green

Bitch sounds like a good word for your husband's ex-wife. This kind of bad behaviour is always hardest on the kids.

Wheets, it sure is nice to see your face again! Alexandra and laurend have been MIA for awhile but now they are back, too.

I find the actions of the oilfield foreman's ex-wife and her attorney lover to be ethically and morally heinous. I cannot imagine anyone being this malicious and this greedy but, alas, so many people are. I would like to see legislation in place which would allow the individual who is on the hook for paying alimony to apply for a reduction or a total stop to this obligation once the financial situation of the former partner has changed. (It would be amusing, sez Green sarcastically, to see that lawyer stand up in court and claim that he does nothing to support his current live-in lover and that the foreman must continue to pay.) Money issues between former couples so often do become ugly. I used to work with a woman at the aircraft factory whose ex-husband was a dentist and very wealthy. They had 2 children and he was required to pay child support, only child support! She herself didn't want a dime of his money. Every month he was late and every month she had to go through the courts to get the money. These constant fights wore the woman out.

Good luck to you, Janet.

I am an old fart who started with a lower BMI. It has taken me approximately 10 months to get to my target weight. I was banded last September. The weight loss has been slow but steady and I think that a loss of this nature is healthiest for the body as it allows the body time to adjust. My advice to you would be not to obsess on the scales too much. You will also be experiencing Non Scale Victories - NSVs - and these are wonderful! These include going down a clothes size or two, getting compliments...... From all that I have heard, band surgeons seem to expect that the weight loss process post-banding will take place over the following two years. In my opinion your 30 lb weight loss is a very good start on getting to your ideal weight. :clap2: Don't be discouraged that it has taken you longer than you would wish, be happy that you have started with a lower BMI and thus have a shorter road to go.

It would be fun to meet you all, that is for sure.

It is possible that you may already be aware of this fact but in the USSR it was easier for women to have abortions than to practice birth control. Condoms and the other paraphenalia required were simply not easily available in that land of chronic shortages.

The 5 year old brat will likely end up a drug addicted has-been with a reputation in the business as being impossible to work with by the time he is 15. :eek: We will all be reading about him in the Enquirer. :heh: (Psst! What's his name? LOL)

Thanks for telling me this info about Sanger. Racism and eugenics, a tool which was once viewed as being applicable to this end, are evil.

Although I am pro-choice I am also repelled by those individuals who repeatedly use abortion as a birth control method. I am a rather tidy and organized individual by temperament and thus I find it almost impossible to relate to those women who persist in getting themselves into the same difficulties, whether it be getting themselves lumbered with unwanted pregnancies or tied up with abusive men or whatever, over and over again. I am one of those individuals who tries to make a point of learning from her own disasters and I do have a tendency to be harsh towards those women who are unable to get their lives under control. Nicer and more generous women have called me up on my judgemental attitude towards these individuals, individuals whom I see as being just plain careless. Perhaps these kind women are right and I am wrong. Certainly I find it easy to imagine a girl or a woman hard up against it by virtue of one unwanted pregnancy but I do find this business of repeated unwanted pregnancies to be a messed up state of affairs, whether the woman chooses to carry them to term and then drop the babies off for adoption or have them aborted.

If you get them reduced people will be able to tell you what colour your eyes are. heh heh Good luck on your decision.

kariz, I had my lapband surgery last September. My problem was/is portion control. I love to pig out and then I always feel like a piece of sh!! afterwards. The band has changed this. I now have a healthy BMI - 23.9 - and I can wear a size 12P pant which is down from a size 18W. The band really is a wonderful tool for limiting your food intake but you must do your share of the work by paying attention to the types of food that you do eat. I am trying to stick to fresh vegies and meats, eggs, and tuna, etc. I am trying to avoid carbs and fats which are my two favourite food groups! :think The way the band works is that it doesn't allow you to eat anywhere near as much food and that helps people like us; eating the right foods and taking small bites and chew, chew, chewing is all part of the technique of working with the lapband. You will get it, I am sure, but you need the band. This is the hardware which physically stops you from pigging out and from feeling hungry in that old pre-band way. I still find it weird to leave food on my plate.... My husband was kind of weirded out when I told him that I had arranged for the lapband operation but he is a very nice and tolerant man and he is used to me doing things which he finds weird. He always puts up with my stunts and he is astonished by the amount of weight I have lost since I got banded.

Once again, I must express to you, L8, how very much I very moved I was upon reading your account of your first pregnancy. I am also moved by your story, BJean. It seems to me that we are all women who grew up in the same era, one which was transitional with respect to attitudes towards women. We started out living our junior lives in the Eisenhauer '50s, a time when women were expected to live entirely different lives from men. By the age of 20 I was already at university, had lost my virginity, had a regular boyfriend (subsequently my husband), and I was on the pill. I was very careful about birth control because I knew that I never, ever wanted to have a child but I have a hunch that an abortion was still difficult to obtain in Canada at that time. I suspect that at the time I figured that I would arrange to have an abortion in one of the European countries where it was legal should the Pill fail. This is a solution which is available only to those grrls who can afford it, of course. Even should abortion be recriminalized, grrls who can afford safe abortions will always be able to get them. When you remove the right to choose you are removing this option only from those who are strapped for cash. It might be argued that this would be legislation which penalizes the working class and the lower middle class as well as the poor. The rest of us will skip around it if we feel that an abortion is the only way we can go on with our lives. @ BJean: when Green was first married the two magazines to which the young couple had subscriptions were Ms. Magazine and Model Rail Roader. :eek:

Ah Mark, it is always such a pleasure to read your comments on these questions. You invariably say what I am still trying to sort out and you do so in such a coherent and elegant manner. Thanks, kid.

I wasn't counting at the time but I think it might have been around 14.........? 14ish or so, I'd guess.

Midnight shift is when the body really screams for carbs. I have gone through this myself. I think what your body really wants is energy. Why not have some tuna and hard-boiled eggs available to snack on. Energy from protein lasts longer than the quick fix from carbs which are really only complex sugars, I believe. There are tins of tuna which come with pop top lids - you don't need a can-opener. Eggs are rich in the vitamin Bs. And the advice to have to fresh fruit and raw vegies around is good advice.

I went through menopause when I was 41 and I was banded last September at the age of 57. I was around 200 lbs when I was banded and I now weigh 147 lbs and have a BMI of 23.9. If your weight problem is due to portion control then the band is a fabulous weight loss tool.

I have a friend who is my age who had enormous ta-tas. She has just had them reduced and feels like a new woman. No more back and shoulder pain. She was also tired of the grooves her bra straps made in her shoulders.

Good luck to you, AndreeR, and to the rest of you newbies.

Well, I went to the lapband lunch at Kelsey's yesterday and it sure was a lot of fun. :biggrin1: It is really great to meet fellow lapbandsters in the real world. I want to thank the folks who arranged this get-together and Lisa In TO who very kindly helped me out by giving me a lift. :clap2::clap2::clap2::clap2::clap2: A very big thanks from Green. :ranger:

If your problem is portion control then the band will work well for you. I don't know how to advise you with regard to your husband's attitude. Perhaps you could explain that you have been dieting and exercising for a very, very long time now and it has gotten you to your current weight, a weight which you are very unhappy with. Tell him that if diet and exercise were the answer then there would be no large people. Nobody enjoys being overweight in this looks-obsessed society. Obesity is also a medical issue and the band is a medical technique which is designed to combat obesity. Maybe telling him this stuff will help, maybe you have already told him. Good luck, grrl.

Icecream is nice cream and that is a problem..........

@BJean: Thanks, kid. Green feels the same about you, grrl.

Oh, that you would have to be a un-believer to gain access to the right to choose? Oh, fer sure. I was just being a fool, eh. But it is true that there are a number of folks like myself, folks who simply do not believe in any religion whatsoever and who thus cannot understand these arguments based on religious texts. In most European countries our numbers are sufficiently significant that our disbelief is mainstream, if not the norm, and certainly the country I live in is much more secular. It is for this reason that in many industrialised nations the expectation that a scriptual text inform governmental policies is viewed as kind of odd. Now, I am aware that what I have already said is offensive to many of my friends here on LBT and so I will plunge on and say that to many folks who live outside the U.S. the only difference between the current engagement of Islam in third world politics and the advancement Christian agenda in American politics is one of degree.

Thanks for sharing this story with us, L8.