How did I get here?

I find myself asking this question often. Sometimes it is in a good way. Most often though, it is a very negative questioning of how I ended up feeling a certain way or (more commonly) looking a certain way. The last time I asked myself this question, it was because I was gaining weight again and I was feeling frustrated. It led me to continue to think about just how I had ended up where I am today. This time it actually led to a very positive insight and I decided that instead of dwelling on the negative that I would let it work for me. Which is how I ended up here, writing this blog. I'm not much of a writer but I will do my best.

So here I am, a wife and stay at home mother, asking, "how did I get here"? I think it all started in 2009, right after I graduated college. I had a master plan, I was going to graduate, get married, go to grad school, pursue a career and then start a family. Well, I took care of step one and step two, one right after the other and I thought everything was going according to plan. Did I forget to mention, I married a Marine? Yeah, the whole you can't control who you fall in love with thing. So I had to alter my plan a little. Now it was, graduate, get married, then move across the country for my husband to finish training. That brought us to Virginia for 8 months. There, I worked in a restaurant as a bartender to pass the time while my husband was in training. I wasn't doing much to take care of myself and eating a lot of restaurant and fast food. I gained about 20 pounds while I was in Virginia and I was very depressed.

During our time in Virginia, I found out I might have a condition called PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome). This made me re-evaluate my plan to wait to have children. If I really had this syndrome, the chances of us having children later in life were going to be slim to none. After a long discussion with my husband, we decided to start trying to have a baby almost immediately. I was doing everything I could to try to get pregnant, except really trying to get healthy. I did a few diets but I didn't stick to them for long. Then we got orders to Hawaii. This was a very stressful and exciting time for us and I was more focused on getting us moved and settled. Once we got to Hawaii we really started actively trying to conceive. After a year of trying, I finally went to a doctor and was able to get pregnant with the help of some meds.

Now we were in Hawaii and finally expecting our first child. I was miserable in my first trimester and was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum. This means that I had very severe morning sickness that lasted all day. I lost 10 pounds in my first trimester. I pretty much laid on my couch and did nothing for the first 18 weeks until it subsided. When I could finally eat food again, I went a little overboard and gained back the weight I had lost pretty quick. My husband deployed to Afghanistan when I was 22 weeks pregnant and I went home to Colorado to give birth. It was a very happy, yet stressful time for me. At the end of my pregnancy I had gained 35 pounds from my original starting weight.

After I had my amazing little boy, I was determined to lose the baby weight  and get back on track. I lost the first 25 pounds within 6 weeks. I was unable to breastfeed my baby which led to a lot of feelings of shame and hopelessness. I was trying to cope with it and decided I would just focus on losing the weight and being there for my little boy. I never really coped with the loss of not being able to bond with my baby the way I had wanted and about 6 months after I had him I could tell something was wrong. I was very depressed and I couldn't even have a conversation about breastfeeding without having a complete emotional breakdown. I started seeing a therapist and he had no idea how to really deal with what I was telling him. He gave me some information to help cope with my depression and I continued to see him for several weeks. He suggested that I write about my feelings and maybe create a blog to help other women who might be going through the same thing. I thought it was a good idea but I was nowhere near ready to confront my feelings on that level. I decided to start taking anti-depressants so I could at least start feeling like myself again.

The drugs did their job and after about 6 months of taking them I was finally starting to feel like I was coming out of my depression. I then found a boot camp class through a friend I had been following on facebook. I decided to sign up after a couple months of thinking about it. I loved this class! We met 3 days a week for 4 weeks. I was finally losing some weight and more importantly I was feeling better. Then the company lost their childcare contracts and I had to stop going. I kept my momentum going though. I got a YMCA membership and went to a lot of their exercise classes. I was feeling great. My husband deployed again and I went into a little bit of depression again but this time it only lasted a couple weeks. 

I started losing some momentum and a friend was starting a Beachbody challenge. She asked if I would be interested and I figured that maybe it was what I needed to keep myself going. I started the challenge and drinking Shakeology and I loved it. The workouts were intense but not so much that I felt like I was going to die while doing them. The Shakeology tasted good and it helped me in a lot of ways. I was doing really well. Then I went to Japan to visit my deployed husband and I forgot to pack my workout. I got off track again and was travelling with a toddler. I did have my Shakeology with me and if it weren't for that I would have gained back the 15 lbs I had lost over the last 6 months. Then I went home to visit my family for Thanksgiving and I got sick immediately and became really depressed again. 

I came back to Hawaii and a week later my husband returned from his deployment. This should have been a happy time for me but I was so anxious and depressed that I felt like I just couldn't get out of the funk I was in. I decided then that I was going back to bootcamp because I needed the positive energy. Then the friend who got me to do the Beachbody challenge asked if I would be interested in coaching. I wasn't sure at first but after I gave it some thought I realized that was what was missing from my life. I have always been the kind of person who wants to help others and I really haven't felt like I've been doing that much lately. Being a wife and mother is wonderful but I was not entirely fulfilled.

 This is why I'm here, writing this now. I want to help others by sharing my knowledge and experiences. I want people to know that they are not alone in their struggles and that there is always someone out there who wants to help. I plan to focus a lot of this blog on healthy lifestyle choices but I also want to talk about some very difficult subjects such as infertility and postpartum depression, which I feel do not get talked about enough.