Eden

I’m Eden. These photos hardly tell my story, but here they are.

6 weeks pregnant with my first, suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum. (Please include the link to the hyperemesis site. It could help a lot of pregnant women reading your site.)

I actually lost weight in my first trimester from the amount of vomiting I did. But I went on to have a healthy pregnancy when my condition finally ceased at 17 weeks.

Here I am at 36 weeks.

One of the stretchmarkless ones. I do have faint ones on my breasts and hips. I’m so white you can barely see them though, kind of faint and silvery. I gained 36 LB during this pregnancy and it took about a year to get back to “normal”. I accepted those last 5-10lb as my own. I received a lot more flattering attention with that weight ON, strangely. I guess the womanly form is appreciated in the real world, if not in magazines.

I had another child 2 years and 2 months later. My 2nd pregnancy also included weight loss from obscene amounts of vomiting, job loss and the inability to even care for myself. I also was diagnosed with hyper-thyroid. Great, right? Lose weight while doing nothing? Not so… It never went away, and even after I gave birth it persisted. It was nice to be back to my pre-pregnancy size within 2 weeks of not trying to lose weight. However, I was losing my hair and sanity with the weight. A goiter was forming in my neck and it would get ignored for months until it was a little too big for me to pretend it wasn’t there anymore.

I finally got treatment that would kill the goiter and render my thyroid completely useless. I will be on medicine for it for the rest of my life. I will always have normal levels of hormones on paper, but will never feel normal again. I will always struggle to control my weight. Sometimes I still having a hard time not comparing myself as I am now, to the girl I was before or even in between my children.

I firmly believe it was the hyperemisis that created the conditions that would foster my thyroid problems. Other women have also reported similar stories to mine. Whether or not you suffered from hyperemisis too, please have your thyroid levels checked. It’s as simple as asking your doctor. And it’s incredibly important directly to your mothering, as it affects your ability to bear children in the future, your mood and mental wellbeing.

Here I am 8 years post-partum from my 1st, 6 years post-partum my 2nd.

My sons are worth it. I may never be who I was before, but as I get older I genuinely feel that’s not such a bad thing afterall. Thanks for reading!