Being Pregnant and Anorexic

Happy Sunday everyone! It's crazy to think that you guys have literally read my children's life stories I hope they can look back on all of these one day and be like "wow mom was awesome!" or you know, something cool like that. Besides supporting our kids you guys have also supported Jason and I, I don't think we would be where we are now without you. So, as an award for being awesome people who always support us I'm letting you inside our lives a little more. Today I want to talk about the hardest part of being pregnant for me, gaining weight. You may need a little back story here, when I was a teenager I was diagnosed with Gastroparesis- a disease where your digestive system is partially paralyzed. This disease forced me to focus on numbers on the scale more than I should have. I credit it for being the reason I developed an eating disorder. My mom will fight tooth and nail that I don't have one, but the eating disorder clinic says otherwise. By the time I was 16, I was fully focusing on the numbers. If I was under 100 pounds I would binge eat, the moment I got to 100 pounds however I would force myself to vomit and it would be a vicious cycle. This really hasn't changed much six years later, the only difference is until finding out I was pregnant I avoided scales all together. When I got pregnant they needed a starting weight because they were aware I was anorexic, I was 97 pounds. 97 pounds at 22, they sat me down and told me I had to gain weight for a healthy pregnancy-obviously. Even though I am well aware I have to gain weight for this pregnancy, I still find myself freaking out when my stomach grows. It sucks when people point out how tiny I am for being pregnant, it's like a stomach punch because despite trying I know I'm failing. I know that no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to just gain weight. It will always be a battle. I don't even know how to explain the struggle I'm facing right now and I hope you guys don't judge me for any of this. My main hope is that someone reading this has gone through a similar experience and can maybe offer some kind of support, because the worst kind of battle is the battle you have to fight alone.