June 02, 2004

Anorexia & Pregnancy

In spite of having ana I conceived and gave birth to four babies. One was with my first husband and three were with my second husband. As one might be able to imagine gaining weight during my pregnancy was very difficult. I lacked coping skills, professional help and maturity in my first three pregnancies. All of my kid’s birth weight was right around six pounds. I usually gained around 12 pounds with each pregnancy and I managed to keep that off my weight after the pregnancy. I was hungry most of the time, which led to much frustration. I will back up and slow down to tell some more of this area of my life.

I was 20 when I conceived my first-born. I had little knowledge about pregnancy so I bought a few good books and read them from cover to cover. I didn’t particularly like my OB doctor but I also didn’t go looking for a different one either. So I went through the pregnancy feeling pretty much overwhelmed at what was happening to my life, my body, and me. I can remember being very hungry but only eating a little. I abused laxatives during most of the pregnancy and I worried constantly that somehow this would damage the baby. I gained a total of 12 pounds during the pregnancy and my baby weighed 5 pounds 15 ounces. I went full term with him and gave birth to a healthy baby boy while in my ninth month of pregnancy.

The thing I remember the most was fear. Fear I would gain a huge amount of weight. Fear my baby wouldn’t be normal. Fear of taking care of a newborn baby. Fear at what changes would take place in my marriage. Within a few months these fears manifested themselves in the form of depression. I became severely depressed. The baby was always crying and spewing up most of his formula. My husband became very distant to me. I felt like I was bottoming out and that I could no longer cope. Even my usual forced exercise…getting thin again…that didn’t help a bit. I finally was put on anti-depressants, which was a great help. Within a few months I gained some weight back, my marriage normalized itself and life began feeling like I could cope with it. My baby became more content and I enjoyed being a mother more also.

For the sake of this entry I will skip on ahead to how I coped or didn’t cope with the pregnancies of my other three children from my second marriage. My daughter, Lisa, was our first child together. We had wanted children and I was in a relatively calm period in my life so conception was fairly easy. I conceived the first month we tried to have a baby. Again eating enough was a problem. There was no one to talk to about it so I just went along on my own. I went full term on this baby and gained about the same amount of weight as my first pregnancy. It just seemed to me that there should have been some kind of help out there for me. But part of me was afraid to look…afraid of help. So I went through the pregnancy as well as possible. I did manage to lessen my use of laxatives and the food that I did eat was a lot healthier than that of my first pregnancy.

As I neared the end of my ninth month this baby showed no sign of making it’s way into this world. My due date came and went. Meanwhile my OB doc did some tests on my due to the little amount of weight I had gained. He found out that my placenta was not a healthy place for my baby to be in anymore so labor was induced. I gave birth to a 5 pound 15 ounce girl who rated 10 on the Apgar score. We were elated! My husband was thrilled and so was I!!!

After about a month I once again began going into post partum depression. This time I recognized it for what it was and I was able to get help much more quickly than with my first child. I quickly returned to the weight I was before getting pregnant with this little one. She was a quiet content baby….or so we thought. Unfortunately by the time she was two years old we knew that all was not well with her. She was late in all of her development and something just wasn’t quite right. By the time she was 30 months old there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Lisa was developmentally disabled. She went through a series of tests only to find out that our worst fears were true. Our daughter, my only daughter, was not normal.

I blamed myself, the lack of care I gave myself during the pregnancy. It was an awful time in my life. I felt just devastated and it has been something I have had to live with all of my life. We will never know if ana caused my daughter to be mentally handicapped. She presently resides in a group home which she likes very much. She is well cared for, clean and appears quite happy. I, on the other hand, will never know if my being anarectic caused her to be mentally handicapped.

A year later I became pregnant with our second child. The usual fears rushed in. Fear that I would return to being overweight, fear that I was not giving my unborn child healthy conditions while I was carrying him. An unrealistic fear on my part that I would always stat the way I was. If one looked at me from the front they would never guess I was pregnant. If I turned side ways I looked like the side of a barn I was so huge.

Again labor had to be induced and within four hours I was the proud parent of a lovely baby boy. My husband was so thrilled he practically jumped through the ceiling of the hospital. Within a week after delivery I was pencil thin again. Shortly thereafter my husband lost his job and he was in a complete rage over the situation. I had never send him like that before. The yelling and screaming he did went on for days, which eventually stretched into weeks then months.

I once again noticed the signs of postpartum depression but because we had no medical insurance I didn’t think I could go for help. I grew increasingly depressed…desperately depressed. My weight went for 100 lbs down to 75 lbs. I was dangerously thin and I knew it. Things finally got so bad that in order to save my life I went to see a doctor. His prognosis was very poor. My heart rate and all other physiological symptoms spiraled downward. I finally arrived at the point that I needed medical intervention to stay alive. I submitted to going inpatient at a medical ward and allowed myself to become tube fed for a while. After a while I had gained enough weight and strength to come home. It took me many months to gain back the weight that I had lost. But I did manage to do so.

My final pregnancy went quite differently than the first three. This time I had scheduled counseling appointments during the nine months I was pregnant. I talked of my fears of staying at the weight and size I was. I talked about my fear of eating and gaining more weight. Going for counseling during that last pregnancy was the best thing I could have done for my unborn baby and myself. This time I gained a little over 20 pounds. Labor started of its own and I gave birth to a son on the very day I was due.

This time there was no post partook depression. I had to continue to eat well as I was nursing this child. This one pregnancy and my child afterwards was a tremendously great high point in my life. I truly believe that my success lay in the fact that I attended counseling during the entire pregnancy.

To any future mothers to be I hope you will give careful consideration to receiving counseling during your pregnancy. It made a huge difference!!!

Posted by Kathy on June 2, 2004 03:15 AM