luvey
Hello everyone!
My name is Jen. I am 44 years old and the proud mother of a 20 year old son and a 1 1/2 year old daughter. Yep, you read it right - my children are 19 years apart in age!
My BMI is 60
I have been overweight for most of my life. I did lose 100 pounds in a 6 month period when I was in college. I also ended up having my gallbladder removed at that time. The doctor told me it was because I lost the weight so rapidly. I was able to keep that 100 pounds off for 3-4 years. Once I was married and got pregnant with my son, the weight came back on almost as quickly as I had lost it. I gained 98 pound with my first pregnancy. I was able to take about 40 of it off only to regain that and more.
I have fibromyalgia, degenerative disc disease, and chiari malformation which causes me much pain. I have been on pain meds for a long time and have a sedentary life style. That accompanied with poor food choices enabled me to gain even more weight.
During the winter of 2006 I was feeling even worse than normal and kept going to visit my doctor, telling her I felt like I was dying. I also kept mentioning that I had missed my period. She wasn't concerned about me being pregnant because several years ago I had a uterine ablation. Getting pregnant after that procedure is extremely rare. My doc also told me "You are over 40 and overweight - that is why you are not having your period."
A few more months went by and I my pmd that I felt like I had an elephant sitting on my chest. She ordered a nuclear med cardiac stress test. I asked her to run a pregnancy test just for the heck of it, and sure enough it came back positive! I was 5 months pregnant.
I had a very difficult pregnancy. I gained 105 pounds on my already overweight body. I developed gestational diabetes and preeclampsia. I spent 35 days in the hospital and my beautiful daughter Lily Rose was born in August, 2006 - 7 weeks early - emergency c-section. She spent 2 weeks in NICU but she is perfectly healthy. 8-) I had a post op complications and ended up back in the hospital as my c-section became infected and had to be reopened.
I was able to lose 50 pounds of my pregnancy weight. I think it was mainly because I was so sick with my post op infection and a lot of it was water weight. I have since gained back 30 pounds of that and have not been able to lose it.
My father died at the age of 48 of a heart attack. My mother died of a stroke when she was 68 years old. I decided that I need to do something drastic so that I do not suffer the same fate. I want to be around to see my beautiful little girl grow up.
