Stages of me, Part 2. (the hardest)

So really this is the part I have been dreading. I am totally honest now. I wasn't then. I hid as much as possible. I realize now, my size was no secret. I knew leaping off the cliff of quitting smoking forever meant my metabolism might never recover. After I lost my first pregnancy, I couldn't tell myself it wasn't my fault for being so unhealthy. (I stopped my caffeine over dosage and cigarettes when I found out but it was probably too late.) I quickly gained 40lbs after stopping and then I got pregnant with Miles. My life changed, it wasn't about me anymore. It was awesome and devastating at the same time to watch what I knew of my youth disappear and what looks I had left. Miles made me into a mother and I got my famous tunnel vision and I shut my self off and out. Finally I felt worth something. Its a great feeling and its really easy to just quit on everything else. You can rationalize giving up for a higher purpose and the guilt price you pay for "me time" is enough to make anyone feel bad.  I stopped looking in the mirror, at a point I stopped dressing myself in the morning I just wore my pajamas all day. I had enough momma joy to close out the rest of myself really I still was happy or so I thought. Our first made us so deliriously happy we decided to try for a second when he was 13months old. Yahtzee! We didn't have any trouble conceiving Jude, before we could even think about pros and cons. They were 23months apart. I know I was really heavy when I became preggers with Jude, although I had no real idea how much until my first appointment, because I never weighed myself, it hurt too much. Trust me the truth sucks. I started my pregnancy at my first appointment at 219. I now hate the scale at the doctors, but at the time the sweetest person ever weighed me and supported me at those appointments, it made it sort of bearable because outside my close family and friends she was my only friend.( we still facebook don't we Carrie?). I would be there a lot too, I had made myself high risk being so big. I spent the last 2 months of my pregnancy feeling enormous laying on my left side as much as possible and taking care of a soon to be 2 year old. As I lay there, I thought, I will never lay around like this as long as I live again. I still though somehow when he was out if I just tried to do a little better it would come off eventually, I had no idea what life would have in store. 

I didn't want this in the paper, this was hard for me. Enclosed 2 pictures of me fully pregnant the first with miles, second with Jude(bigger, biggest ever at 298), and after the rock bottom picture. This last picture is the one I dread everyone seeing. It made me the saddest. It was true, all of my clothes rode up when I sat, I was so depressed. If I didn't have those 2 angelic little faces to look at and not myself, I don't think I would have ever gotten out of bed.

Raining in Baltimore, Counting Crows