Loss

Some things you lose and you just about drive yourself crazy looking for them. Others you just decide to let go and replace with out a second thought and some things are such a secret pleasure to lose that you have no intention of replacing it any time soon if not ever…

February 2007 has been a time of great loss for me, but only in all very positive ways. So many things are now gone from my life that it is almost impossible to count them. None of this was planned or expected… Just one little thing tipped the balance and set of a catalyst of chain reactions that have spread through out virtually every area of my life. I feel good, I feel empowered, and I feel in control, alive and thankful, very very thankful.

On the outside my loss may not strike anyone as that great, but the significance it has for me is so huge, it might have been the biggest white elephant I have ever faced in my personal life… Let me take you back to the beginning of summer of 2002 where I first encountered the elephant…

Blue was traveling Sunday morning through Friday night for work. My job as a nanny for my favorite family ever, was starting to wind down as the twins prepared for kindergarten. Most of my friends were still hunkered down with their boyfriends and husbands along with most of the country as the wounds 9-11 left were still very raw. Support, understanding, and compassion for the 90% travel job Blue recently took or the lonely, isolated life it led us to was no where to be found. For Blue/Us it was an opportunity and we seized it, but no one in our circle of friends could comprehend how I could put him on that plane each week… how he could kiss me good bye again and again. My friends were not warm hearted and they did not envelope me during the loneliest time of my life and there certainly was no support for whatever… Once again in my life, my self esteem took a harsh beating. The children I cared for were a source of joy that I could not express. I was very close to this family, they were wonderful to me, and really helped pull me through those months.

As the time drew near to move on, Blue and I considered starting a family of our own. In retrospect, maybe the timing was not right, but in real life, how often do all those stars line up perfectly? Knowing something might be wrong, I set up an appointment with a top notch infertility specialist in Orlando. Blue took a day off for that first appointment and before we knew it, we had fallen into a rabbit hole where we were poked, prodded, and tested for things we didn’t know existed. Because of Blue’s travel, I always went alone and I will admit there were days that were very hard… Half way through the testing, the doctor cornered me on my weight.

I am only 4’11, very small boned and very petite. As I had been for years, I was eating very healthy… lots of lean protein, organic fruits and vegetables, and whole grained carbs. Atkins and South Beach were in full swing, but even back then to me, it was a no brainer that a body needed complex carbs and good fats. In addition to eating healthy, I enjoyed running on the treadmill 3 times a week, I weight trained for 2 and I squeezed Pilates in whenever I had the time. Back then, my family doctor told me that I was the poster child for health and one of his healthier patients. However, my infertility doc did not see the same thing… He saw lots of lean muscle and hardly enough body fat to support my self or a baby. During one of our sessions, he lectured me so aggressively, that I cried in my car afterwards. It took me a while to pull myself together to drive home… Not all our tests were in, but he made me feel as if my weight was the reason I could not give my husband a child… Young, naive, alone, and insecure at this point, I took it… My family doc and obgyn highly disagreed, but at this point I think I would have sold my soul to the devil himself if it would have gotten me pregnant.

Of course I wanted to be healthy and wanted my baby to be healthy, so I tried to gain the weight with whole foods and organics… 2 cups of brown rice instead of 1 with my dinner… just one example of many… Yet 2 months later… nothing… I had only gained 3 pounds. Although I thought it not possible, the specialist made me feel even more like a failure… surely I was doing something wrong… Unable to chew my way through more then 2 bowls of Kashi cereal in the morning, I decided to pare down my fitness routine… calm it down to just a few relaxing walks during the week, Still, my next appointment showed a weight gain of only 3 more pounds. At this point the specialist threatened to refuse to work with me if I did not gain 9 pounds immediately. So, in the only way I knew how, I did… I no longer shopped Wholefoods… my shopping cart was too busy parked on the baking isle in Publix. I learned very quickly how helpful those sweets and processed foods are when you need comfort and need to gain weight… Not so shocking… I gained those 9 pounds in a record amount of time. Bloated and feeling icky, I waddled my way alone… into my big appointment with the specialist for our final results. Blue was not able to get off work for the appt…

With no compassion whatsoever, the specialist diagnosed me with unexplained infertility, handed me a slew of pamphlets about expensive procedures that probably would not be effective in my “case” and sent me off on my merry way. “Oh, and no, it seems the weight was not a factor after all…,” he said to me as he closed the door of his office… To say the least, I walked away devastated…

My life certainly wasn’t a charmed one and this was not the first blow, it was just the most devastating… I cried and mourned the child and family that should have been so natural for Blue and I to have. My friends had no idea what to say, so they avoided me. Blue just as crushed as I was, pulled into his own shell alone on the road. My family did their best to support me and be helpful. But, by the end of the week, before I even got to talk to Blue face to face, my family doctor had me on Prozac.

That summer of 2002 to the spring of 2006 was one big antidepressant haze for me… It made me numb, made me not care, and although I tried not to, I walked through my own life like a zombie. I easily gained 5 more pounds… I suppose I will never know if it was depression or if it was a combination of the meds and the new unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle I had adopted. Perhaps it was all of the above. Still, once I was weaned of those meds, this past spring, I began to feel alive again… and almost immediately. It was like I had been wakened from a deep sleep reenergized and renewed. So many things began to change on the inside for me… all of the positive all of them empowering. Yet, by Christmas, I was still carrying that old weight like a familiar piece of baggage… I’ll admit, it didn’t look horrible, but it was very symbolic, had become something I hid behind like a mask, and it was time to let it go.

So my New Year started with a blur of baby steps… little choices to help me find my way back to a healthier lifestyle and the person that had been hiding within herself for far to long. I will be honest, I struggled… Those bad foods had become a way of life, an addiction, and letting them go was hard both emotionally and physically. The exercise felt good, but I will admit have not been as diligent as I should have. Still, I lost 5 pounds and it did feel a little bit better. But then, I had that very bad toothache, a bad reaction to an antibiotic and lived on pureed soups, veggies, and soft bread for a week. I didn’t expect to lose 4 pounds so quickly this month, but I did… When I finally got my appetite back, I pushed myself to dive back into the way that I used to eat… Lots of fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean proteins, good fats, and very little sweets or processed foods. So, I am now continuing to lose weight and the foods I am eating make me feel so good both inside and out.

Yes, I may have set off to lose this weight, but I never in a million years thought I would be able to do it so quickly. I am glad that it is lost and I have no intention of replacing it… In many ways I just feel as if I shed a costume that I had been wearing and hiding behind. It was heavy and it dragged me down physically, but even more so emotionally because of all it stood for...

But now I am at the halfway point… I have lost half of all that I gained and weigh less right now then I did when I moved from Orlando… weigh less then I have for over 4 years. The scale and more so my clothes are showing me things I wondered if I would ever see again… But the icing on the cake is that I feel lithe, not as clumsy… and I am not bumping into things with my hips… something I never did before the weigh. I feel lithe, I feel graceful, I feel at home in my own body, and very alive. A change on the outside, but the biggest change is within.

I am a little more then 4 years older now much more relaxed and far more realistic with my expectations for myself. I am happy where I am now and I foresee losing 5 more pounds as I use my extra energy to become more physically fit. But I have no intention of pushing my body back to where it was in my mid 20’s. Even where I am now is fine… it feels so good; it must be a good place to be.

Blue and I have long ago come to terms with my unexplained infertility. I will not lie, sometimes it will creep up on us, but for the most part, we are as in love as the day we got married and our life together has been far more incredible then either of us may have ever hoped for. At one point we may adopt, but for now, we are still very much young, in love, and enjoying our life together… especially the new lease we have had on it since this past spring. If that is all we have I will be thankful, because it is far more them most ever get to experience. I just can not express in words you how good it feels to be where I am right now, where we are right now… But I am just so excited that I had to try.