Hello people of WordPress! I have not blogged since Halloween… oops. November and December passed in a flurry of holidays, then on December 27th, my husband and I got a late Christmas gift of a positive pregnancy test. Yep, Baby #3 will be joining our family in about five months!
Since those fateful two pink lines I’ve been… well, exhausted. This pregnancy has been (ironically) the easiest nausea wise, but the toughest exhaustion wise. I’ve basically floated through the first 1/4 of 2022 just trying to get the daily tasks done, and consequently I’ve fallen off the blogosphere.
I’m now 17 weeks pregnant and starting to get some energy back, so hopefully I’ll be back to monthly blogging… at least for the next five months! I’ll get a first trimester recap up soon, and have a couple of kitchen hacks (not exactly recipes) coming too, but I thought I would jump back into blogging with some thoughts about body image.
It’s hard to imagine that 2021 was a whole year and some months ago, but let’s back up to there. At the start of 2021, I was still about 15 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight, and Selah (Baby #2) was almost one. But I wasn’t too worried about it; I thought with all my exercising with Fit4Mom I’d drop the weight once Selah was weaned. Well, thanks to covid, the Fit4Mom franchise I worked for lost all members and I lost that workout avenue. Shortly after that, in February, we started getting Selah involved in Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) for her gross motor delay. She was 6 months behind developmentally and needed weekly physical therapy as well as bi-weekly feeding therapy because she was unable to use a cup due to poor muscle tone. I also was taking her to twice weekly chiropractor visits, and we had frequent meetings with our ECI case manager at the beginning of services. So at that point, we had 3-4 appointments per week, I was dealing with the stress of knowing my baby has something “wrong” with her, I was juggling two children, two part-time jobs, faced with the loss of one job and a workout avenue in one, and was still nursing my almost one-year-old probably 6-8 times a day because she had no other source of hydration. It was a very stressful start of the year for me as a mom, and really for my whole family. As most people do when times get stressful, I let some things go; in my case that was working out and cooking from scratch for my family. I started buying a lot more packaged goods, and even though I tried to make “healthier” choices, there are so many added ingredients that aren’t ideal. Add that to my complete lack of exercise and my stress with Selah’s needs and I quickly gained 10 pounds. I felt terrible about myself; I was only five pounds away from the weight I was at 40 weeks pregnant!
I beat myself up mentally for a while, but then I started actually seeking the Lord about weight loss, and was convicted that I was being vain. My body is actually here on this earth to serve Him; not to be thin or even strong. Now I knew that I wasn’t taking care of myself the way I should, so I just started doing a ten minute workout every day and walking when I could. A year later this is still my current workout plan, and I feel great about it! This is something that is sustainable for me no matter how crazy life gets, and I feel wonderful starting my day off with exercise, even if it’s not “hard core”. I continually need to go to the Lord in prayer about my attitude regarding my body and my health because I can easily get swept away in sinful, vain thoughts; this vanity can be in the form of pride or self-loathing.
Once I got back down to a weight I was comfortable with and felt I could maintain I realized that I may never be back to my pre-pregnancy weight, and that’s okay because I am not the same pre-pregnancy Molly! I was able to take part in the miracle of bringing another baby into the world, and it’s okay if my body reflects that.
And now, here I am blessed with another life to carry, and Lord willing, birth safely into our family! I have already gained a healthy 7ish pounds. I am a good bit heavier than I was at this point in my pregnancy with Selah, and probably around the same weight I was with Z, and I’m still working on being okay with it, honestly. But I know it is okay! I do my ten minute workouts, I walk a few times a week, I cook frozen veggies (one of the delicious kitchen hacks coming!), and I eat grilled cheese sandwiches and dark chocolate semi-regularly! All I can do is take care of myself for the glory of the Lord, for the furtherment of His Kingdom, and as an image bearer of Him. Eyes off of me, eyes on Him.
“…Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” – Hebrews 12:1-3 (NIV)
A Pinch of Crazy 
Congratulations and wishing you the best of health! 🎉
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