For Her

A quick update of our doings over the last few weeks: James is still working concrete, and I've been doing small repair/cleaning/organizing projects around the house. You can call it nesting, but I call it OCD. We're adjusting well to the new responsibilities we have, like a lawn that needs to come back to life. Other than that, life goes on as normal. Kenny is 16 mos. now and shows no sign of wanting to walk. One day...

I've noticed that society likes numbers and statistics for just about everything. Think about it: there's IQ, GPA, phone numbers, addresses...and of course, BMI.

Numbers identify us. My phone number is mine alone. If you call it, you will get me (unless I don't answer, but you get the picture.) My address tells where I live. A simple zip code puts me in a 10-mile radius of exactly where I live on earth. My house number will take you right to my front door.

Since studying to be a teacher, my view of numbers for grouping people has changed. IQ? Not so great. Test scores? Same thing. A person is not a phone or a house. A phone or house stays put (relatively speaking), but a person is dynamic, always changing, and unique, even if that person fits into certain groups based on numbers.

I don't mean to say that grouping people is always a bad thing. Grouping people based on statistics sometimes is, especially when it comes to health.

I am 29 weeks pregnant as I write this. Ever since I've been able to understand the concept of BMI, it has been a plague to my mind. When I am at my healthiest, that chart would have me believe that I'm borderline to overweight. When I'm pregnant and gain 30 pounds, I feel huge. It wasn't so bad with my first child. I fully expected everything to be a lot harder than it was. I didn't pay attention to my weight during the whole 40 weeks. At my last checkup, I peeked and saw that I'd only gained 30, so I felt good, because I'd expected a lot more than that.

After my first child was born, I quickly lost all the weight but 5 lbs. That came off as soon as I stopped nursing, so not until a year later. Despite that 5 pounds, I fit (relatively) comfortably into my regular clothes at one week postpartum.

The same story was true for my second pregnancy, but I started worrying about the numbers. I don't know why I did, because it made no difference except to stress me out. I still gained 30 lbs. despite my best efforts to maybe gain a little less. The addition of healthier eating and exercise almost seemed like it had been in vain. I forgot that it wasn't about the numbers. I felt a ton better during my second pregnancy. I just wasn't any lighter.

This pregnancy has been the biggest challenge of all. I never lost that nursing weight because I was still nursing when I got pregnant. That meant I started off with an extra 7 pounds on top of what I knew I'd already gain. In my mind, it was like a death sentence. "I am going to weigh more than I ever have before once I'm about to give birth." Ouch.

I don't know why I own a scale. Perhaps it's because I feel like I need those numbers. I need to reach a certain number to feel like I fit into the "BMI" standard of health. I know that it isn't true. I'm always going to weigh "a lot" for my height. That's been true for me since I was a baby. Why does any of it really matter? If I base my health simply on how I feel, I don't need numbers for anything. Whether I'm pregnant or not, I am generally without aches and pains, have enough energy to do what I need to, and don't get sick for more than a day or two. I even manage to sleep well, even this late in pregnancy, and my doctor has proclaimed that I am "boring". He isn't the first doctor to say so.

I don't want to be defined by numbers that are totally subjective and based on something the government made up. Since when are they the authority on everything? For health issues, they are usually pretty far off anyway. I can worry my whole life about fitting into a BMI chart. Or, I can actually make sure that my health is the best that I know it can be. Perhaps my exact weight will return to what it was as long as I continue doing the best I can with what I have. Perhaps it won't. I wish I could say that I absolutely won't worry about it, but that isn't true. Every time I look in the mirror to see new stretch marks, I cringe a little. I admit it. I like to stay the same. Pregnancy really throws me for a loop, and I don't know that I will ever get used to it, no matter how many times I go through it.

I want to think better of myself, though. I'm having my very first daughter in a few months. I don't want her to grow up hearing me say that I'm fat or ugly. I don't want her to worry obsessively about her weight - ever! I want to be an example of good health, not good statistics. I don't ever want her view of herself to suffer from my example, my poor example of appreciating the body I have, even though it's flawed.

No measure of a person's true worth can be represented by a number. I need to remember this and live it. It's not too late to start.