So here we are. March. My baby is now 22 weeks old, five months last Sunday. So why can’t I lose this stupid baby weight?
I know I shouldn’t be so vain. I know it shouldn’t bother me so damn much. But it does. I worked REALLY hard when I was in college to lose over 70 lbs. Extremely hard. But it just doesn’t seem to be as easy this time. Maybe because I’ve been told I can’t “diet” since I am breastfeeding. I’m eating healthy and exercising every day (exercising more than I did when I lost that weight in college, it seems) but still the scale won’t budge. I’ve lost 25 of the pounds I put on when pregnant. However, I had a baby that was close to 9 lbs. I’ve got about 25 more to go before I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight.
Sure, that doesn’t sound like a lot…but it gets worse. BEFORE I got pregnant, I gained 15-20 lbs (approximately) so in reality, I need to lose close to 50 lbs. I try not to think of the numbers–but it so hard when your clothes don’t fit. I finally made the decision to stop wearing maternity clothes. It is just so easy to forget about how much weight you need to lose when everything is stretchy. I bought a few pairs of pants and shirts, and feel like a failure because I’m right back at that size I didn’t want to be and I did everything in my power to get out of–a small part of me feels some vindication because I am not as large as I was in my early 20s–and I know that I didn’t gain the weight because I sat around and let myself go or something, but it is still here, all the same. I try not to let it get to me…but, it does. I don’t feel comfortable in my body right now, and I don’t like that feeling. I want to be healthy and happy for my daughter and myself.
Speaking of my cute little girl–she is such a sweet girl. She is eating solids–started her first veggie this week (sweet potatoes) which she loves! She’s getting better about sleeping. We are trying to wean her from more than one nighttime feeding, and that seems to be going well. It’s not so much about getting her to sleep, it’s keeping her there. But, I’m a bit more rigid with her eating/sleeping schedule in the daytime, so she’ll get there.
She wants to talk so badly she doesn’t know what to do with herself. She is babbling a lot, blowing raspberries and making the mouth movements to talk. She watches us very closely when we talk, and tries to copy what we do with our mouths. It’s funny.
My sweet husband brought me flowers yesterday. It really made my day. I love him more and more every day. I don’t think I even realized how much I loved him until I saw him with his daughter. He is just such an awesome dad. I sometimes think I’m not such a great mom. I worry about everything. I want to do everything perfectly. But…there is no “perfect”. My mom told me something that I think really sums it up: “You do what you think is right at the time…you may go back later in life and realize you should have done it differently, but at the time, it was right.” You can’t have regrets that way. As long as everything you do is out of love for your child, you can’t be wrong.