This post has nothing to do with adoption but is something that so many of us struggle with. God's Divine Intervention was my saving grace!
After Ashton was born I struggled, as so many women do, to get my body back to pre-pregnancy conditions. (Now while writing this I realize that I am a mere 115 pounds so some of you are cringing and ready to close this blog, but keep reading.) The baby weight fell off pretty quickly, it was the squishy mushy gut that was left behind that bothered me most. Before I had kids I never had a belly and I longed to get those ab muscles back in shape. I saw a news program about moms having tummy tucks to remedy abdominal separation. It was the latest craze in plastic surgery, the "mommy makeover".
So, I had to find out what this abdominal separation was, which resulted in endless hours of online research for me. And yep, I have it. To save you some time, occasionally during pregnancy the ab muscles will stretch to a point of no return and you are left with a gap between the muscles, and I have the gap. I did tons of exercises to remedy this, and talked to my doctor. But the only solution is a tummy tuck. Based on all of the research I had done I was able to justify that I NEEDED a tummy tuck. There is a risk for hernia with abdominal separation and chronic back pain. Insurance would not pay a dime for the surgery unless I was suffering from a hernia, but the cost would be worth it right? I mean, I would be saving myself from all of this pain in the long run. So I talked to some friends and got the number for (supposedly) the best plastic surgeon.
When my appointment came, I chickened out. I cancelled at the last minute. Something just wasn't right and I knew it. But I continued to look in the mirror and hate what I saw. I wore tummy compressors, but they are not so easy to find in a size small. I also used Ace bandages to wrap my tummy down tight so that I looked better to myself. It probably didn't help my situation any when a coworker asked if I was pregnant again, on a day when I had a big lunch and was feeling bloated. So I made another appointment.
The night before my appointment both of my girls were sick with a stomach virus. And let me say, if there is anything that will keep a mother home with her babies, it's a stomach virus. So I cancelled that appointment too.
But weeks later I was still struggling with myself so I made one more attempt to see the surgeon. And you probably wouldn't believe it, but Ashton got sick again that night. Stomach virus, again. So I cancelled AGAIN and stayed home with her. Can we say, Divine Intervention?
Clearly this just wasn't meant to be at this point in my life so I pushed it off to the back burner. The kids were getting sick so often and I would need some recovery time but I just didn't think I would have time for recovery with the girls needing me so much right now. So I moved on to find more things that I hated about myself.
While helping Abby brush her teeth I had her put her teeth together so I could brush the front. I have an underbite that I have had all my life. Most people don't notice it so it usually doesn't bother me much. But this night, Abby extended her bottom teeth in front of her top teeth so that she could smile like mom. And at that very moment, I hated my teeth. And for days she kept smiling with her teeth that way and I kept having to tell her to smile the right way because Mommy's teeth are not right. So you could probably guess what happened next. I found a seat at the Orthodontist. I had braces as a kid but had a bad orthodontist. And for the cost of $7000 I could "probably" fix the underbite. But then I would need veneers to fix my splotchy teeth and that would be another $5000. But they were willing to work with me on financing. In my mind I kept trying to figure out how to work this out. Maybe I could use my tax refund each year to pay for my teeth to look pretty....
And then it happened. I had a meltdown. Since Ashton was born I had been struggling with my hormones fluctuating, some days I was irritable and angry and could hardly deal with Abby if she did anything wrong. She was 4 years old and on this morning she was fighting me trying not to sit in her seat in the car. She kept taking her seat belt off and I lost it. I said things I shouldn't have said and I treated her like she was worthless. My husband stepped in. We finally got her in the car and I was able to drop the kids off so I could go to work. But I couldn't go to work that day. I couldn't stop crying for how I had behaved and how much I hated feeling so angry inside. I didn't want to feel like this and I didn't want to treat my family this way. They didn't deserve it.
I called my Dr knowing that if I didn't talk to someone right then it would be easy to look back and justify my behavior or act as though things weren't as bad as they were. But my Dr's office was booked. So I called another Dr, and they were booked too. But I guess my sobbing on the end of the line worried the receptionist at the first office, because she called me back in a few minutes telling me they were going to squeeze me in right now.
That day I was prescribed an anti-depressant to help control my mood swings. My husband was upset with the way I had acted that morning, but he supported me in seeking help. And a million times I apologized to Abby and promised to never treat her that way again. I never wanted to be "that" person. You know the one that we so often stigmatize who relies on anti-depressants to deal with life. But looking back I can be sure of one thing, this was the work of God's Divine Intervention over my life. Within a matter of weeks my poor self image had dissolved and I was able to remember that I am a child of God, created in his perfect image - even with my squishy mushy gut and bad teeth.
Since that day a lot of things have changed at our house. If we receive magazines or other things in the mail featuring women in bikins or similar ads, they go straight in the trash. Because the truth is, those women are not real. They are air brushed and digitally enhanced to make up someone's fantasy of what an ideal figure should be. I am real, and YOU are real. We are far from perfect, and we never will find perfection. The answer isn't found in cosmetic surgery, but in accepting that God made YOU. He formed you in your mother's womb, wonderfully and perfectly made. How can it get any better than that?
So if you are reading this today and hating yourself, I encourage you to talk to your doctor. Medication is not evil, it's only evil if we abuse it. God gave us the ingredients to create the medicine and gave man the knowledge to make it. It is HIS. Everything is HIS.
And in case you are wondering about the adoption....it's still going good, it's just slow, and will be slow for awhile. But today I can say I would much rather invest $12,000 in the life of a child than wasting it on my teeth!
