Scared about pregnancy

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Okay, every day of my pregnancy I was deep down scared about the weight. It never goes away, but it wouldn't go away even without a pregnancy! It's a fear all of us deal with because we're worried we'll fail again, only this time, with 15% of a stomach.

I'm three years out.

I reached goal in 17 months. I maintained for several months and got pregnant ten days before my 2 year anniversary. I gained 32 pounds while pregnant; 3 pounds on the dang hormone shots I had to take to get pregnant. (We did FET, frozen embryo transfer with frozen embies left over from our IVF in 2007.) How you gain is up to your body. I gained much less than I gained with my previous pregnancies prior to sleeve (97 pounds for a single, 80+ for twins) but I think that we gain a "normal" amount of weight in most cases so expecting anywhere from 25-45 is probably reasonable. It could also be more. Some women just gain more while pregnant! The only folks I've seen gain almost nothing were still in their early months post sleeve when they got pregnant.

My daughter will be 5 months old in a week. I lost the huge bulk of my baby weight before a month postpartum. As before, when closing in on goal initially, my last fifteen pounds have been slow coming off. That's perfectly normal and not something I attribute to pregnancy at all, though I admit that the lifestyle we have post baby makes it challenging to lose weight (namely, wacky hormones and sleep deprivation, which slow our loss further) but I say IT IS POSSIBLE.

Losing weight, while doubly frustrating because I feel I'm losing pounds I've already lost, is just as "easy" as it was for me before my baby. I make good choices, I watch my intake, I try to stay active and I lose (albeit slowly!) and most importantly, I still have just as much restriction as before. I can eat one single hard boiled egg or a few ounces of dense Protein in a sitting. My sleeve is no larger than it was in 2011 and so the only way to not lose weight would be to not try and to fail to be diligent about my habits.

So I'm a success story. I have 7-8 pounds left and while I might wish they'd fall off tomorrow, I know that if I'm patient and keep plugging away they'll come off eventually. I've been back in my pre-pregnancy clothes for months, though, regardless of those few pounds.

~Cheri