Did you know the maker’s of Dove, the people who try to make young girls feel good about their body, are also the makers of Axe Body Spray, the one where guys love super skinny models? I always find that interesting. I can’t blame them too much though, it’s the marketing that sells sometimes and not the product.
Anyway, when we got pregnant, I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn’t scared. Most of me knew Stunning would be responsible while Junior was inside her belly. I’m not going to lie and say there wasn’t a small part of me worried. However, the bigger worry is what will happen after the pregnancy. She’ll have put on weight and she’ll want to lose the weight.
Diets are not allowed in our house. It’s the same with a recovering alcoholic and not having booze in the house. Diets feed the addiction and diets can make the addiction come back with a vengeance. I would also be lying if I said I wasn’t scared for the weight loss afterward. There are differences now. I know the signs and more specifically I know the signs specific to my wife. Others know about it, so her ability to hide it is not as easy. Finally, she knows about it and she knows when the thoughts aren’t healthy.
She’s an amazing woman. She’ll be an amazing mother. There’s nothing more amazing than seeing the love of your life fight off something and being victorious. It’s been an amazing journey. Coming out of it, I know I can’t love my wife anymore than I do now.
Her Words:
There’s not really a nice little bow to sum up this week’s posts. I left treatment in May because I moved to Texas. I had reached a healthy weight but I had only been constant in that weight for a couple months. I moved down here and knew that I would have times where I was triggered to return to my old habits but I also knew that I had all the tools I needed to overcome it. I would keep our home scale-free and would rely on healthy eating and healthy exercise and continue working on listening to John’s truth about my body rather than believing what I saw in the mirror. I had no idea that a test of my recovery would come so soon. There’s nothing more trying for a recovering anorexic than to get pregnant (especially unplanned). I had finally accepted my body for what it was and then BOOM! time to pack on the pounds and there is nothing you can do about it. I have gained alot of weight this pregnancy—probably a mix between really “letting myself go” and focusing more on the baby’s health than my own weight. I’m not eating junk food every day but I have allowed myself to do things that were always so hard for me: eat fruit, drink juice, have milk. I would be lying to you if I told you that I wasn’t terrified of the post-baby body. I am confident that I am strong enough to lose the weight in a healthy way but I am also being realistic that Ed has a pretty easy in back into my life. I always knew that I could never be on a diet again and yet here I am already thinking about how I’ll lose the weight. I stare at my “skinny jeans” and get honestly angry at the possibility of me not fitting into them again. I guess the difference now is that I’m telling people about it—I refuse to go through this alone because going through it alone the first time is what got me in the pickle I was in. John knows how I feel and he knows the signs to look for.
I started reading this book last week and it’s been pretty insightful. It’s written by two women who have struggled with eating disorders and how those experiences relate to pregnancy. Nevertheless, I think it has some good insights for any women dealing with body image issues that come with pregnancy. 
So I guess I don’t know how to wrap up these posts. I don’t know how I’ll handle the post-pregnancy body. I don’t know if I’ll ever fit back into my old wardrobe. All I know is that I’m hoping that, despite the fact that I was best friends with Ed for so long, my sweet little boy’s face will tell me that I am so very good enough—flabby tummy, stretch marks and all.
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