All my life I have been somewhat active. As a teenager I would go to the gym just about everyday and work out and loved to do Tae Bo. After the birth of my first daughter it took me about 2 years to get back to being close to my pre-pregnancy weight. I was with in about 10 lbs and I was happy with being 130. Then I had some things happen that really changed my life.
My oldest daughter Joclyn has been around horses her entire life. My husband’s mother has a farm and she rides all the time. His mother had taken my daughter to a horse show one day and I came a little later in the day because at the time I was going back to school. For some reason I all of a sudden got very light headed and dizzy and felt that I was going to pass out. I had never had this happen before and I was scared and concerned. Well, I went to see my mom at her work asap. My mom has been a Registered Nurse for over 30 years now. She immediately took my blood pressure with one of the electric ones and if you have ever had one of those on you will know what I am talking about. The cuff inflated about 3 times to try and get a reading. When it did, it was not good…..160/110. My mom could not believe it. I went to the ob, because at the time I had the birth control patch on and that was also when all the problems with them were going on. She concluded that it was not due to the patch that it was something else entirely, but now that I had high blood pressure I had to keep the patch off. So, the next step was my Dr. He did a few test, put me on medication and cracked it up to I just have high blood pressure. Just a few short months before that my pressure was 110/60 and had been around there my whole life. My mother being who she is was not satisfied in the least, “there has to be something going on to make it that high you are only 22, you should not have this.” After seeing all sorts of doctors and getting frustrated with everything I gained about 40lbs. In this whole time I stopped getting my period. The general consensus of all the doctors was I just had high blood pressure and they didn't seem concerned with me not having a period, until I went to see a different OB Dr. She ran a few test and concluded that with all my symptoms that I had poly cystic ovarian syndrome(PCOS). Their was no actual proof in the tests that I did have this, but she put me on Metformin anyway. I started to get periods again so things seemed like they were looking up, but my BP was still high if I didn't take my BP meds.
In January 2007 Jeremy and I decided that we should get married, so we planned for the following October. My mom and I went and picked out my dress within a week of or decision. A few weeks later I found out I was pregnant with our 2nd and due in September. So our wedding was going to have to wait till the following year.
My first pregnancy went pretty good, other than the fact that I went into preterm labor between 34 and 35 weeks, but they were able to stop the contractions and I delivered Joc at 38 weeks. With my 2nd I already had high blood pressure so they were closely monitoring me, and to top that off I developed gestational diabetes. I became severely depressed and was soon on medication with that. Very early on I had terrible back pain and at times my legs would just give out on me, my daughter was laying on my sciatic nerve. Sleep….well, I didn’t even know what it was. I was able to take some Tylenol pm, but it worked the opposite on me. When I went in for my 41 week check up my heart rate as well as the babies was racing like crazy. At this point I was praying like crazy that she would just come out. The whole time I was pregnant we all thought that she was gonna come early, but that didn’t happen. So the Dr sent me to the OB unit and decided that they were going to induce me the next day. Now I have always been an advocate for a natural birth like my first it happened so fast they didn’t even have time to put in an IV. With the way everything was going I didn’t care what they did at this point I just wanted her out. They induced me the next day and I was doing good till the contractions really hit. Before this my Dr asked me if I would like an epidural and I said no that I was doing good. I also have a very high pain tolerance. Let me just say that after a few hard contractions I was asking for meds! Now if you have ever had ALL BACK labor than you know what I am talking about. It was a little to late for me to get an epidural so they gave me some pain meds and it helped for about 15 minutes or so. Well, when it was all said and done we had a beautiful baby girl Isabella.
After that the wedding was on! We planned for August 8, 2009. I needed to get back into my wedding dress asap! During this time I also went to a new family Dr and when I say new I mean fresh out of school. She decided to run some blood work and we found that I had hypothyroidism. This was an answer to a lot of issues that I was having…hair falling out, depression, extremely dry skin(no lotion would work), my period was all over the place(due to high blood pressure I couldn’t take any birth control), unable to loose weight, and of course high blood pressure for almost 4 years. Now that I have been on medication my blood pressure has pretty much gone down significantly and I feel somewhat better, although I am still having a hard time getting the weight off.I borrowed a friends P90X DVD's and I worked out about 2 times a day and took about 20 lbs off in 4 months, just enough that I could fit into my dress. After the wedding I splurged on everything and have since put back on about 40 lbs. I have almost given up all hope of seeing myself at 120 lbs again, but now that I have discovered Mamavation it has given me a new found hope to my struggle!
