Minus Seventy-Seven

Help me get clear about this: am I total failure? Or just a partial failure? It’s one thing when you start out strong and eventually run out of steam. But this year I started out super late the first night, already empty, tired, with only my aspirations for a meaningful daily Omer writing practice on the fumes of resolve. Counting even with the blessing is something I have managed to do each night, and maybe I should celebrate that accomplishment for its own merit. Instead, I berate myself for failing to fulfill my promise to write and post each night the OOCC. On the topic of that internal critic, I’m realizing the irony of choosing the topic “Counting to Clarity” when at times I can barely form sentences and often I just want to be quiet.

When a friend noticed that I had lost some weight a few months back I acknowledged it saying “finally my body is starting to come back, and depending on if I use actual pre-pregnancy weight or my during fertility treatment weight, I only have 30-40 more pounds to go”. That’s how I see it- how far I am from my goal, from looking and God willing feeling, like myself. The subtlety there is that from the inside I am forever changed and the larger sizes and overstretched skin doesn’t even begin to reveal the story.

For months I could tell you I have thirty more pounds to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, and the last time I was pregnant was over 2 ½ (or now closer to 3) years ago. And you might think, my goodness, isn’t that a lot? Many women don’t even gain that much weight for the pregnancy, much less take three years to lose it. Or maybe you would be more compassionate and understanding about the way that pregnancy totally changes a body physically and chemically, how there is no time to care for yourself with a newborn or toddler, how most new mothers struggle with self care and losing weight they have gained while expecting or even after baby comes home.


But then that friend turned the tables and asked how much I’d lost. It sounded so much different when I heard myself say that I’d lost seventy pounds. That is huge. How big I was loomed even bigger when I pictured dropping that much weight. The remaining fraction seemed smaller and less significant compared to the majority of pounds that were already behind me. I still had thirty more to go to the number on my driver’s license (130), though in reality I used to be 135, and after bloating from months of fertility treatments I was 145 before finally getting that BFP (big fat positive)! As an act of motherly love, as all mothers do, I sacrificed my body for my babies. Following expert advice I gained a ton of weight for the sake of my triplets. 235 was where I stopped counting, having gained over one hundred pounds.

And now I’ve lost seventy-seven pounds and don’t want to take credit for it as an accomplishment. It feels more like something that just happened, thankfully, luckily, blessedly. As deliberately as I wanted to get pregnant and then to gain lots of weight for my extreme pregnancy, I have no idea why getting pregnant with good old S-E-X didn’t work for us, nor do I know why it took so long to lose weight, or why it finally started happening. From the doctor’s office I updated facebook with my happy news (down seven more for a total of seventy-seven pounds gone!) and love that friends are celebrating with me. Alongside the congratulatory comments (to which I still want to say “but there’s still 23 lbs more!”) are questions about my secret to weight loss.

The secret revealed to me today is the importance of celebrating and sharing our celebratory moments. Just as for sure I have shared my pain and insanity, I have tried to share my sweetness, joy and laughter. I absolutely love that people feel healing from seeing pictures and videos and status updates from the triplet toddler show that is my life. That sharing has been deliberate, and I revel in my girls. Celebrating them is not the same as appreciating myself, and that is a challenge for me. Though clarity itself still seems far away, I am counting on its eventual arrival and will do my part by trying to replace negative perception with positive self -commentary. As certain as tonight is the tenth night of the Omer, I have succeeded in counting each night this year, and tonight I am contributing to OOCC. As of today, I am seventy-seven pounds lighter than I was in June 2008, and today I celebrate my success. Today I seek healing for myself and offer my story for service.

For your comments:
What are you celebrating? What success can we celebrate with you?