This is the third part in a series: Part 1 and Part 2
Zach was 4 months old when we celebrated our second wedding anniversary and when we opened our catering business. We were living with my parents and working out of their kitchen while they worked out of the baking kitchen. We were with each other all the time and we were all surrounded by food. David was working in carpentry and about a month into the start of our business, he was able to quit his job building houses to work alongside me.
A few short weeks later, I became pregnant with baby #2. It didn't take us long to figure this out because Zach refused to nurse anymore and I started with the morning sickness right away. My body didn't have time to recuperate from the first pregnancy before I got pregnant with the second baby. I was still eating well and making sure that I was very strict about it. I was throwing up 2 or 3 times a day with this pregnancy and my iron level was so low that my midwives warned me that I wouldn't be having another home birth if I could raise my levels. I wasn't eating meat due to being a vegetarian so I started taking iron pills which I promptly threw up. Dandelion root tea and Clif Bars were my go-to remedies for getting my iron level one-tenth of a point over the minimum for my midwives to do a home birth. I actually lost about 15 lbs. the first half of my pregnancy because of all the sickness.
We moved out of my parents' home a little over a month before baby #2 arrived and I gave birth in the kitchen of our new apartment (with a ankle that I'd broken by slipping on the ice 3 weeks before) to a baby girl - 8 lbs. 5 ounces. My mom made the typical birth breakfast that had become a tradition for births in the family - eggs and toast. I remember sitting in the birthing tub with a big plate-full while the midwives measured and cleaned off our new little one.
At the time of our daughter's birth (April of 2000), I was the heaviest I'd ever been, though still a healthy weight. My body hadn't had time to recover from the first birth and so, despite my best efforts not to, I had packed on a few extra pounds during my first pregnancy and it ended up being transferred to my second pregnancy. I was determined to lose the baby weight but I was hungry all the time. My body had just gone through two back-to-back births with babies 13 1/2 months apart and was craving nutrition. I was exclusively nursing baby #2 and was insistent on keeping up with my vegetarian lifestyle, though I was a bit lax on the amount of food I allowed myself. The sticky buns that my dad made were a particular downfall of mine, especially when they were just out of the oven. Even though the guilt was overwhelming, I would tell myself that I needed to eat more because I was nursing a baby and taking care of a toddler.
David and I spent our afternoons walking with the kids strapped to our shoulders and chests and took hikes up and down Mt. Philo. David was determined that I was going to lose the pregnancy weight from back-to-back pregnancies. I wanted to lose the weight but I was beginning to resent the pressure, well-intentioned though it may have been, from David. His mother had been excessively overweight as long as he could remember and he didn't want me to go down the same unhealthy road. I knew his heart was in the right place, but being pushed to eat healthy and exercise by someone else smacked of control to me. This was never his intention but considering the background that I came from, I chafed at anything he said in regards to my weight and what I ate. Little did he realize that whenever he said something, I would let all the anger build up inside of me and take my frustration out in eating later that night. It was backfiring on him and, in the meantime, I was sabatgoing myself. By eating what and however much I wanted out of his sight, I was taking back control, or so I thought.
CLICK HERE for Part 4