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Fear Of Getting Fat During Pregnancy
18 years old and there it was that positive I wasn’t expecting.I had always been good at school, one of the ones that sit quietly in class doing their work and not drawing any attention to themselves. Needless to say no one knew the thoughts that ran through my head about myself and my image. I was 5ft 8 and just hitting 7 and half stone. I was a runner for the school and didn’t have an ounce of fat on me but that wasn’t how I saw myself.
My relationship with food was not a good one, I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch and when it came to having dinner at home I found it easiest to try and cook for everyone so that I could sort my own helping out, which was never huge, but I did always eat dinner, couldn’t deal with the questions if I didn’t and I thought with the training I did for running it was ok anyway because I would run it off.
But then I met my partner and everything changed. I started to skip school, by this time I was in sixth form and the school never really said anything because it had been my choice to stay on at school anyway. We would spend days just in bed and he started to try and feed me up because he said he always felt like he was going to snap me. It was the loved up stage too so I more or less lived on his every word, I did start to eat more, for him.
But I also upped my exercise and I worked more shifts at my job, it helped that he worked at the same place so I didn’t see him any less. Needless to say, with seeing him, doing more exercise and working more my grades went downhill and didn’t get the grades I wanted to go to Uni.
Then the day came when I got the big fat positive on the pregnancy test, my partner who is 4 years older than me was over the moon. The first thing that came into my head, ‘I’m going to get fat’. I didn’t know what to do. I pretended to be happy because it was so nice seeing how happy he was and his family were over the moon.
My family on the other hand had seen a different future for me, I am the one in the family with the brains and they thought I was going to go far. They soon changed their minds when they saw the scan photo. But to me it was still something that was going to make me fat.
As I got further on and things started to sink in, I started to get attached, yes it was going to make me fat but there was something growing inside of me, a life. Everyone around me were so excited and I couldn’t help getting infected by that excitement, all the time the thought of what I was going to look like niggling at me in the back of my head. I took the decision that I had to just go along with it, I was going to be a mother and if I had to give up my figure for a little bit then that is what I will have to do.
I was doing ok, I was well, I had kept exercising and was still doing quite a few shifts at work so was only putting baby weight on. But then I started my maternity and that’s where it must have gone downhill because 3 weeks after the birth of our beautiful little girl was my aunties wedding, I went to find something to wear and what I got was a size 16. I was devastated. I had no idea where all the weight had come from. I was used to being an 8.
I broke down, my partner kept telling me its ok, and it just shows that I thought more about looking after the baby then what I looked like. This didn’t help how I was feeling. I started to diet again but I really didn’t want to go back to my old ways. I had put on nearly 5 stone, it made me sick what I had let myself become. I started to lose the weight, slowly, I was sensible but could never get down to less than a size 12 all the time thinking, if I just not eat for a bit it’ll help.
It is now 6 years on from having my little girl and although I’m not nearly as bad I do still struggle from time to time. I have realised in these years that it wasn’t just how I felt about myself that made me not eat, it was eating in front of other people, and I hate doing it. If I go to other people’s houses to visit, I don’t usually eat anything still but I’m getting better.
I’m also pregnant again, and although getting that positive result scared the crap out of me again this baby was planned and I knew I would have to just deal with the bump. I now only have 6 weeks to go and I want them to just disappear. I’m starting again to only go out of the house if I really have to as I feel huge.
Everyone is telling me I am all baby but in my head, I’m a fat heifer. And if one more person tells me ‘you’re coming on well’ I will scream. I hate feeling like this about myself but as each day go by and one more item of clothing becomes too small I just what to cry. 6 more weeks, 6 more weeks. Is all I keep telling myself.
This inspirational post was written anonymously by a mom who is a member of my Facebook mums group. I have full permission to share her story. If you can relate to this post and would like to share your own anonymous post please contact me.
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