TxRachel

I used to be an athlete.  Not a great one, but I enjoyed playing sports, and socializing during our extracurricular functions.  In 2001 after I graduated high school, I entered the work force right away and that’s where my trouble started.  I have a sedentary (yet extremely awesome) job and I began stacking on the weight.  This bruised my ego for purely vanity purposes, but I wasn’t truly bothered because I had a boyfriend who loved me for who I was.  I worked hard at getting my life and finances the way I wanted them, and in 2006 I got married (to my elementary school, middle school, high school sweetheart) and became pregnant.  Oddly enough, through this pregnancy, I ended up LOSING weight due to developing gallstones and being unable to keep food down.  But my son was healthy and that’s all that mattered.  After he was born via c-section, and I had surgery to remove the gallstones, the weight REALLY started piling back on; Partially because I was so excited to be able to eat again and keep it down, and partially because I was lazy and stressed out with my new son and family.  Three months after I had my son, I was pregnant again – this time with a baby girl.  Although terrified, we were excited that we now had the perfect family.  Of course, I DID gain weight this time with nothing to keep me from eating.  But again, I had a husband that thought I was beautiful and a wonderful family…Truly, looking back, I couldn’t have been happier. On November 8, 2008, my husband died in his sleep.  It was the night we celebrated my birthday.  We had a wonderful date night, drinks, dinner, a movie, and a great ‘last time’ together.  Three hours later, he was gone.  My son was two weeks away from his second birthday; my daughter was 10 months old.  In short, my world was shattered.  When I got over the initial shock of losing my soul-mate (and yes, I do truly believe in soul-mates), I buckled down and started doing what I had to do to make sure my family survived and to make sure my children didn’t miss out on anything.  In doing so, again I took the lazy way out.  We ate lots of fast food, we watched lots of movies, we ‘celebrated’ the little things…and I ‘celebrated’ my way to an all time high in weight.  That brings us up to present.My children are three and two years old, and I now recognize that I have a chance to renew my health and finish out my life with my beautiful children.  Because I don’t want them to miss anything, I want to be able to keep up with their sports, dance, and horseplay.  I don’t want to ever have to say no because “mommy’s tired”.  My husband would never forgive me for that.  And he would never forgive me if my time with my kids was cut short because of diabetes, heart disease, or some other preventable factor.  Through much prayer and research, I have decided upon Lap Band surgery, which is scheduled for February 24, 2010.  I am very excited about this upcoming date, and view it as a new ‘birthday’ of sorts.  I decided to blog to help keep me accountable and give me an outlet for the rough spots.   I have a chance to begin turning my life around, to be the type of mother I always wanted to be.