2010, I was 43kg and extremely underweight. I thought I looked great and other days I thought I was fat. To be completely honest with you all – I hardly ate anything, I smoked, took drugs nearly every weekend by this point, sometimes even a few times a week. I drank more than my fair share of coffee and smoked well over enough to fuel a family of 4 smokers. I was not healthy and when I look back at old photos of me, I looked sick, anorexic almost and bones aren’t attractive.

before drugs

on drugs

September 2010 I fell pregnant to Setesh – This was probably the biggest turning point in my life, my partner and I were excited and shocked at the same time. Through that pregnancy, I assume my body would have freaked out because shot straight up to 83kg. Going from 43kg to 83kg – For people who use pounds that is 94.79 pounds to 182.98 – In 10 months, that was a huge jump and a massive shock to me.

I have always been thin – too thin 5 ft 2” in height and always have been 50kg or below, my mother had to buy me children’s pants once and send them interstate to me while I was living in Ballarat. I had nearly every item of clothing from primary school, and I wore them up until I started gaining weight in my pregnancy.

Come Labour Day I landed myself an emergency C-section and was placed under a general anaesthetic. I woke up in my ward – I was confused, I didn’t really know what had just happened, my child and partner were nowhere to be seen and I had a huge wound in my lower abdomen that I never wanted. 4 hours later and I met my son for the first time; the relief on my partners face that I was ok was heart-warming.

after op

I was bed ridden for 2 days before took those first extremely hard steps and the next 3 days were some of the hardest. I could not do anything, I couldn’t even change a nappy without shaking and my partner did everything. I even had the nurses express food from me for my partner to feed our baby. I never really did realise how much has done for me.

When we took the baby home, I was in pain in more ways than one – my wound and my heart. I felt disfigured from my unwanted surgery – even though so many other women out there have gone through the exact same – I felt like the only one, and that it had left me with an ugly body – I felt fat!

You can be big and beautiful they say, and I don’t doubt that, but there is a difference between being beautiful and feeling beautiful – I did not feel beautiful, at all!

christmas 2011

I think this lack of confidence in myself and my looks caused one of the problems I had in my relationship – when you feel ugly and disfigured, and you are with someone who you think is the most attractive man I the world, you can develop a small or large jealousy issue – depending on what type of person you are. Now I have to admit, I can get pretty jealous when it comes to Jordan, but I think it would have been at its worse the year after the C-section. Especially when we moved to his home town to live for a while, I mean what are you supposed to feel when your extremely attractive partner knows so many extremely attractive women – who mind you a lot of them stopped talking to him because they because angry at him for getting into a relationship with me.

In 2011 about 8-9 months after, I was just regaining my confidence back, losing weight a little (slowly) and coming to terms with my surgery, we found out we would be having another baby. I told my mum straight away – haha Skype’d her “guess what” and showed her the test to be exact. Everyone was excited – I was too.

One thing I thought about so much through this recent pregnancy was my weight. My stomach still looked dis-figured, I didn’t have that desirable baby bump – it looked for like a baby triangle to me. I remember a friend pointing it out, that’s when I noticed it and then of course I dwelled on it. I managed to lose 6 kgs in the pregnancy, and then slowly put it back on while baby grew.

It was a healthy pregnancy, this time afterwards; I don’t feel cheated or disfigured. I feel healthy, I may not be the happiest person, but I can accept myself most days, and I know I can change it.

37 weeks

It has been 11 days since Atlas was born and I have lost 9kgs, while I understand it is quite common to just drop around 10-12 kgs straight after. The sudden drop in weight has given me the confidence to keep going, keep losing weight. If not for me then I will do it for my family.

66 kgs

It has taken me about 3 days to actually complete this particular post. Editing things out and adding things instead. I didn’t want to delve into some things I will clear things up about one thing – My relationship with Jordan is better than ever right now.

In the time of writing this Mittens actually wrote a great post about her health – http://mittenskittens.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/yeah-i-photographed-my-lunch/

Upon finishing her post she asked the question:

“What is your favourite healthy meal or snack? Or what makes you feel really great?”

My answer is a bowl of veggies. Plain ole boring veggies