MamaGinger444

Like many others, I've struggled with my weight nearly my entire life. My weight started to increase at a steady pace once I started puberty at the age of eight. By high school, I was miserable with myself, even dieting and taking diet pills without permission or knowledge from my family. I was active, walked to and from school, roughly a mile each way, walking to each class, extracurricular activities that actually kept me active. Right before graduation, I was contacted by a military recruiter asking me if I was interested in military service (I was), however once they asked my weight they had said that I'd have to lose before the process could be started. Even more discouragement within my journey and it seemed like my adult life wasn't going to begin on a good note. On graduation night, I was engaged to be married. Moved to two other states shortly after, married two weeks after I turned 18. A few months later, even more weight was detrimental to my health, this time it wasn't what I was eating or because I wasn't moving. I highly suspect it was the depo shot. I had put on nearly 80 pounds within just a few months. Of course self esteem had decreased even more. Then came along my first pregnancy. I was horribly sick with hyperemesis gravidarum, I was in and out of the hospital to receive fluids and monitor the pregnancy. I lost around 98 pounds in that time of being pregnant. I was officially smaller than I was when I wore my wedding dress. The next 4 pregnancies I would keep losing weight from HG. There has always been some wavering in my weight, the ups and the downs. But the downs were never nearly as much as my first pregnancy. I was roped into trying several of the different multilevel marketing company products that "friends" had pushed, even signed up for a few. There were a few that had assisted in weight loss, but it wouldn't ever really stick or I discontinued the products because of either cost, not much progress or success, or I ended up pregnant and didn't feel comfortable using such products. After we moved to Texas, I had started a job as a night auditor at local hotel. My view of myself started to get sickening, low, disgusting. I felt at one of my worst points. Being a somewhat simple job with very limited moving around, besides walking the property every hour or so. About halfway through my employment there a coworker had mentioned to use the gym at the hotel to workout before or after shift. I took her advice and started working out almost daily (pretty much twice for each shift I would be scheduled to work). I also had started using a self modified version of the keto diet and the trim healthy mama diet along with using Pruvit products. I had been at one of the lowest weights IN YEARS! I was nineteen pounds away from "Onederland". Between stress from the health issues my husband had been having, quitting my job to take care of my husband and just life in general, that was quickly derailed. It doesn't help to stick to a particular way of eating when you start to get jealous of everyone else, especially when they want to eat things that aren't on that particular diet. Went from the hotel job to working at a retail smoke shop where things hardly ever died down, so I continued to stay active, just didn't really work out in a gym anymore, just a lot of walking back and forth and a lot of lifting and other movements, but no dedicated workout time for me because I worked ALL THE TIME, at least it seemed like that, usually only had one day off a week and I was exhausted by that day. Things didn't work out at that job, I went through two more jobs, until I ended up signing up for a gym membership with my husband and our oldest son (everyone else was too young to actually workout), we signed up for sessions with a personal trainer. We decided to go back on a modified keto diet. After driving roughly 45 miles each way to the gym everyday the childcare manager at the location we would workout at asked me if I wanted some extra cash seen as I was there everyday anyway, and offered me a job. So between working in the childcare (where the children NEVER stop moving and we have to basically chase after them and clean the stupid jungle gym setup they have which included climbing up into tubes and nets, oh boy) AND working out nearly everyday (usually didn't go on Sundays), plus the personal trainer, I only managed to lose between 20-30 pounds between May 2019 and January 2020. In January 2020 we had found out that we were pregnant again. I had been moved to a different location and promoted to childcare manager at the end of August and the stress from that job had worried me about losing my baby, which at that point I had decided to resign from my position at the end of February. I had already lost about fifteen pounds from HG during this pregnancy. Then as everyone I'm sure cannot forget, the world was shutdown because of the "pandemic". Twelve days after the world had shutdown, I experienced THE worst day I had ever had in my life. I woke up because I wasn't feeling right, a series of events determined that I was miscarrying my baby. From the stress and loneliness that occurs after miscarriage I had gained thirty to forty pounds between March and September, maybe even a bit more. I didn't care at that point. I was at an all time low. In September we found out that I was pregnant again. This time I kept my mind occupied on crocheting projects after teaching myself to crochet after losing Levi. I was pretty closely monitored this time. However after a routine ultrasound had revealed that we lost this baby (Oliver) from the morning to the evening of the 9th of November I started to spiral even harder than in March.  My doctor was stubborn about allowing me to advocate for myself and basically required me to be a living casket for my baby for much longer than I was even comfortable with, by the time I had convinced my doctor to give me medicine to help assist my body in doing what was necessary, my body finally kicked in to do what it was supposed to a week later. After this, I felt even more alone, I was diagnosed with strep, my husband and one of our children were diagnosed with Covid. By the year end I was once again at my known highest weight, maybe plus or minus a few pounds. I felt absolutely disgusting, I felt like our losses was my fault, I mean if I were "healthy" then why did my babies die? Right? Anyway, guilt riddled my body and I had absolutely no desire to try to maintain health or anything. Through the next year my mental health spiraled into deep deep pitch darkness, isolating myself, becoming more like a machine than a person, leaving very little to desire or even accomplish, leaving others concerned that I wouldn't make it to 2022, honestly I wasn't even sure I would make it to be here now. The beginning of this year (2022), I grabbed my mental health by the horns and continued on a journey to make myself more stable than I have been. I switched to a new primary doctor who also diagnosed me with PCOS and started me on metformin, oh my goodness, no one warned me about the side effects. My stomach already didn't like me from my first pregnancy, I suffer from reflux hardcore, like if I forget even a day of omeprazole magnesium, I feel like my insides are burning inside out. Then add in even more anger from my stomach and some other undesired effects. It was difficult to continue the medicine but I did. The end of May we found out I was pregnant again, but even before I had the chance to go back to the doctor I had lost that baby as well. A few more events happened between then and now, causing me to have a hysterectomy and added another diagnosis of adenomyosis. Thank goodness for doctors who actually listen to you! The amount of pain I didn't realize that I was really in until even during recovery after that surgery. Its sad when recovering from surgery is minimal pain compared to what you had been in nearly everyday before that for years, but you were always told there was nothing abnormal showing, all test results were normal, that you shouldn't be in pain because there's no reason glaring at anyone. Anyways I had changed my primary doctor again, so I was concerned about my recovery because one of the incisions looked differently than they had described it should, so I made an appointment. She ensured that it looked normal during recovery that as long as a few things weren't happening everything was good. Then basically being a new patient consult even though I had been to the clinic before just not that doctor she asked about my history because she didn't have time to look at my file, so I told her all my diagnoses, she asked about different things, then asked the dreaded question by most who are overweight, how much do you weigh and how long has it been like this. To which I answered basically my entire life. So she referred me to a semi-local bariatric center. I attended the mandatory seminar and am scheduled for the surgeon consult this week. I sincerely hope that I get approved by insurance to get surgery before year end. At this current moment, I'm being told that it *should* be covered by insurance, but we'll see as we go along. The only thing I know for sure won't be covered are the dietician visits. I can't wait to actually see more progress than 20-40 pounds. I'm hoping by my birthday in 2023 I will not be in plus size clothing anymore. I'm considering between the sleeve and the bypass procedures, leaning more towards bypass because of my current issue with reflux and I've researched that the sleeve can cause more intense reflux. The only thing that concerns me about the bypass is the possible issue with medications needed. That's my weight journey so far, thanks for stopping by and learning more about me.