Growing a human being from scratch is a unique experience. It becomes even more unique for those of us who have been through an eating disorder. No matter what stage of illness or recovery you are in, there are individual nutritional, physiological, and psychological challenges that you will experience that all the well-meaning ‘practical’ pregnancy books and blogs in the world will not be able to help you with, or that other pregnant women could ever understand.
Currently I’m 6 months into my pregnancy and have been living these mini-battles and celebrations like a rollercoaster ride that still has 4 months to go (because yes, pregnancy is actually 10 months or 40 weeks, not 9 months!) . As the weeks go on and my body changes, the challenges get bigger but so too do the rewards – feeling your little person doing kung-foo fighting in your belly is one of the coolest feelings on the planet, and something I’ve come to focus on when everything else is becoming overwhelming.
I am hoping that like all things in life, it will get easier with time and experience – I want to have 3 children in the long-term scheme of things so I have to find a way to cope with everything during pregnancy in order to be OK with going back into the battle field! Easily the hardest part from an ED perspective has been the nausea, vomiting and constant hunger, which I’ve discussed in previous posts. But wait – there’s more – oh so many more things that may blindside you along the way on this journey of life creation….
Keep calm and stress less…hiking in Milford Sound, NZ
Getting “weighed in” at the doctor’s office
Everyone is different with their recovery but I know a lot of you do not know your weight once you start down the recovery journey, and I am the same. I have had to find out maybe 5 times over the years I’ve been in recovery (they weigh you in before and after an Ironman to check for dehydration post-race, and also before surgery for the anaesthetist ie before my foot surgery). It doesn’t get less traumatic with time and distance from Ana. I just think it’s one of those things that despite your newfound health, identity and logical reasoning, it just tips you over the edge every time. The good news is that most other things get exponentially easier with time – like eating out and getting dressed in the mornings, but in my experience that number on the scale seems to be like a ticking time bomb.
Which brings us to the Obstetricians office where I get weighed and my blood pressure checked each and every time I see her. I even get competitive about the blood pressure reading – because I know how low mine is when I’m “race-fit” and I love that sense of numbers reflecting my health. See – it’s an issue! So I had to do the hard strategy that you learn soon enough into your recovery – to ask not to know the weight as you take that monumental step onto the scales. Which feels ridiculous when you are a grown woman, and a health professional at that, and look to be a healthy weight. You instantly feel the judgement of the weigher cloud the room (imagined or otherwise) and then usually end up blurting out something about having an eating disorder in the past and then by that point you just want to shrink into the palm of your own hand and disappear.
But here’s the thing. As horrible as that moment seems to you, I guarantee you the doctor or nurse weighing you is not judging you like you think they are. They, of all people, understand eating disorders and even if they don’t, this moment is just one of thousands during their very busy day and they won’t think twice about it after you leave the room. And they will never turn around and tell you the weight despite your request; they are more professional than that.
You, on the other hand, need protection. So it’s a matter of having that conversation to not know the weight, or finding out and then winding up in a spiral of destruction for the next few days/weeks/months……Five minutes of awkwardness vs a month of self-criticism? I’ll take the five minutes, thanks. And THAT conversation does get a little easier, even if the weight thing never does.
Knowing how Much Weight to Gain….and not freaking out about it.
Here’s the thing. This becomes a two-pronged issue as soon as you get pregnant: The things you can control, and the things you can’t. A lot of us have come from a lifetime of rigid eating and exercise patterns, even through to recovery, and control is a big issue for us – indeed often the initial cause for triggering an eating disorder.
So firstly, the part you can control during pregnancy is what you eat, how you exercise, and your stress levels. None of these things will affect the actual growth of your baby much – babies develop even in horrific environments at times and most come out around the same weight and health status – however these factors do greatly affect you, and how you feel during pregnancy. Your health and happiness, shall we say. So work with your dietician or read up on optimal pregnancy nutrition and where you can, try to eat well and adequately so that you as well as your baby can thrive and hopefully enjoy the experience.
The part that you cannot control is how your body grows. Where you carry your belly (high/low/front/spread etc), how big your boobs get, how much morning sickness you get, how much weight you gain, and where you gain it. If you are eating well, exercising sensibly and keeping stress under control, the rest is up to your body. You will likely gain between 9-15kg and it won’t necessarily be in a nice steady increment – sometimes the baby (and you) will grow a lot in a month, other times not so much. This has been a challenge for me, sometimes it feels like I’m watching an alien take over my body. But it has helped extraordinarily knowing that hey, I am doing everything that is within my control to be healthy, so the rest is up to Mother Nature. It’s important to note also that very little of that total amount is fat gain – most of it is baby, water weight, placenta, breast tissue and the like. I have found it helpful to look up the average breakdown of weight gain with respect to these things to keep the feelings of “fatness” in perspective!
And a final word….don’t buy into all the online bullshit popping up with “All Belly Pregnancies” and the like which seem to promote gaining absolutely the minimal weight and getting back to pre-pregnancy weight within 2.5 seconds of giving birth. It’s unrealistic and a ticking time bomb for eating disorder sufferers….it’s best to just not go there!
Coping with comments from the world at large and worse….people touching you
So apparently once you fall pregnant, everyone in the world becomes an expert in pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. They want you to know how knowledgeable they are, which they express by shoving it down your throat with a good dose of judgement on the size of your bump (and sometimes boobs and butt…) and possibly a feel of your belly. Yup, not joking. I will preface this with the fact that I have always hated people touching my stomach, even my husband doesn’t go there when I’m lean and fit and sporting a washboard down there. So to say that I feel self-conscious about the ever-growing beach ball in my mid-section, and people launching their hands at it when you least expect it is an understatement! And as for the birthing and breastfeeding horror stories, well everyone seems to have gone through World War III giving birth to their brood, wearing their drama like a badge of honour. Makes you wonder how humans did it for all those centuries without the intervention of medical specialists and fancy hospitals, right? Right….
We are just animals after all, and we must remember that pregnancy and childbirth are one of the most normal, natural things that females can go through. The baby knows what it’s doing; the body knows what it’s doing…..you and your overactive, impressionable brain are just along for the ride. And you can make that ride calm and magical, embracing what nature does best, or you can listen to the horror stories and spend 10 months stressing about what will or probably won’t go wrong during childbirth. The way I see it is that we are blessed to have the fancy hospitals and specialists available on the small chance that something does go wrong. But I’ll be happy to go through the experience knowing that my body knows what it’s doing, even if it’s new to my mind….and that it’s a great day if I don’t have to see my Obstetrician during the birth because it means that all is well (midwives, on the other hand – the more the merrier!).
As for the comments on size…the only consensus I have on this is that 100% of the time, the people telling me “gee you’re huge!” or my personal favourite “wow you’re really looking pregnant now” are not….well….pictures of health. They are the ones who are a little on the tubby side and clearly insecure about their own weight. My friends who I train with or who are healthy weight tell me how awesome I’m looking. It all comes down to the common denominator once pointed out to me by a very smart psychologist: people talk about themselves. So when someone is bitching about so-and-so’s choices in life or commenting on your weight, just smile and think to yourself “wow you must have an insecurity about that within yourself”. Think about it. It can be a very informative experience! And maybe next time you catch yourself about to say something judgemental about another….stop and think – is this my issue or theirs?
Much more to come on the intricacies of growing a baby within one’s post-ED body, but for now this baby-mumma needs to get to work.
Happy training,
K xo
anatoathlete 