THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL (dedicated to my son and how he saved my life)

        I have thought so many times about sharing this part of my life with more than the people closest to me. It is the hardest part to share. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy……. But I feel it signifies another moment in my life that has led me to where I am today……… It is not an easy read…so I’m giving everyone fair warning….. As I sit and write it, I still cry over the memory, as I do quite often.

         Just like so many of you, I have dealt with shit in my life. We have been through a lifetime worth of crap in the 13 years we’ve been together. The absolute worst was losing our daughter. I replay that day in my head all the time……..it’s been almost 7 years and not a day goes by that I don’t replay parts, if not all of that day in my head. I was on the cusp of my 6th month of pregnancy and I went into labor and it couldn’t be stopped because my water broke. The tried to save her but her lungs weren’t developed yet. I had to stay in that hospital and give birth to her knowing she wouldn’t be coming out alive. Knowing that usually when people find these times to be super happy, this for us was just the absolute opposite. I remember being so hysterical and the nurse coming in shooting my IV up with some drugs to calm me down…….I became numb ……I couldn’t grasp what was really happening….. When it was time to push I remember the room going perfectly silent and turning the most beautiful shades of this white light. I kept saying to my husband’s cousin to shut the blinds because the light was blinding me…. But she said they were already closed. I remember her being born….the room lighting up beautifully…..complete silence…(there were about 8 people in the room all talking between my family and doctors and nurses, yet there was not one noise for about 15 seconds as she was being delivered…..then all the commotion started again as she was whisked away to be cleaned off. This moment will never leave my mind……the beautiful light…the silence….( about a week later I brought this up to my mother, my sister and my husband’s aunt and cousin who were all in the room during her birth and asked them if they recall anything weird...just to see what they would say ( I thought it was the drugs they gave me)…..HOLY SHIT they all experienced the same thing!!!! It still gives me chills to think about it……. She was perfect like a little doll…we named her Ashleigh Joy…she even had little eyelashes…( I remember thinking, why God? Why did you give her eyelashes before lungs????!!!!!! And how I will still never understand how that all works)..we held her still little body and cried and said our goodbyes. It was the absolute worst day of my life. I don’t think I came out of shock for probably 6 months from that. I spent weeks into months coming home from work and going right to my bed to cry into my pillow…..I walked around in what I would call “fish bowl” syndrome. Where everything is going on around you but you feel like you are stuck in this glass ball, just meandering, to get through each day. All I wanted to know was why? Why us? They say things happen for a reason and in the moment we can’t see the trees through the woods….but there was a purpose to this significant event in our lives. At that time I had no clue what it was. I knew there is nothing that could have changed what happened as well but of course I spent forever blaming myself and anything else I could think of so I could put the blame somewhere…I had to put it somewhere or I would have gone crazy….after all…. How does shit like this happen? Who decides to take life away? Before it’s even really begun? Who decided to cheat Chief and I from being parents and leaving us to grieve in what seemed like the loneliest place one could ever ever be? Who the fuck makes these decisions???!!!!!
As it turned out what I have is a genetic disorder that affects me when I’m pregnant. The blessing that came along with losing Ashleigh is that I was able to find out what was wrong and my sister was able to carry her 2nd pregnancy to full term because of it. (Little did we know when her son was born at 10 weeks premature2 years prior to me losing my daughter, my sister also carries part of this genetic disorder). So losing Ashleigh was not totally in vain. Because we lost her, I now have my two other nephews as well and I have the most beautiful son on the planet. That’s right my faithful readers, I’m talking about Igor. (This isn’t his real name….if you have been following along since the beginning you know I like to make up names for the people in my life!) Anyway back to why I’m writing this particular blog and why I am dedicating it to my favorite little 4 year old……. I know I will never have my daughter back but she is forever on my mind. She comes to me in dreams and leaves my husband, Igor and myself feathers in our path when we least expect them…… I often spend my idle time wondering what would she have been like? I still cry, even 7 years later when I think about her and who she’d be today…… Who would she have looked like? Would she have my eyes, or Chief’s?
         Here’s the part that relates to all the life changes I have been making since the end of January of this year. Forever I blamed myself and buried my sorrow in food and depression. Food- always my comfort in the moment and yet my worst enemy all wrapped up in one. Even though the more I ate, the heavier I got, the more depressed I became. It was just one more hatch I could put on my board of things I couldn’t control in my life. I had absolutely no control over my desire to eat and appetite and ate more than I needed and always felt like crap afterwards….literally and figuratively. The birth of my son was the BEST day of my…or shall I say of OUR lives. After having lost so much…and then finally having him, it was like the world started new again. It took me about 4 years of having him to really put into perspective that I have one shot at this life…..one shot to live it and be healthy and raise a healthy happy child. One day a light switched on in January after talking to my best friend Jacqui and I said to myself I will no longer live the way I’ve been living. I don’t want to be tired anymore..I don’t want to be sluggish…I want to be able to play with my son and not get tired. I don’t want to keep carrying around these extra 100 lbs. I can’t function this way……I’m not living I was surviving….getting out of bed every day was just a chore…I was fucking miserable. I like to refer to the old me as a slug. Both chief and I actually….we were very inactive and ate crappy…. To this day after making the best decision ever with Isagenix….we are both on our way to health. We have both lost over 30 lbs and feel the best we ever have in all our lives. There isn’t one single regret I have about my decision to start this program. It is the best lifestyle change we could have made for ourselves. I even got through Easter with no desire to eat any of the normal crap and candy I would have in the past. I had a completely guilt free day. It was awesome. Every other year I would consider it a “cheat” day and would gorge myself til I felt ill. I didn’t even crave the foods rich foods that were all over the buffet table.….not even anything from Igor’s basket. I literally was happy and completely content eating my veggies and hummus for appetizer and for dinner I ate a piece of veggie lasagna and a big salad and could hardly finish it. I had a small plate of dessert…fresh fruit and a small piece of chocolate cake…. Felt awesome not feeling like shit when I woke up this morning too from overeating yesterday………SINCE I DIDN’T OVEREAT!
        So back to my son…. having my son not only completed our lives ………..he has saved my life. I look at him and know that he’s the reason I’m still here…he’s the reason I’m making such huge changes….My old lifestyle was a recipe for complete disaster……So I plan on sticking around to bug his ass when he’s older… He can push me around Target in my wheelchair just like I pushed his butt around in the carts for so long!