Kyriakonie’s Weblog

Losing baby weight is not my idea of a fun time. My pregnancy was not what someone would call an “enjoyable experience”. Plenty of other women might, but I suffered. I was already at my heaviest at 175. I was overweight in the military. I was going through depression and ate my heart out. Then I found out I was pregnant. I was happy but sad at the same time, because I knew gaining more weight was going to be devastating to my body. I was right. I Had stretch marks on my belly by my 3rd month. It sucked.

During the first 3 months I gained about 15lbs or so. Then the real weight started to add on. 40lb mark, then the 54lbs mark, then the 75lbs mark, and finally a whopping 93lbs!!!!! Yes I gained that much weight. I knew something was wrong after I hit 50lbs. Something was really wrong, I was gaining so much weight, and the amount of food I was putting in my body wasn’t amounting to the weight. I kept bringing up the issue with the doctors, with each of them saying “you’re fine”. I wasn’t fine!!! I was in tears, I was in pain!

Around 6 months of pregnancy I swelled to a balloon. Yes a little bit of swelling is acceptable. This was NOT acceptable. I knew my body was in for a really tough ride. Here are some pictures to show how badly I was swelling:

MY HANDS

How far I could bend my fingers (Uh I couldn’t touch my palms)

MY LEGS & FEET

As you can see from these horrific pictures, I was stretched so tight, bending actually any part of my body was a real task. It hurt to walk, it hurt to lay, it just HURT! These pictures were around when I was 8 months pregnant.

My blood pressure was going up up up, and the doctors never said anything because it was still at an acceptable rate. Well I tried to explain to them that I have really really low blood pressure compared to other people, and that it was really high for me. They paid no attention. I cried, I pleaded, I begged, everything but get violent (naturally since I couldn’t make a fist). 

Then to make things worse, on Dec 1st, I developed Bells Palsy. It is also a horrific experience. The whole left side of my face was paralyzed. No more blinking, smiling, eyebrow raising, tasting, nostril flaring on my entire left side. To top it off, it gave excruciating pain in my left ear that felt like the most horrible ear ache you could ever encounter. To make that pain worse, was that it wasn’t an ear ache and there was absolutely nothing they could do for the pain! The best way to explain the pain, is that I felt in the back of my jaw on my left side and it bolted to the far back side of my ear. Bolt after bolt. Pulse after Pulse. The only explanation I recieved was that the Bells Palsy was setting off my pain receptors in that area. So of course you can’t do anything for the nerves. If they could, they could have cured my Bells Palsy. Which by the way I am still recovering 5 months later. I still can’t blink that eye. Here is a tear-jerking picture of my horror:

AH! (oh did I mention my face swelled up too?)

FINALLY a break through at the doctor, after months of increasing blood pressure, they diagnosed me with Gestational Hypertension. Then 2 days later they diagnosed me with Preeclampsia- a deadly disease. Luckily the united states has better prenatal care than other countries. In other countries where they do not, preeclampsia is a very deadly disease.

They put me on bed rest. Didn’t really do anything because I was already on bed rest (I couldn’t move, so I was forced to lay in bed as it was!) I really thought to myself “Finally, now they can help me feel better” boy was I wrong. They still had the crappy attitude that “Oh it goes with the territory”. Yes, it may, but don’t act like it’s an ” I told you so ” type of ordeal. Nobody told me so. It was if my pain was something to sneer at, something that wasn’t worth helping me with until they finally had an actual “diagnosis”. It made me sick!

I was begging for them to induce me. I thought I was going to die. They wanted to wait, I was 36 weeks along. I gained 30lbs in those past 3 weeks, 10lbs in each week of pure water weight. Finally,on exactly the day of my 37 weeks, my baby Wade was the only one who saved me. He came out exactly when he needed to, for the sake of my body and soul. He saved me and in return I guess I gave him life so to speak. I went into labor early that morning, and by 11:11 pm, baby Wade was welcomed into the world.  

After he was born, one week later, I had already lost a whopping 53 lbs. By the following week I had lost 64 lbs. Currently I am sitting at about 199, only 24lbs over my initial weight. Not so bad, considering when I gave birth I was around 263-268 ish.  All my symptoms went away (except for the palsy) and I feel much more like myself. Wade was my save and grace, and I love him more than life itself. Here is a recent picture of us:

And we are living happily ever after!