My Makeover

 Here is a picture of me from the winter of 2010. A friend of mine had dyed my hair a dark red (a nice change from my natural dirty blonde). We had also gone out shopping to get me some good makeup. Here is the finished product. I felt kind of pretty that day.

This is what I looked like when I met my husband (We will call him B) in November of 2010. I weighed somewhere between 145 and 150 lbs then. We were introduced to each other when a mutual friend of ours noticed that B seemed to be "checking me out."

Let's fast-forward now to June 2011 and look at one of our engagement photos. I weigh about the same here as I did when we met. Don't we look nice?

November 2011. Here I am playing in the leaves. Brandon and I had been married for about 3 months. I weighed 160 lbs. I guess I was still trying to figure out the "cooking for two" thing.

Here I am in April of 2012, about 25 weeks pregnant. I was probably about 175 lbs at this point. One or two weeks later I would be at 180 lbs, meaning that by 30 weeks pregnant I had gained about 20 lbs. According to the charts that was the amount I was supposed to have gained by the end of my pregnancy. I still had 10 weeks to go and I was rapidly gaining weight, how was I supposed to stay at the amount the charts wanted me to gain? I was eating the healthiest I had in my entire life and I was certainly not pigging out all the time. It really bothered me that my weight was not reflecting this.

 

This shot was taken a couple of days before the baby was born. I was 41 weeks pregnant and weighed 204 lbs. If you do the math, that means that I was about 55 lbs heavier than I had been just one year previously. Not a very pleasant thought. It was ok though, I was going to have the baby and soon lose all that weight, right?

Here we are with baby J the day she was born. Notice all the extra weight I am carrying still? Attractive, isn't it?

Baby J was 3 weeks old. I was about 180 lbs and still stuck wearing maternity pants and t-shirts. It had only been three weeks though, I was sure the remaining weight would be gone soon.

Now here we are on Thanksgiving day. I was at about 175 then, and am at about 170 now. I have been stuck at 170 for a couple of months, and those last 20-25 lbs that I would have to lose in order to get to where I was when B and I met and got married do not want to seem to go anywhere right now. I have definitely not been eating too much (if anything I don't eat enough most days), and I have even been making an effort to exercise. That weight is just being stubborn.

Up until very recently I struggled a lot with this new body of mine. I couldn't stand looking at pictures of myself because I thought they just made me look fat. I got really frustrated every time I got dressed to go out, because it seemed like it took forever to actually find some pants and a shirt that actually fit. I looked at old pictures of myself and could only think about how much better I used to look. I cried, because I was uncomfortable with my new body and I was jealous of all those people who are able to just bounce back to how they were before they'd had a baby. I just wished that I could have my old body back, but then I had a change of perspective.

Let me share that change of perspective with you by going through those photos again with new captions.

Here is a picture of me in the winter of 2010. I had decided to dye my hair and start wearing makeup, because I was having trouble believing in myself. I did not feel like I was very pretty, and to confirm that it seemed like no boys were ever interested in me. I hoped that making these changes would help.

About 9 months later I was still not having much success. I realized that perhaps making a physical change was not the complete answer to feeling more confident and accepted. I decided that I would feel better about myself if went out and did something on my own, if I started fresh. I had decided that I was going to go off and be a nanny for a year. I hoped that would make me stronger and more confident. The search for a nanny job was going really well, and I really did begin to believe in myself and realize that I was a very capable person on my own. It was during that period of time that I met B. About a week after we met I felt that God had a different plan for me than to go be a nanny. I didn't know why, but I followed that prompting and decided to continue with my schooling.

Continuing with my schooling meant going home and working during my semester off, and then going back to school in April for a new semester. B and I started dating right before it was time for me to go home, meaning that for most of the first 4 months we dated we were apart. That period was rough, but I grew even more during that time than I ever had before. Now I really did feel like I was worthy and capable of being loved, and I had gained the maturity I needed to be in a serious relationship and soon get married.

The five months that passed between that picture and this next picture were pretty eventful. I had been through an appendectomy, a wedding, being married, starting a new life, going on a honeymoon, lots of traveling, trying to set up a new home, recurring illness, and starting a new semester of busy classes. It was a crazy time. It was so exciting to be living with my best friend and growing in love for each other. It was also a trying time for me, one that really forced me to grow and stand up to new challenges. Did you know that this picture was taken the night that I began to suspect very strongly that I was pregnant? I was excited at the prospect, but I also new that B and I had just taken a huge leap of faith, one that took a lot of guts. I was going through a bit of a hard time and my health did not seem that great. We were poor college students, and had no income at the time. We were still getting used to married life. What were we thinking? We were thinking that God had a plan for us, and we had come to trust him enough that we were letting him take charge.

Now we have the shot of me, 25 weeks pregnant. Once again life was very different. I was very different. Inside of me a baby was growing, a baby girl. How miraculous is that? My body had become the home and growing place of a new life, providing the perfect environment needed for that girl to grow into a beautiful and healthy baby. My body was changing, but it now had an even greater purpose. Should I have been focused on how much weight I was gaining? No. I should have been focusing on the miracle that was taking place. Everything was going smoothly, and that is what really mattered.

Ok, at this point I felt huge, and I was so ready to get that baby out. I had just been through the longest 9 months of my life, and I was going through the longest week of my life. That week between baby J's due date and the day she was born was probably the most trying time I had ever been through. Not only had my belly grown, and not only had my baby grown, but I had grown. A lot. It is a good thing too, because I need that new found strength in order to get through what the next few months would bring.

I may not look very attractive in this next picture, but that does not really matter. Look at what I'm holding: a beautiful baby girl. That big, bloated, puffy body had not only completed it's job of getting the baby ready for the world, but it had managed to give birth to that baby. Wow, that is one amazing body.

It was great to get the baby out and not be pregnant anymore, but now there were new challenges. Right now my body had to focusing on healing after what it had just been through. All of the little energy that I had was going towards caring for a baby who was a lot harder to take care of than she had been before she was born. That still healing body had to hold her, feed her, change her diapers, and comfort her as she adjusted to a harsh new world. That body still meant everything to her, and she thought it was just great. To her it made absolutely no difference how big my belly, hips, and thighs were.

Life since baby J was born has not been easy. She has struggled with a lot of things so far in her short life: jaundice, reflux, and difficulty getting enough to eat. To get an idea of what the first few months raising her were like, see my previous post. I am happy to say that she is doing much better now. Her reflux has become much more manageable, and she does not spend half the day crying anymore. She is also getting plenty to eat, and now weighs over 14 lbs. She is growing and developing just as she should. I am doing much better now too. Each day brings new challenges, but all of these experiences have brought me the strength and confidence to face whatever comes my way. I am happy. I have a loving husband and a beautiful, healthy daughter. I am a new and improved person, so I guess I just needed a new and improved body to go along with that. I may not look as good as I did a couple of years ago, but I would never want to go back to who I was. I am moving forward, and I am going to care for my amazing body- not for the purpose of losing weight, but because it is amazing and deserves to be cared for. It does not matter what it looks like, as long as I am using it to do great things. That is what really matters.

If you recall from the beginning of this post, B was introduced to me because our mutual friend thought he had seen B "checking me out." I once asked B if he really was checking me out that day. He said he was not, and I believe him. Even with my cute hair and makeup I was not enough to grab his attention. On Sunday we were running a little late getting ready for church. After getting out of the shower I had thrown on a skirt and shirt, and quickly brushed and blow dried my hair. That was all I had time for: no makeup or cute hair. On the way to church he was having a hard time driving, because he was having trouble keeping his eyes off of me. He just could not get over how beautiful I was. I think I like my new makeover. :)