A Real Mind Job: Pregnancy and the Band

This is a support board for people with obesity problems.  OF COURSE we are all freaking out about gaining weight.  We do certainly understand the mindfuck.

What we were trying to tell you, I think, is that you need to put aside the fear.  That doesn't mean it's not legitimate but you can deal with all this **** after the baby, when it's appropriate.

If you want to hear personal experiences of people with the band, you might want to post on the band boards specifically.

Nobody said you were unfit to be a mother.

Just: don't worry about weight gain right now.

I don't think you're really reading the responses correctly. No one said you were selfish or unfit to be a mother. My first response wasn't even to you but to another poster and not about anything you wrote in your original post. Why would you even take it to be towards you? I still don't get that.

Postop weight gain is post op weight gain. No matter WHAT procedure you had, it f*cks with your mind. All I was trying to say to you is don't sweat it- at least until AFTER the baby comes. You'll drive yourself nuts hopping up and down on a scale for 8 more months. The stress isn't good for either of you. ENJOY your pregnancy and stop worrying about it

Wow...looks like I missed the ****storm while I was on my lunch hour.  That'll teach me to eat.  Anyway, I hope you didn't take my orignal reply to mean that I thought you were being selfish.  That wasn't my intention. 

All I wanted was for you to take a step back and consider how insignificant the weight gain is in the overall scheme of things.  I understand fully how hard it is to lose weight with the band and how easy it is to put it back on if you are unfilled.  Earlier this year I got pregnant, got unfilled and miscarried a week later.  By the time I got back up to restriction, I had put on 30 pounds.

I was TERRIFIED to get unfilled when I got pregnant again because I had only taken off about 15 of the 30 I had put on but I knew I couldn't eat enough with full restriction.  I pleaded with my surgeon to only take a couple of cc's out and he just wouldn't budge.  Looking back, I'm glad he took that stand.  I don't need the added stress not being able to eat, getting stuck, etc.  I made my OB give me a note that said I could get my band filled during pregnancy so I would have it in my back pocket in case I felt like I was losing control but I haven't needed it.

Bottom line, on the list of things to freak out about while pregnant, getting the weight off afterwards should be at the bottom.  You'll do fine...the pregnant metabolism seems to be pretty freaking awesome.  I'm eating tons more than I did before I got pregnant and I've gained a total of, like, 6 pounds....I'm not even sure because I don't stress about it.  I go to the doc and if she's happy with my weight, so am I.

So, relax.  Get the unfill, I don't think you'll regret it in the least.  If you get a big unfill and your weight starts getting out of control, go get a little bit put back in.  That's the beauty of the band...it's in your control.

I didn't see your original post.  I will reply to this though.   I just gave birth to my second band baby on Friday.   

Both pregnancies I kept my entire fill.   I don't keep very tight restriction to begin with though (I can still eat a piece of pizza or a small McDonald's  hamburger...you know all the healthy foods I should be eating lol). 

When I got pregnant with Hannah my weight was 220.  The day I gave birth I weighed 239.5.  Within a week or two I was below my pregnancy weight.  My band did go crazy when Hannah was a couple of months old.  I had to be completely unfilled and gained 15 pounds back.

It took me a while to lose that weight back (I was nursing, so I couldn't do any crazy calorie restricting diets).    

I had pretty much just got the weight off when I found out I was pregnant this time.    My starting weight was 216.5 and the day before Noah was born I weighed 222.   Today (5 days later) I weighed 206 pounds.   

With both pregnancies I lost about 10 pounds below my starting weight and then gained it back plus almost 20 with Hannah and almost 6 with Noah.

Hannah weighed 6 pounds and 13 oz.  Noah weighed 7lbs 3 oz.

It's normal to be freaked out about seeing the scale move up.   If you feel you are getting enough nutrition I'm sure you'll get unfilled.   I'm living proof that you don't have to gain 50 pounds!  Although  I often wonder how I didn't gain that much this time with my Reese cup addiction.

Amy

FYI -- you don't have the monopoly on those fears.  I didn't see what all you typed because you deleted everything -- but knowing the posters like I do, I have a feeling what was said.

From my blog:

Reflections of a postop pregnancy. Or two.

On 01.15.10, In Pregnancy after WLS, By Andrea

The WLS world is buzzing today.  And being the conformist that I am, you know that I’m going to add to it — right?  Cause I’m so meek and un-opnionated and all.  (you really should have put that drink down before reading that, eh?)

So one of our stars — Carnie Wilson — had her new show on last night.  I didn’****ch it.  No other reason than I was desperate for the silence.  To be honest, I’m not certain I get that channel anyway.  But after a day of two sick kids whining, a sick husband that I will not discuss too much in the blog because he may actually read this, and children’s programming droning on and on all day long, I longed for silence.  The TV was off as soon as the kids went to bed.  Not that I could have concentrated on a show because the kids did not actually go to sleep, just to bed.  Which is a misnomer as well since the toddler can get out of his bed and does not appreciate “bed time" as much as I do.

In any case, without having watched the show, I can still gather what happened on the show from all of the buzz.   Carnie has regained weight from her low weight after gastric bypass.  Considering her two pregnancies post RNY and her cross-addictions, her life in the spotlight, and all of the stress therein — not shocking.  Hell, I’ve been in her shoes for part of this, and so I get where she is.

Twice, actually.

And until you’ve been pregnant post RNY, don’t you dare condemn her.

Let me tell you something about post RNY pregnancy:  RNY rules go completely out the window.

RNYers are told to go protein first.  But when pregnant, you have to stay out of ketosis to avoid fetal brain damage.  So that sandwich?  Yeah, eat it.

RNYers are supposed to lose weight.  But when pregnant, you’re supposed to gain it.  So the scale is supposed to go up?  Wha?

And vitamins.  Really?  Who do you listen to?  The OB who has never had an RNY patient in their entire career?  The skinny nutritionist that is only going off book learning?  The surgeon who hasn’t had a nutrition class in ten years and is male (and thus has never had the hormones swimming through his veins that are making you want that doughnut from Krispy Kreme?).  Cause, well, each tells you something completely different and are completely contradicting each other.

How about that special level of hell called a glucose tolerance test that determines gestational diabetes?  50g of glucose in a slightly carbonated, traffic-cone orange syrupy-sweet liquid form that can reduce a hormonal RNYer into a fetal ball of hypoglycemic dumpage in ten minutes flat.  It’s great when our doctors guilt us into this test — “if you don’t do this, you’re putting your baby at risk" — and I wish I were kidding on that but yes I was told that very line.  This is the guilt trip I got by telling the doctor that I would NOT put myself through this I would be putting my baby at risk despite the fact that dumping and the severe reactive hypoglycemic reaction that I WOULD HAVE would maybe stress the baby and put the baby at risk.  Because telling a mother-to-be this is just what we should do, yes?

Each prenatal appointment had a scale — banishing my own did no good.  I cannot tell you how hard it is to see the scale go up.  And up.  And up more.  Knowing that it HAD to go up for the safety of the baby.  Knowing that I had to eat despite not really wanting to.  How many times I stared at my reflection in the mirror in horror — where normal mothers would stare in awe at their bellies I would be in disgust at the fat — because I didn’t get a cute baby belly — my skin just filled back out with fat.  It was ironic that when I was fat people thought I was pregnant and when I was pregnant people just thought I was fat.  Jeans I swore I’d never wear again, but had kept “just in case" were pulled back out and worn again.  Stores I swore I’d never walk back in?  Yeah, you guessed it.

I had horrible hypoglycemia with my first pregnancy.  To the tune of passing out every five minutes.  We couldn’t figure it out — until I added in a SERIOUS amount of simple carbs back into my life.  Guess what — they ARE addictive.  Do you know how hard it is to get those back out of your life after you’re told to rely on them to keep you upright for 9 months?  While trying to deal with all the hormones that come with pregnancy?  OMG my house was not a happy place to be after the baby came — detox off carbs AND post-partum hormones?  It’s a wonder I didn’t end up divorced.

The family

But all of this was mixed with happiness of having a child.  Knowing that I had this surgery that gave me the opportunity to have a baby.  If I had not had the surgery, there was a chance of not having a child.  I’ll never know since I never tried to get pregnant prior to surgery.

And then there’s the “after."

Some women are lucky to lose all their pregnancy weight — and some even lost more than their pregnancy weight.  I wasn’t that lucky.  Sure, I lost some of it, but not all of it.  I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.  I had to work at it.  Even now, I’ve recently just lost all of my pregnancy weight from my first post op pregnancy.

The point is this — it’s easy to sit back and criticize and judge someone — especially someone who is out there in the spotlight.  But unless you’ve been in those shoes you have no idea what it’s like.  A post-op pregnancy is not like a standard pregnancy at all.  It bends, if not breaks WLS rules — and sometimes it’s really really hard to go back to those rules after almost a year off them.  It takes seven days to make a habit — so what happens in 40 weeks?

Carnie is one of us.  She has the same struggles as we all do, but we have one luxury that she doesn’t have — privacy.  Maybe she could choose to make her life a bit less public, but to some degree, her life will never be private given her past.  So let’s give her what we would all want for ourselves — support and compassion.  Cause who knows — maybe YOU would end up in the same position as she is in, despite saying “That will never be me."

LMAO!

Emotional mess- yeppers, you're pregnant
 

I'd like to share that I am watching Elmo's Potty Time while reading this thread.

 Good for you Sarah for getting an unfill. You couldn't imagine how many times in the 5 years I've been on this board, ladies have ignored thier docs and not get unfilled although they were suffering with it filled.

The weight will ALWAYS come off if you work at it. True that sometimes it's harder (especially the farther out you get and know how to break the "rules") Baking a baby is a huge responsibility and should come before weight loss.
 
Hugs-
Janine

I DID see that and I am not lecturing you. I didn't get a chance to respond to you yet because I'm feeding the baby but when and if I do, it won't be a lecture. I just liked her response, so I responded to her.