was trying to punish myself, make myself pay for all the damage I’d done. During my worst times of overeating before, I was able to pull myself together and complete at least a couple of days of better-than-normal eating, perhaps try a little exercise. But now, I couldn’t get anything to work at all, not even for a day. I had never been this out of control, and I felt powerless to stop the path of destruction.
A couple of months after Eli was born, I got the news: My diabetes had not gone away. I was now a full-fledged type 2 diabetic. I wouldn’t be able to put away the blood glucose monitor this time, couldn’t disregard the diabetic diet. My blood sugars had improved somewhat since I’d had the baby, so I wouldn’t have to have daily insulin shots. But I would have to go on medication—pills I would have to take for the rest of my life. And I would always have the stigma of diabetes.
I just couldn’t believe I’d reached this point. I was still pretty young. I had two small children. And I was a diabetic. Forever. Suddenly I longed for the days when my weight was about looking better in my clothes or having a better sex life. Now my weight was causing irreparable damage to my body. And it was all my fault.
As is my nature, I reacted to the news with denial. Surely I could reverse this. All I had to do was lose the weight! Now that I’d had my last baby, I could focus on shedding pounds, on getting healthier. Once I got my weight under control, the diabetes, I was sure, would be a distant memory.
Surely this, finally, had to be my rock bottom. I’d had a twelve-pound baby, for God’s sake. I’d been diagnosed with an incurable disease. Wasn’t this finally the point at which I cried uncle? Wasn’t I finally at the point to take charge and do something about it, for good?
Thus started my renewed attempt at getting diet drugs, and we now know how all that turned out. The whole time I visited new doctors and started new plans, I tried to ignore the diabetes problem into nonexistence. I didn’t take my medicine, and I certainly didn’t monitor my blood sugar. Doing so outside of pregnancy would have meant I was actually a diabetic, something I just couldn’t face. In the back of my mind, I knew I was further damaging my health, but I forgave it because I felt sure I would soon get a handle on the situation—I was still deluded enough to think I would get on the right path. In essence, I let diabetes run amok in my body, unchecked.
I started to get chronic yeast infections—not just the “flesh-eating virus” ones under my stomach, but the more traditional variety. I’d never really had them before, and at first I was puzzled as to why they kept coming back. One Google search and I figured it out: Out-of-control diabetes leads to chronic yeast infections. I wasn’t monitoring my blood sugar, but these infections let me know that the diabetes was as strong as ever. I couldn’t get rid of them, and I certainly couldn’t go see the doctor. I just sort of … lived with them, which of course, was insane, but so was my very way of thinking. It had been more than ten years since I’d started gaining weight, and I had yet to find a solution that lasted. What in the world made me think I would find one now, on my own?
Reality sometimes has a way of slapping you in the face, but for me, this time, it was a slow burn. I’d seen the commercials about people losing their eyesight because they refused to do anything about their type 2 diabetes. I’d read about a young mother dying from a heart attack, leaving her small children behind. I’d contemplate, more and more, how the deck was stacked against me, health-wise. My mother had had a heart attack when she was just forty-nine. My father had died of a stroke at fifty-seven. I’d seen three uncles die too early, two of heart attacks; two more uncles were being treated for heart disease. The odds were not good, and the more I allowed time to pass by, the more I let my diabetes wreak havoc on my life, the more in danger I was.
Looking at my children took my breath away. Emma was so beautiful, with big blue eyes that showed the world every emotion she felt at the exact moment she felt it. She was by no means an easy child, and she would need a mother’s love to help her navigate her already overwrought emotions. Eli definitely had his father’s temperament: easygoing, just happy to be here. But he loved me so fiercely, always seeking me out in the room, always wanting to be held and snuggled. Losing me would mean he would never be the same. Neither of them would ever get over the death of their mother. I didn’t want that legacy for my kids. I owed it to them to find the answer, whatever it was. But how? How could I finally figure out what it would take to make it work, especially since I didn’t know what it was? I felt like I was running out of time, as though I’d run out of answers a long, long time ago.
In October 2007 something happened that I still can’t believe was real. Michael and I were in the den, watching TV. We’d already put the kids to bed, and I was doing my usual complaining about not having enough time to exercise and not making the best food choices. It was a conversation we’d had many, many times during our then thirteen-year marriage, and Michael’s usual response was to listen, but not say much. Whenever I forced him to talk about my weight, he did so with great hesitation. He was so afraid of hurting my feelings or saying the wrong thing. Truly, I should have been grateful for this; I think everyone knows a husband who is anything but supportive when it comes to his wife’s weight battle. Never in our marriage had Michael said one negative word to me about how much I weighed or how I looked, and I did appreciate how wonderful that was. But I must admit, sometimes I wondered, What if he was a little harder on me, or just held me a little more accountable? Would I be better off? At my worst, I blamed him when I couldn’t get control of myself, thinking how he was letting me down by not being more of a coach. But when I was being rational, I knew what a gem of a husband I had, and how lucky I was.
So you can imagine how surprised I was on that fall night in 2007 when Michael broached the subject, all on his own.
“I think you should look into gastric bypass surgery.”
I was sure I hadn’t heard him correctly, but I saw the conflicted look on his face. It was one of great pain and reluctance, but there was also a sort-of quiet determination. He obviously didn’t want to say this, but clearly he had been working up the nerve and had now decided there was no turning back. “You know Paul down at the sheriff’s office? He’s lost all his weight and he looks great. He said it was a little hard at first, but he’s so happy he did it.” Michael was talking so softly, I could barely hear him. At first he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were anywhere but on me—on his hands, on the TV. And then he turned to look me full in the face, his voice a bit firmer. “I need you. We need you. I think you owe it to us—and to yourself—to at least check it out.”
There was so much I could have said at that moment. I could have told him I’d thought a lot about the surgery and had it in my mind if one day I needed it, if one day I determined I couldn’t lose the weight on my own. I could have pointed out that there were a lot of negative things to say about the surgery, how everything wasn’t as rosy as some people would like you to think. I could have listed a thousand different reasons why I thought I should have the surgery, and a million more why I didn’t think I would.
But all I could do in that moment was look at my husband, who had so much love in his eyes it nearly broke my heart. All I could do was nod my head, simply, once. “Okay.” Now it was my voice that was barely audible. “I’ll look into it.”
And that was all that needed to be said.
9
Life in the (Fat) Mommy Lane
I tell people how much I love to drive my minivan. I have friends who flat-out refuse to buy such a vehicle; doing so, t
o them, is officially cashing in every cool point they ever had. I thought I was one of those people. Before I had kids, I told anyone who would listen that I wouldn’t be caught dead in the modern-day version of the “family truckster.” I had a zippy little red Toyota Corolla that was excellent on gas and therefore perfect for my two-hour-a-day commute. It had leather seats and a sunroof, and even though I was way over 250 pounds, somehow I felt sleek and hip driving that little car. Mind you, getting out of the thing as a very large person was no easy task. I learned to park in such a way that I would not have an audience when I exited the vehicle—no one needed to witness that heave-ho process. And I avoided parking on inclines like the plague—they made it nearly impossible for me to break free from the front seat.
When I had my first baby, I dutifully put her car carrier in the middle of the backseat, because safety experts agree that is the best place for a baby. And because she was in an infant seat, it was easy enough to snap her into place and put the carrier on the base that always stayed anchored in the back. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that eventually they outgrow the infant seat, usually at around six months or so. That’s when you have to physically get in the back with them and strap them into a larger chair. And the babies are no longer quiet little snuggly newborns either; often moms have to wrangle, convince, cajole, even wrestle their children into the seat. It’s a lot of work, not to mention what it takes to physically haul yourself in and out of the car. So when I was pregnant with Eli, I was relieved we had outgrown my zippy little Corolla and gladly gave in to the mounting pressure to get a certified mommy mobile. With a minivan there’s no bending down, no heaving yourself in and out, all while maneuvering a squirmy child. It’s easy peasy, if not very stylish or hip. Whatever. I was really in no position to fight for cool points.
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