Time to get moving?

I seriously need to get exercising.  


I have been very disheartened lately every morning when I play the "what to wear" game.  Not because I don't have enough clothes.  I have more clothes than most people could wear.  I have clothes in three styles for basically each season.


I have been disheartened because I have very few clothes that fit me.  I must explain myself further.  For those of my readers who have not met me, I am short.  I am very short.  I don't always feel short...at least not until I try to reach something high up.   I have a very small frame.  For most of my childhood (particularly my infancy) I was underweight and struggled to gain weight.  I was a slow and very 'small' eater.  It was not until I was about 19 that I began eating what people would call a normal sized meal.  I was never anorexic, but I was tiny.


Since I started uni, I have (for want of a better term) filled out.  I grew some hips.  That's ok, I would tell myself.  Women need hips.  While at uni I was basically a size 6-8 depending on the clothes (let's not talk about the variation in women's clothes shall we?!).


After I got married, I ate more.  For the first year I was working and studying at the same time.  For the next year and a half I was hunting for work, during which time I would go to the gym.  That was the healthiest I have basically ever felt, and the best I have ever felt about my weight (which really was not that good).  Once I got a job and since then I have basically put on a dress size every year or so.  


So I went from a 6-8 (in 2003 ish) to closer to a 12-14 (in 2008 ish).  This may not sound like that much.  In perspective, when I finished school I was about 45 kilos.  When I got married I was closer to 50 kilos. When I fell pregnant with Bede I was about 60 kilos (maybe a bit more if I'm honest).  


After I had Bede I quickly lost all my baby weight and then some.  Within a few short months I was back in single digit jeans but still feeling unhealthy.  But at the 6 month mark I started to gradually put weight back on. I put it down to a number of factors.  Little or no exercise, continuing to breastfeed (which can make your body hold on to fat), and being at home, eating irregular meals and snacking on unhealthy things.  Now with Bede 1 year old, I tip the scale at almost 65 kilos.


You may think 65 kilos is not much.  When I go shopping for clothes I am always pointed straight to the size 8 clothes.  But on a 5 foot frame...let's just say I can feel it in my knees when I climb stars and when I carry Bede and if I try to run...oh dear. 


Now for the scary part. Someone my height (not quite 5 foot tall), should weigh between 45 and 55 kilos (according to the somewhat flawed BMI scale).  This scares me because it is only a few hundred little grams until I could be classified as obese.  How can I even write this??? Me?? Obese?? What planet is this anyway????  


It should be easy enough for someone like me to lose weight right?  All I have to do is make a few dietary changes and walk a little more and the kilos should just drop off!!!  I don't think so.  I seem to have lost the ability to make good food choices, and have little to no motivation to get walking (other than getting the boy out of the house and in this heat...well you can imagine).  For me, someone who spent their entire childhood in an underweight mindset, 65 kilos may as well be 85.  I have no idea how to eat to lose weight.  I could buy gym equipment, but I know it would gather dust.  


I need a gym.  I have found a good gym.  I can afford it.  I know Luke will support me in getting there regularly, and in eating well.  But can I do it?  Not alone.  I can't do it alone.  Just like trying to live a sinless life, I can't lose weight alone.  I need help.  I need God's help because I can't help myself, neither in life nor in weight loss.  


I need Him to give me the motivation to get in the car and drive to the gym and put Bede in creche and eat healthily even though I'm not a fan of fruit and veggies.  I need to know there are other people out there in the same boat.  People who need to lose weight but struggle to find the motivation, and who want someone to talk to about it.  I need someone to talk to about it and to pray with about it.  I need people to pray for me that I can get healthy again both in mind and in body.

Is it just me?

...or have you also noticed the positive rash of people who are pregnant at the moment?  I notice it because I live in community and a fair few members of the community are currently pregnant, or have just recently (in the last fortnight) had babies.


This used to drive me nuts.  In my pre-pregnancy days, in my pre not-trying days, I used to feel like I was surrounded by pregnant women.  Or I was surrounded by women who had recently been pregnant, or women who had young kids.  It was crazy. 


Every week I had to run the gauntlet at Moorewomen... "do you have kids?"..."No it's just us"..."any on the way?"..."not at the moment"...


And then if it wasn't that conversation, it was the listening to others talk about their pregnancies; how sick they were (or weren't)...what they craved (or didn't crave)...; their labour/birthing stories...  I was going insane!!!


Now don't get me wrong.  I was happily not pregnant.  I was working, and loving it (for the most part).  


But I know many many women at College (now and in the recent past) who have struggled and are currently struggling with infertility (either explained or unexplained).  I know women for whom Moorewomen was a weekly torture session to which they subjected themselves because they knew it would be helpful in their pastoral careers.  I know many more women who avoid Moorewomen even though they are aware of how helpful it will be in the future, simply because the pain now is too great.  It hurts too much to have people assume you have kids; to see women week after week fall pregnant (apparently) easily, with their 2nd (3rd, 4th...) child while you still struggle through falling pregnant with your first.  I know women who keep their emotional rollercoaster battles with IVF and other fertility assistance treatments a secret.


I have fought hard to try and keep a level playing field (so to speak) at Moorewomen, so that not every topic is related to having kids, so that people without kids (of whom I was one for my first 3 years of College) could feel free to come and learn and grow without feeling like they were missing out (even though they feel like that anyway).  


We at College and in parish ministry need to be more aware of the prevalence of fertility problems.  We need to think through how we talk to couples who do not have kids; perhaps being careful of unspoken assumptions about whether or not they will have kids.  We also need to think through how to pastorally care for those who struggle with infertility in the long term- many couples try for years to fall pregnant before going to assisted fertility treatments, and many more do not believe in those treatments, and suffer in silence.  We need to think through how we place people in Biblestudy groups, how we arrange our creche rosters...etc


In many ways I was lucky.  I was a strong personality who could deal with the baby talk week in, week out.  I was happy in my work.  I was happily not pregnant.  And when we were " not not trying" to fall pregnant, I was ok each month when things didn't happen.  People who knew me at those times will know that I would assert that I didn't really want kids all that much anyway.  


I lied.


I did want kids.  I wanted them so much that I was afraid of having them.  I wanted the security of knowing ahead of time if they would be healthy, and that my pregnancies would go well. If I asserted I didn't want them that much anyway, then if I didn't fall pregnant, it wouldn't matter.  But each month it did matter.  Six months of not not trying and I still wasn't pregnant.  On it went.  More people I knew were falling pregnant...but not me.  And I was still ok.  Had I not fallen pregnant when I did, I may not have been ok for that long really.  But luckily for us, I fell pregnant. 


And then we had to watch the faces of friends (who we knew had been trying much longer than us) fall.  And then the smiles masked the pain.  Another friend pregnant.  Not me again this month.  The hearty congratulations, masking the "why?".  Some of those friends are still trying over a year later.  


We pray every night that they will fall pregnant.  Of course prayer should be our first port of call when we seek to pastorally care for those who struggle to conceive.


What are some other practical ways we can care for those who struggle with infertility?