I may sound like a broken record but I don’t care. Thank you all for the lovely comments on this morning’s post. I loved reading all your blessings as well. 🙂

Well, the feeding frenzy continued into the afternoon with baby B. Yesterday I opted for the comfortable route and wore my robe and pajamas all day to make feedings easier. I didn’t feel like doing that again today. I wanted a shower and clothes. There is something about getting dressed, drying my hair, and tossing on a little tinted moisturizer and mascara that does wonders for my energy.

Looking put together helps me feel I can tackle anything and makes me more productive. I still hung around feeding Braedon most of the day, which exhausted me, but I didn’t feel frumpy. I felt like an empowered woman who could handle mothering and personal goals all in one.

After Makenzie I didn’t get dressed in anything besides lounge wear unless going somewhere. This time, I wanted to focus more on doing little things to keep me feeling confident. It may sound cheesy, but I really believe it has helped make a difference. Plus, its fun being able to wear clothes you haven’t been able to fit into for many, many months.

Question of the Evening – What ways do you like to put yourself together even when chilling at home?

When I posted my Body After Baby post on how I plan to track progress, Katie from Peace Be Me commented with a request for me to share a bit more in depth on my weight gain to conceive. I have briefly discussed it before, such as in my Q+A post about my weight, but not in detail recently. Ask and you shall receive here on FFF. I’m not afraid to spill my guts. I guess there’s a reason “brutally honest” and “real” were two of the quickest responses I got when I sent out this tweet yesterday.

I’ll take it! Now, to get to the nitty gritty gaining to conceive stuff.

You regular readers know that I competed in a fitness competition early November of 2009. If you’re new around here and didn’t know that, well a) now you do and b) hello & please stick around! For my competition, I had to do some pretty intense training and get down to a low (unhealthy for me) body fat level in order to achieve the leanness for displaying muscle definition in such an event.

I began training for the competition right after I weaned Makenzie from nursing. That’s important because it means I had not had my period since conceiving her almost 2 years prior to then. Read more about that in my period post.

So, I had no cycle because I couldn’t regain it after nursing thanks to the intense training and diet for my competition. We knew we wanted to try for a second child pronto. Right after the competition ended, I became determined to regain my period as quickly as possible. Due to conceiving M so easily, the recommendation became to get back to the weight I was when I got pregnant then. That equated to around 20 lbs heavier than I was on competition day.

Now, I gained just shy of 10 lbs of that immediately as my body gained back the water weight and glycogen stores I had depleted it of for the show. So in reality, I only needed to gain 10-15 pounds above my “happy place” to get to where I easily conceived Makenzie. With time, I likely would have regained my cycle at my happy place because it was healthy for my size. I put that aside though and went for the extra padding because we were ready for a baby. Sure enough, I hit that 135-140 weight range and BAM – I got my period about 6 weeks post-show.

In order to gain the weight I had to stop working out completely for awhile. I had to eat, which was easy enough because it was the holidays. My body had been through the wringer and was more than happy to put on some fat. In all honesty I didn’t mind so much at that point because it was for a greater cause and I was still at a healthy weight.

Then, we got negative test after negative test after negative test. Every month that I had to keep myself at a place heavier than I felt best became harder to do. I wanted to throw myself into fitness goals, but had to hold back to carry the few extra pounds. I’ve mentioned before how I don’t feel quite like me when pregnant…I felt the same then. I believed I had spent the previous year enjoying fitness and happily getting into GREAT shape for nothing. All because of that dang competition. And I didn’t have a pregnancy to show for it either.

That challenged me the most. I didn’t mind the weight if it brought me a baby. When it didn’t happen quickly like with M, worry crept in. Did I royally screw  up my body with the training and now I wouldn’t get to conceive? I dealt with that worry by hating on my body. Then that angered me because I had come to a place I loved myself and believed in my worth. I didn’t want to question the wonder of my body again and deal with those old demons. All of those emotions constituted the greatest trials.

Fortunately on Mother’s Day 2010 I saw that positive (+) sign flash on the screen. It all became worth it. Looking back, I probably could have questioned advice and gone about the weight in a less drastic manner. I shouldn’t have felt so concerned because 6 months to conceive is 100% normal. I should have realized more how healthy I still was, even if not at where I feel best. That’s all in the past now, though. I have my little B bumping around in my belly now…ready to come out. I learned from that experience and know more about myself and my body thanks to that time. And now, I will work towards my healthy, happy place and then stay there. It’s yet another reason why its so important for me to find again. 

Question of the Day – What’s one of the most emotionally challenging things you have gone through? Mine is my stuff with my Dad. That’s rough to this day.