Sometimes I think I shouldn't read BabyCenter at all, but I can't help myself.  I get an email every morning with the updated posts for the groups I belong to (May 2010 Moms and Plus-Size Moms).  Six to eight weeks ago it was tough because everyone was talking about morning sickness and some members would write good-bye posts after having a miscarriage.  I wasn't feeling ill, so I was convinced something wasn't right.  I'm glad for all the information I have from reading these pages, but a lot of it just doesn't fit me.

Like now everyone is concerned about popping - you know, when you go from not looking pregnant or just looking like you put weight on to looking actually pregnant because your belly is now "popped" out.

Yeah.  Reading the word "popped" makes me gag a little; I don't know why.  It probably goes back to my whole thing about being grossed out by pregnant bellies.  So far I can't tell if my belly has changed at all.  My pants still all fit, so I'm going to guess no (unless somehow my ass is shrinking, lol).  I like that right now my pregnancy is still my news and that only people "in the know" - well, know.  Eventually it'll become everyone's business, in a way, and I think I'm nervous about that.

When you're fat growing up, your body already feels like everyone's business.  Everyone in your life (teachers, parents, doctors, strangers) feel like they have the authority to tell you what you could do to lose weight.  As you get older, peers and strangers feel the authority to yell mean things at you on the street or from their cars.  I know that not only fat people have to deal with this, but I feel like it's harder to know that a wolf whistle is sarcastic, not complimentary and that having people fling Jenny Craig brochures at you from a car is different than having someone ask you for your number.  I know we all deal with unwanted advances or comments, but... there's just something about it being a critique on who you are every day.

So, partly, I feel a bit removed from the pregnancy experience.  I'm not concerned about stretch marks - I've had them for as long as I can remember.  I'm not concerned about sagging skin; I already have it and have dealt with worse, too.  I'm not looking forward to a belly pop because I've never seen an expanding belly as a good thing; it was always a sign of failure before. 

But then there's this: I'm not petrified of gaining weight because I've seen the scale go up before (and certainly recently) and now I feel like for the first time in my life, I don't have to care if it goes up because it needs to.  I'm obviously paying attention to how much it goes up (no weight gained yet) and I'm mindful of what I eat, but I don't feel this dread or, alternately, an exhilaration about finally "being allowed" to gain weight that I see other women seemingly revel in.  I think I can write more in depth on that another time, though, because I see a lot of layers to this particular aspect of the experience.

I like my not-so-secret secret pregnancy right now.  I can think about all of these things and not actually be asked to answer for them yet.

It's supposed to be two steps forward and one step back, but that's not how it's working today.

I've been feeling better about myself lately.  I've been feeling happy and accomplished and attractive and beautiful.  I bought two new pairs of pants that fit really well and feel great and look good.  I made a conscious decision to stop worrying about what people think about my appearance and, even more so, the weight I've gained over the past three years.

And then yesterday I saw a picture of myself from Saturday.

Sigh.

What I see in the picture is not what I see in the mirror.  Literally.  I can stand there with the picture in my hand while in front of the mirror and I cannot map the two together.  What is that?  Why does the mirror make my thighs look less horrifying?

When I lost weight, I had trouble seeing myself for my new, smaller size.  I would fold laundry and not believe that I fit in my own clothes because they looked too small for how I felt.  Now it goes the other way around.

That picture instantly negated every single moment where I felt good last week.  Earlier in the day, I felt so good about how my  husband feels towards me.  In a nanosecond, it became, "Yeah, I can see why he might lose interest in me."  What?!  Why does my brain start inventing things when I see a picture of myself that I'm unhappy about.

So now I have all day, week, life to sit here and work on this.  Here's what I know:

1. I do not like how I look right now.  It's not an instant "I'm fat and fat is bad" thing.  Shape-wise, aesthetically, I feel like I look better thinner than I am now.

2. That said, I actually don't like how I look in a lot of my thinnest pictures, when I was a size 12.  I feel like my face doesn't look right.

3. I've determined that part of this isn't a generic bigger/smaller thing.  When I was thinner, I was healthier.  My skin looked great, my hair was shiny, my smile was genuine - because I was active and eating food that is good for me.  Getting the body up and moving on a regular basis does great things.  I felt strong and capable and healthy.

So now I'm left trying to figure out what to do.  This fall is going to be a bit packed, schedule-wise.  I'll be working full-time, Monday through Friday.  Monday night is grad school.  Tuesday night is teaching.  Wednesday night is my late night at my full-time job.  Thursday night will be teaching. 

I don't want to come home and slump over.  Sure, there'll be times I'll be beat and just need to flop over, but I want that to be the exception, not the rule.  But the way I lived before was to go to the gym four or five days a week after work... that won't be possible now and I'm not sure how to proceed.  I need a new vision of what my life should look like.

My life is really so much about me - I want and love to teach, I want and love to go to grad school - and so I am doing those things.  It's not like I'm putting other people's needs before my own and sacrificing myself.  It's more that I'm putting my mind before my body.  I need to put my body on the same priority list as my mind.