As a very obese woman, I realized motherhood was going to be somewhat different for me. The extra weight I carried touched every aspect of my life, and I knew being a mother certainly wouldn’t provide an exception to that rule. Heck, I even had doctors try to talk me out of getting pregnant while I was so heavy. And now that I’ve been pregnant twice while being grossly overweight, I’m not sure I disagree with their warnings. I wouldn’t want to see anyone deprive herself of happiness, but I also believe that mothers have to put their children’s needs before their own. I had to seriously question my ability to do that when I watched my newborn son in the NICU, in no small part due to my inability to put his health before my food addiction. Did I mean to cause my baby harm? No. But could I have avoided his being sick by waiting to get pregnant until my weight was under control? Undeniably, yes. There are so many things that can go wrong in a normal pregnancy, so maybe it is a good idea to avoid having a child while you’re fat. Life as a large woman is certainly tough enough without adding carrying a baby to the mix. Not to mention actually giving birth and all that entails. It is, of course, possible to have a baby when you are obese, even morbidly obese. But trust me when I say it is not ideal, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Many doctors say the differences between a normal-size woman and an obese woman being pregnant start at conception. In other words, it’s way more difficult for a heavy woman to conceive a child. The theory is once a woman reaches a certain weight, she stops ovulating. Having been told this by more than one doctor, I assumed it would take many months and a small miracle for me to conceive, but alas, that was not the case—I got pregnant right away, both times. But it didn’t take long for the differences between me and my thin counterparts to crop up. It actually started with peeing on the stick.
We’ve all seen the commercials: Find out if you’re pregnant five days sooner if you buy this certain pregnancy test. Anyone who knows me knows that patience is one of many virtues I sorely lack. So once Michael and I decided to try to get pregnant, I had to know immediately if our efforts were successful. So I figured those standard at-home tests were for chumps—I was going to get the test you could take five days before your missed period. I was going to find out as soon as possible!
So I bought the test. I peed on the stick. I waited. No second line; I wasn’t pregnant. I was so disappointed, and a little part of me wondered if the doctors were right, if perhaps I was so fat that I’d stopped ovulating and it would be impossible for me to get pregnant. Sadly, I broke the news to Michael: We were not successful.
Only, more than a week later, my period still hadn’t arrived. And I’m never late. And maybe my mind was just playing cruel tricks on me, but I could swear I was feeling some breast tenderness, one of the many early, telltale signs of pregnancy. I bought a standard at-home pregnancy test. I peed and waited. And it took forever, but finally, very, very faintly, a second line showed up. I thought … I was pretty sure … I was pregnant.
Before getting too excited, I called the doctor’s office and spoke with the nurse. I explained how the early test was negative, my period was late, and the regular test looked faintly positive. “Sounds to me like you’re pregnant,” the nurse declared. I was ecstatic. My heart pounding, I asked her what she thought about the early test coming out negative. Did that mean that something was wrong? The nurse laughed, saying I was probably fine. “Are you very overweight, dear?” she asked. My smile quickly faded and I swallowed hard. “Um … yeah,” I said, weakly. “Well, that’s probably it, hon. When you’re heavier, it’s harder to detect the HCG hormone in your urine.” I couldn’t believe it. My being fat hadn’t kept me from getting pregnant, but it had already inserted itself into my pregnancy experience—and had done so even before I knew for sure I was with child! How else would my weight affect the next nine months? I had to wonder.
In more ways than I could dream. I wasn’t as heavy with my first pregnancy as I was with my second, but still I was about 260 when I became pregnant with Emma. So you can imagine there was no little pregnancy bump to speak of, no one coming up to me and gasping with glee at my burgeoning belly, asking me the due date of my blessed event. Indeed, me as a pregnant woman definitely fell into that category of “Don’t ask.” You men know what I’m talking about: If you don’t know for sure a woman is pregnant, never, ever ask her if she is. That should just be man code, something they teach you along with how to aim straight when peeing or how you never complain about your wife’s cooking in front of your mother. You just don’t do it. Thankfully, I am most relieved to report, no one has ever asked me if I was pregnant when I wasn’t; I have mercifully been spared that humiliation. But conversely, I missed out on all the happy speculation and surprise—I had to tell everyone, or always remind everyone, that I was indeed pregnant. Strangers really didn’t know just by taking a look at me. And there were no cute maternity clothes to buy—no oversize tops to graduate to, no borrowing my husband’s long-sleeved work shirts to wear to bed. My already limited wardrobe was now stretched to the max as my belly grew, and at the end I found myself shopping at the big and tall men’s specialty shops. Nothing says “cute little pregnant girl” like a beefy T-shirt in 4X.
I was even bigger when I got pregnant with my son, not far from three hundred pounds. And I had the same problems with detecting the pregnancy in the beginning; I had to take several at-home tests before getting a faint positive result. But this time around, there were further issues. When I went in for that first vaginal ultrasound, the doctor couldn’t see the baby. “You’re sure the home test was positive?” he asked, and I nodded my head yes, my heart sinking. He called the lab, and the pee test they’d performed had been positive as well. Perplexed, he sent me to the large ultrasound room, where the technician was able to find the baby right away. The stress of the whole experience took years from my life, especially since Michael and I had announced to our whole family we were pregnant again just days before, at Emma’s first birthday party. But I was relieved to call Michael and tell him everything was all right—because of my weight, the vaginal ultrasound had trouble detecting the pregnancy. And the same exact thing happened the next month: My regular doctor tried to do a vaginal ultrasound and couldn’t see the baby. So once again I had to have an ultrasound done using the large machine, where everything was all right. I tried to take it in stride, but these little scares were stressful! By the third month my baby’s heartbeat should have been detectable with a Doppler, but the nurse couldn’t hear it. My doctor was called in, and she reassured me right away: Sometimes in early pregnancy, it was hard to hear the heartbeat, especially if the mom was heavy. I choked back tears as I went yet again for the big ultrasound machine, and yet again, everything was fine. I was barely four months pregnant, and I already had more ultrasound pictures than I’d had during my entire first pregnancy. If these early weeks were any indication, it was going to be a rough road.
I suppose there was a bit of a silver lining: I didn’t gain much weight with either pregnancy. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a conscious effort on my part. In the beginning with Emma, I ate heartily, for once not feeling guilty about every morsel of food that went into my mouth. But then I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and the ballgame changed. I had to watch what I ate, and that affected my weight gain. I will say that my doctors never really scolded me about how heavy I was; it was as though they figured it was too late to worry about it so what was the point in berating the mother? I didn’t feel pressured about my weight, and perhaps consequently, my weight gain was kept to a minimum. Score one for the big woman’s side.
When it came time to have Emma, my water broke but I didn’t have contractions. They admitted me to the hospital and started to administer pitocin. They outfitted me with a baby monitor, a belt that wrapped around my belly that measured my baby’s heartbeat. What a thrilling sound that was! I’d spent most of my pregnancy a paranoid mess, always wondering if she was doing all right. Now I could lie there and listen
to my baby’s heartbeat all night—I found it so reassuring. Only, the belt kept coming unattached, and we had to call the nurse in there several times to hook it back up. Finally our nurse called her supervisor, a woman who was clearly having a bad night and seemed tired and frustrated. She started to show my nurse how to fix the problem, and I guess for a moment she forgot that I, the patient, was sitting right there. “Sometimes this happens with our big mommies,” she muttered as she wrestled with the belt. My nurse looked mortified, and I guess the whole room, filled with my parents, brother, and other family members, just kind of stood there in shock. The nurse finally realized her faux pas, looked at me, and smiled nervously. “Oh, hon, I’m sorry.” She truly looked upset, and I couldn’t stand it. I laughed and patted her arm. “It’s okay. You’re just telling the truth!” I said, somehow anxious to make her feel better. She slunk out of the room, and my mom looked like she was going to kill her. But I shrugged it off. I guess I was too excited to meet my baby to get worked up.
Despite pushing for a few hours, I was unable to get Emma out—she was stuck in the birth canal. My doctor recommended a C-section, and I was too tired to argue. Emma Taylor Joyner was born, weighing in at eight pounds, three ounces. She was beautiful, and I was relieved. I was anxious to try and nurse her right away, and the nurses encouraged me to do so, even though it would be a couple of days before my milk came in. But try as I might, I just couldn’t get Emma to latch on. I found the whole process awkward and uncomfortable, and I’m sure no small measure of that had to do with the fact that I’d had a C-section and was incredibly sore, and it was hard for me to move around in the hospital bed.
But being so overweight, I’m also sure, played a role; I just couldn’t get into any sort of position that worked. My breasts were a swollen, misshapen mess, and my big protruding belly seemed to get in the way of putting the baby in a position that accommodated the nursing process. Bless Michael’s cousin Jenna’s heart—she literally got in bed with me and tried to help me put the baby where she could drink. It was horribly embarrassing, but I was determined to try and provide my baby with the best nutritional start possible. No matter what we tried, what position we went for, we couldn’t get it to work. I called in a lactation specialist, but she wasn’t expected until the next day, and the hospital nursery asked if I minded if they gave Emma some formula from a syringe. I wanted her to have my milk, but I couldn’t get it to work and I was worried about her nutrition. I reluctantly agreed.
The lactation specialist came the next day, and when we couldn’t rouse Emma from sleeping enough to try nursing, she showed me how to pump. She also gave me some tips to try when Emma was more awake, but no luck there, either. They recommended someone else, and I was going to call—but admittedly, I gave up. I was too ashamed … I felt like I was too big and my swollen, disproportioned boobs were too weird. I decided, dejectedly, that breast-feeding wasn’t for me. But I knew breast milk was best for Emma, so I pumped for three months. Yes, it was a huge inconvenience, and it made me sleep deprived beyond belief. I also missed out on the beautiful bonding experience I’ve heard so many mothers talk about. Eventually my body couldn’t keep up the milk supply, and I had to let go of pumping. I did try, and I did give myself some credit for that. But to me, breast-feeding was just one more casualty of my being fat.
Pregnancy and birthing problems aside, I was eventually sent home with healthy babies on two separate occasions. And I am so grateful for that—we all know the myriad things that can go wrong, and I feel blessed to have faced relatively minor challenges in conceiving and birthing my children. But my weight was only beginning to color the experience of being a mother, in ways that I couldn’t even imagine.
There are the embarrassing, gotta-laugh-or-you’ll-cry moments that tend to pop up everywhere in life, but more so when you are an overweight mom. Take the time Emma was a baby in the church nursery and I attempted to participate in a Bible study once a week. Regularly, I’d get called down to soothe my not-yet-walking baby—she was fussy and just didn’t like being there without her mommy. Usually I’d rock her in the rocking chair while she calmed down, and eventually she’d scurry off my lap and crawl across the floor to play. When that happened, I tried to sneak out of the room without her seeing me leave and getting upset. One time I stood up so quickly, the snug rocking chair stuck to my ass. Meaning, I was too big for the chair, and when I stood up, the chair went along with me. It took some effort to wedge the arms of the chair off of my hips and put the chair back down. I wish I could say there were no witnesses to this spectacle, but you know that’s not the case. Several of the nursery workers, along with a few moms, saw the horrible event. What did I do? The only thing I could do. I laughed—and they slowly laughed with me. I could have let it shame me into oblivion, but mercifully, I was able to find the humor in the situation. This, of course, was an exception for me.
There are, unfortunately, several pitfalls for an overweight mom to fall into along the path of motherhood. When Emma was just six months old, I enrolled her in an infant music class. Some may think it’s a silly idea, but I thought it would be great to take my baby to a fun environment, expose her to some music and other babies, and possibly help introduce myself to other moms. Because I’d worked so much, at a job out of town, I hardly knew anyone in my city, let alone women with children. I thought this class would be a great way to have fun with Emma and make some friends. I just didn’t get that it would be so physical. Emma was crawling at this point, so she was constantly scurrying out of my lap as we all sat in a circle on the floor. It hadn’t been easy for me to get down there in the first place, and here I was, having to heave myself up to chase a baby, several times in a row, in a small room with no windows. By the end of the class, I was tired, sweaty, and winded. I was already self-conscious about my size; these conditions made it even more difficult to get comfortable enough to let my guard down and get to know these strangers.
Thankfully, I did eventually find some mommy friends to hang with, and boy did I need them. When Emma was barely walking, and I’d just found out I was pregnant with Eli, I was at a restaurant with an indoor play area for kids. There was a little toddler section to play in, along with one of those large indoor slides that bigger kids had to crawl up into and go through a maze of tunnels before sliding back down. The other moms let their babies climb the slide, so I shrugged my shoulders and let Emma do it, too. Only, Emma got stuck. And screamed. And I couldn’t reach her—I was physically too big to get up there to get her. One of the other moms realized my dilemma and climbed up to retrieve my child. I was mortified. I soon learned to visit those places only when I had a very close friend with me or my husband—I couldn’t risk having to admit to a perfect stranger that I was too fat to rescue my daughter.
I faced a similar situation with outdoor parks. I quickly learned to avoid play areas that did not have fences. Once Emma learned to walk, it wasn’t long before she could run—and I was deathly afraid that I wouldn’t be able to run her down. A very popular park near our house not only doesn’t have fences, but it is near a very busy road. I couldn’t risk Emma getting away from me and my not being able to catch her. So we just didn’t go.
Anytime we were invited to a playdate, I had to scope out the location and size up the possibility for disaster. Bounce houses? Forget it. How was I going to be able to climb in and get my child if he or she needed me? With my luck I would deflate the damn thing! You know how the mall has Santa trains at Christmas time? No way. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fit in those little cars, and my children were too young to ride by themselves. So we only went when Daddy could go with us and I could feign the excuse of having to stay out and take pictures. And let’s not even talk about the little chairs in the preschool classes. When Emma was two, her class hosted a mommy’s day tea. All the moms were to sit at the little tables, on the preschool chairs, and have tea and cookies served to us by our kids. Only I couldn’t trust that those little chairs could hold me, or that
I’d be able to get up once I managed to actually sit down in them. So I stood up and drank my tea like a moron while everyone else sat, acting as though it was perfectly normal. No one said anything, thankfully.
There are literally hundreds of examples like that when it comes to being a fat mom. I remember seeing mothers sitting on the swings at the park with their babies in their lap, pumping their legs, going higher and higher to their kids’ delight. Eli asked me to swing him, but I told him we had to hurry up and get home. I couldn’t admit to my son that I was afraid the swing would break under my weight. I avoided paddleboats with Emma because life vests were mandatory, and I just knew there wouldn’t be one to fit me. Instead of risking the humiliation of finding that out in front of a crowd of people, I feigned a headache and said we had to leave. At a birthday party, I told the other moms I got carsick, and asked if they would do a hayride with Emma. I watched on the sidelines as another mom held my daughter on her lap and I took pictures. I was too scared I’d cause the trailer to scrape the ground.
Probably the worst thing was water. It’s been duly noted that I avoided wearing a bathing suit for years—I just couldn’t bear “baring it all” in public. But what are you supposed to do when you have young children who can’t swim? You can’t just send them in the water and hope for the best. This may explain why Emma was two and a half before she ever saw the ocean, despite our living only an hour and a half away from the coast. The first time Emma and Eli stepped foot on the beach, I made sure I had reinforcements, taking along both Michael and my mom. They each grabbed a hand and took my babies into the water while I watched from the sidelines, fully clothed. The next year, Mom couldn’t make it, and Michael and I took a day trip to the beach ourselves with the kids. I still couldn’t bring myself to buy a bathing suit, so I watched as Michael tried to handle two toddlers in the surf by himself. He was more than a little annoyed with me, and I was so sad I was missing out on the fun. I knew something had to be done, but I couldn’t imagine being in a swimsuit, weighing more than three hundred pounds. Friends would invite us to their pools, and I always made an excuse. I just couldn’t put myself out there.
Designated Fat Girl Page 14