Diary of a Fat Chick

Yes, this post is exactly what you think it is. This is me bellyaching about weight! And believe me, after the last decade I've got quite the belly going! :D

As of this exact moment in time I am 225 pounds, which is 10 pounds off from my heaviest (235).

And I just can't do it anymore.

                                                    Freshman Year  --------  Junior Year

Once upon a time I was in high school. And while I don't ever think I will be as small as I was back then, I hope that with enough diet and exercise I can get close. Until the middle of my junior year I only weighed 110 pounds. And then for my senior year I packed on a few. I think by time college rolled around I was about 130, which is perfect for my height (and is my "healthy weight" according to BMI). In the 3 years that followed I gained about 30 pounds. When I got married in 2004 I was sitting at about 160-170. And then.... the 3 years of my marriage happened. This is not the post to belly ache about what happened there and how not right for each other we were and we were just trying to make it work... but yeah. I gained about to where I am now in that time. Like.... 50 pounds in those 3 years.

                                                 Christmas 2011 ----------- Easter 2011

In the meantime my weight has fluctuated greatly. In late 2007/early 2008 when I moved back in with my parents I got back down to 190 (mostly because I was so depressed I was starving myself and eating like... popcorn and string cheese). And then I moved to Pierre, and then I had a baby. And now I'm at where I'm at.

And I need to do this for me, internets. I need to do it for my family. Skinny Jenny is in there somewhere and I just have to find her!

This is the first post of what I am sure will be many through this year chronicling my weight loss and my journey to be a better me.

It will start with me going to the YMCA on my breaks from work (where I am the assistant director of a daycare) and working out. That will start in February and I will report in in the middle and end of the month so we can see how that is going.

Stand with me, friends and random people reading my blog! Cause it's about to get real all up in here!

My "real"

One of the funniest gals that I know, Brandi, was talking about "being real" on her blog. And that is something that really hit me deeply. There are many people that I know in real life and over the web that do not really know the "real" me. There are very very very few who really truly do.

This was the hardest post that I've ever had to write, but I think that it is also the most therapeutic thing that I have done for myself in a long time.



My real...

I thought I fell in love at age 14 and stayed with that guy for the next 9 years because I was convinced that he was "The One". I completely messed up my relationship with my parents and with my friends and other family for years because I wanted to be with him. We eloped when I was 20 and got sealed in the temple 2 years later. People at church knew he was kind of odd, but what they didn't know was that at home he was constantly trying to find ways to kill himself. He lit himself on fire, he tried to induce hypothermia. When he finally got help he tried to OD on his pills while drinking bleach. I was getting horribly depressed but tried to hide it because we had a happy eternal marriage, right?

In 2007 I had been married for 3 years and gained about 50 lbs. I was a wreck though I tried to hide it for a long time. I spent a lot of time on the computer at home trying to find something that made me happy. I blew off a lot of friends, or potential ones that I could have made, because I was afraid of what they would think of me and my problems. During the course of my marriage I was extremely emotionally and verbally abused. It reached a point that there was even some spousal rape involved.

I was too ashamed to tell anyone until 2 years later.

I felt completely unwanted by my husband who would have been content to come home, go on the computer for 5 hours, and then go to bed. The only time he ever acknowledged me was when he wanted sex, food, or the rare occasion that we were out in public.

In the middle of 2007 I fell in love with my best friend.

He was not my husband.

I told my husband that I wanted a divorce and he refused. We went to couple's counseling because there was obviously something wrong with me and it needed fixing. After only a dozen sessions with no effort on his end the counselor told me that the next time he told me to leave (To go see my best friend) that I should. And I did. And things got physical between us. My husband and I split in November 2007 and I spent the next almost 3 years with divorce proceedings. We didn't even want anything from each other at that point, but it was still hard for me.

He later told me that he never believed in the LDS church and he did it all for me and it was all a lie. I felt like the last 10 years of my life were wasted and useless. I felt like an idiot and I hated myself more than I ever had in my life. I'd lie if I'd said that I never thought about ending it. It started in the name of love and ended with me feeling unwanted and rejected.

I moved back home with my parents. They couldn't understand why I did not want to go to church anymore.

I nearly staved myself after I moved back home. There would be days all I ate was one single packet of string cheese. I hated that I let myself get so fat and while there was a guy that now wanted me, I still felt completely disgusting.

I hated that I wasn't pretty like all the other LDS girls I'd grown up with.

I hate that I can justify to myself cheating on my husband. Things like, "It was already over, you told him you wanted out, it was only a piece of paper at that point, there was no love or commitment on his end (long story)" But I was even more afraid that people would hate me if they found out why I left. Why we were getting divorced.

I'm still not out of the woods with my self loathing. Even over leaving my ex; even though I now realize that he was never going to love me back the way I loved him. I just hate myself for feeling like I failed in a marriage that was doomed from the start. I was, and am, scared that I would lose the friendships (however casual they may be) because of how they saw me in those 3 years, versus what was actually happening.

Behold Blogger, I have returned!

Well, needless to say that it's been a very long time since I've been able to have the time to sit down and write an actual blog post. At first today I was really thinking about... now what could I talk about, I mean really? There's not too much going on in my life aside from the baby and gaming. But oh wait... that was the title of my blog, right?



So, Mr Darion is doing very well. He is 6 months old now and is getting bigger and cuter every day. He can sit up on his own now, can push most of his tummy off the ground, and is getting this first tooth! There is no joy to describe how being a mother feels like. Everyday that he achieves something there is just this swell of pride that can't ever be diminished by anyone else. He is my little man and I love him.

My big man is doing well as well. Next month it will have been 2 years since I moved here to South Dakota. And while I'm still not all that thrilled with being here I do love our little family. There are times when I wonder what like would have been like had I not moved here, but those thoughts are quickly tossed aside at the thought of my little guy. Everything has been so worth it. We're currently running a Dungeons and Dragons type campaign with a Pathfinder setting. So far it's been fun and perhaps I'll get a chance to blog more about that later. We're also playing Final Fantasy 13. I say "we" because he plays and I watch. I'd love to play but most the time I am with Darion taking care of him or something. So I just watch cause mostly I just love games' storylines.

Work has been excellent and I recently got a promotion to the assistant director of the daycare. I also am driving all of the children that are 5 and older to all their summer recreation activities. So it should prove to be a VERY busy summer. I love my job and all of the kids so it's really the perfect place for me. I do however, plan on going to school to finish my degree so that I can be a teacher. What can I say? I just love kids!

Not too much else to write though, so just a quite update on my life and now I still TRY so hard to actually update this with relevant thoughts and opinions on things now that I am in the mood (and have the time) to start posting again! :D

Darion John Schweigert

Well needless to say there should have been much more updating going on here. However with moving in to a new place and being extremely pregnant it was hard to find time to do anything in the past month or two it seems like.

Jake and I successfully moved into a nice little 2 bedroom house that we are renting. We have our room and then the baby's room. It's nice cause we can keep all his stuff in there(and believe me there is A LOT of stuff). We are also using his closets for storage space. Haha. Poor little guy. Which brings me to the story of a lifetime for me!

On November 20th at 4:39pm CST Darion John Schweigert was born via C-section at St Mary's Healthcare center in Pierre, SD. Our wonderful unplanned little bundle of joy finally decided to show himself after hours of induced labor. After I did not progress past 3cm dialation and after being on pitocin for nearly a whole day (21 hours) they finally decided to get him out of there.

We went in on November 14th because of bad back pain. I was afraid I was in labor since I'd heard so much about bad back pain with the first child. The pain was in short stabs and so I was sure that I was having bad contractions. This of course started when we were 3/4ths of the way through the movie 2012 in theaters. We finished the movie and then went home where I was in pain for another 2 hours. We then decided to call into the hospital and go in. It turns out it wasn't labor or even really contractions. My kidneys were very upset with something that I ate. We assume it was the greasy popcorn and Diet Coke. So I vowed not to have any more until this kiddo was out of me.

November 17th was my last prenatal appointment. I was still 1-2cm dilated and so my doctor told me that she'd like to induce labor since they were afraid that he was getting too big because of my gestational diabetes. We agreed that that would be fine and so we made an appointment for the next morning to be in the hospital by 5am to start on the drugs and everything that hopefully would have brought my child into the world. We were up early and ready to go on the 18th getting to the hospital on time, finishing all the pesky paperwork, and getting me all hooked up to the machines that they needed me on. They started the Pitocin at about 10am. For those that do not know Pitocin is something that the body produces naturally but the artificial stuff they pump into you more or less just helps your labor along and gives the body signals it's time to get the baby out. Or... it's supposed to anyways. So after 14 hours there and not much to show in the way of dilation they sent me home. Not going to lie... I was really bummed out. I thought I was finally going to be able to hold my little guy that night. They set me up so that I could come in to do this all again the next day (Nov 19th). This time though they were going to start me on low doses of something that was going to get my cervix more effaced at about 8pm and then on the 20th we were going to see how I was doing. Poor Jake was with me through the whole 14 hours. He slept a lot on the lame "couch" that was in my room and we watched A LOT of Family Guy. Haha.

I stayed the night there alone after they had given me an Ambien to help me sleep. Jake went home to get a good night's rest to be ready for the next day. At about 4am on November 20th they started my Pitocin again in my IV. At 7am my doctor broke my water hoping that it would help along labor if it was broken and my body would kick start itself past 3cm. After after 10 hours of laboring after my water was broke (probably like... 5 of them being the WORST pain I have EVER felt in my life) they decided to go ahead and do a c-section to get him out of there. They gave me a Demerol shot and from there things are a little fuzzy for me since pain meds make me completely drunk-like. I do remember things, but I had absolutely no concept of time at all while that drug was in my system. It was about an hour or two before they got me down to surgery. To me it felt like minutes. Jake said that I was slurring my words a lot and that I was just generally out of it. Haha.

I remember them shooting the intrathecal into my spine. I remember laying down on the table and Jake being there. We got some pics of this and I don't remember him holding my hand through the whole surgery but apparently he did. He was a very good sport and took a lot of pics for me. And finally I remember my baby crying for the first time. I remember Jake smiling at me and giving me a kiss. We were parents and while it was scary there was a love and a happiness there that can't even be measured to anything that I've ever felt before. We had our little boy. I was so scared that I was going to drop him when they laid him on my chest because my arms were slightly numb and tingly (I really couldn't feel ANYTHING from like my chest down). Jake later described to me how it looked while they were pulling him out and stuff like that but I'm not going to gross anyone out with that. I also have pics of that. :p

I gave him his first Mommy's kiss and then Jake followed as they took Darion out of the room. They sewed me back up and had me head out to recovery. They wheeled me out and I got to go past him in the nursery and I held my hand up to the glass where he had his hand out as well. To me it seemed like minutes but again it was a few hours. They loaded me into my bed in my room and I had all of Jake's family there with me (Mom, Dad, Stepmom, Grandma, and Grandpa), which was nice. It took a while before they brought him into the room to be with me but I have never been so in love with anything in my entire life. I loved just holding him and just hugging him and Jake close to me. I love my Schweigert men. I love my little family. And of course. I cried.

Seeing as this post is monstrous enough as it is I can chronicle the rest of the hospital visit later. I just figured that since most of the details were all fresh in my mind that I needed to get them out there!

California Trip

So now that I got a rather long and serious blog post out of the way I thought I'd follow it up with a nice fun and (hopefully) shortish post!

On September 5th 2009 Jake, the baby (of course!), and I went out on a trip to my hometown of Manteca, CA. This was a needed trip for many reasons. Mostly because I wanted to see my folks again. Once or twice a year simply isn't enough but sadly will probably have to suffice while I am still living in the middle of nowhere. Secondly, we handed my puppy (re:6 year old 70lb Samoyed) Mochi, to my parents for a few months. She loooooves people and we're pretty sure she could lick the baby to death on a whim. Having her around also is somewhat of a hassle so it's VERY nice that they offered to take her for a little bit while we adjust to being parents. And lastly, Jake had to get the best friends' stamp of approval.

But the best part?

OMG SUSHI.

Well... not really. All I had was California Rolls cause that's about all I CAN have right now but it was still beyond delicious to taste them again. I will never take them for granted again if I live somewhere where I can get to them with relative ease.

We had a baby shower for little Schweigert baby while we were there. And by shower I mean like 15 of us went to a sushi bar, I got present stuff, and then we went back to Jess and Dev's and watched Big Bang Theory. All and all it was really wonderful. Aside from Fanime it was one of the only times that I've really seen everyone get together like that. We need to do it more often and always when I get back into town. :p Everyone really seemed to like Jake and they were actually brutally honest about how much they liked him. After the Mike fiasco I made them all swear that they HAD to tell me if something didn't feel right about all future boys. They kept their reservations about the first boything I had and I think they are more overprotective now. And even with that Jake still passed the test!

It was also nice just taking a break from everything. My work (daycare) is pretty much having me up and moving around all the time. I get tired really easily nowdays and I found, especially after I got back, that it takes a lot out of me. It was nice to sit back and relax and watch a bunch of movies, or go to the movies, even... shopping. And I HATE shopping. But I guess when Dad and Jake talked they pretty much hit the nail on the head. I hate shopping for myself, but when it's for other people, the baby in this case, I go nuts with it. I love giving things to people so that I can see the happiness on their face and know that they will think of me a little bit every time they use what I gave them.

Now that we are back home though Jake and I are on the home stretch to this baby getting here. At the moment we are looking for a new place, looking for a "new" used car :p, and just trying to both mentally and emotionally preparing ourselves for the baby. Our first prenatal class was on Thursday and we have those every week now. It should be nice and informative and the teacher is a chiropractor which is nice cause I really have been having bad back problems. We were oddly enough the youngest in the class at 25. This showed when they passed around the diagram of how dilated I will be when I need to start pushing (10cm incase no one knows) and we had to try SO HARD not to giggle. We're so mature. Hahaha.

Over all, just loving life. I've been doing a lot more art lately and I'm really excited for our new addition to be here. Not only cause am I going to love it to death but I am also really excited about getting back into shape and getting a gym membership after the bebe. I want to get back down to like 150-160ish cause I look SUPER HOT in that weight range.

Mostly though I just want to have this baby in my arms! I want to know if it's a boy or a girl!! ><