Just a little update! I am no longer pregnant. I had an emergency c-section on May 10 because of pre-eclampsia. Our son is perfectly healthy thank goodness! Then I had a second surgery on May 11 because of internal bleeding, and a third operation on May 12 it was still bleeding (because of the anti-coagulants I take since a carotid problem I had in 2020). The 3 surgeries in 36 hours (2 of which under general anesthesia) have really taken a toll on my body. I was in so much pain, couldn’t walk/ sit up/ stand… My whole body was falling apart: low hemoglobin, anemia, not holding on to fluids, horrible stomach pain and gas, pressure sore at my coccyx from laying on my back… Nothing worked anymore basically. Also, my breast milk didn’t come (or at least not in sufficient quantities to feed my baby). It’s now been a week since my third surgery and I am finally feeling a bit better. This whole experience has reminded me of how important health is above looks. I love to look slim, but it’s really nothing if I am unhealthy. I lost all of my pregnancy weight and even more (went from 56kg to 47kg in 9 days!). I look and feel like a ghost. So for the past few days I have been eating everything they give me at the clinic, including carbs and dessert. I eat everything that is on my tray, period. I really think I can use the extra food right now so I don’t even let myself question it with thoughts of “am I still hungry?” or “do I really want this?” Before I got pregnant I thought I had found food freedom and that I didn’t have any fear foods anymore. This is true, but I now realize that I still have one big fear : eating “too much”. I would allow myself to have whatever I wanted but always smallish quantities. Also, I was *never* allowing myself to eat if I wasn’t hungry, just because something sounded good. So now I really want to focus on 1) healing my body 2) letting myself eat more and 3) allowing myself to eat because of the experience sometimes. Like on my birthday (May 14 - I was still at the clinic) my mom brought me cake. I didn’t eat it in front of her - even though I knew she would have loved to see me eat it - because I wasn’t hungry. I kept it for after dinner because I was hungry then. I want to be able to eat birthday cake when I’m not hungry. I think it’s something that most people do so why can’t I? I think I might start a new journal on here so that I can continue on this journey and hold myself accountable not to go back to my old ways.

Thank you @Joyce ! we are super excited to welcome our little boy in just a few weeks! @Sheena thank you for sharing your experience! I hope I will also manage to leverage my intuitive eating background so that I will be able to lose the pregnancy weight in a healthy way without falling back into old disordered eating patterns. @skwigg seeing Rihanna owning her new body does make me feel a bit better! It’s funny because on some days (like today) I feel amazing and I think I look like a fertility goddess lol! But on other days/ weeks, I feel like complete crap. I guess it’s the hormones and also I am very sensitive to my digestive health: when my digestion is good and I feel normal hunger cues I feel a lot better. On the other hand, on the days that I am constipated/ have heartburn/ have zero appetite I generally feel a lot worse about my body and I struggle with disordered eating thoughts a lot more. I noticed that it also depends on how tired I am. I was working full-time until last Friday and I now realize I was exhausted. This week has been so great because I am now on maternity leave and I can actually rest and do what feels good. I have been walking a lot more, which helps with swollen ankles. Today I met up with a (pregnant) friend for cappuccino and chocolate croissant, then I had an amazing lunch in the sun, and in the afternoon I finally had a massage for my lower back which had been killing me for the past few weeks. Tonight I had a delicious dinner with my husband and we polished off quite a bit of our Easter chocolate. I ate a lot of yummy non-diet things and yet I had zero disordered thoughts. Prioritizing self care in general is really helpful.

Thank you for your messages @juliebookasia and @skwigg ! @juliebookasia that’s exactly how I feel: I am super grateful (and excited!!) to be creating this tiny human, but at the same time I am struggling with my body image and old ED thoughts creeping back in. I trust that the weight will probably come off easily (although I am still dreading the first weeks postpartum with the squishy belly) and I have to keep reminding myself that it’s all temporary. And @skwigg , you are 100% correct in that my logical brain understands that it's normal to gain weight during pregnancy but my ED brain has woken up due to the changes in my body. How did I shut it down before? If I remember correctly, I just couldn’t take it anymore - I was hungry all the time and I knew I wasn’t living my life the way I wanted. So I started saying yes to social occasions, breaking my food rules one by one and challenging my negative body image thoughts. It took a long time and yet I now realize that it was probably still easier than now because overall I (kind of) liked my body back then. I had abs and - even though I was not at my skinniest - I was still slim. I try to apply the same strategies now, but the difference is that I don’t love my body now. My belly is huge and everything is jiggly. Even my boobs are huge (and I have never had big boobs before)! I kind of wish we could lay eggs :) Oh and the hormones - they are crazy yes! First trimester I was really irritable and now I cry my eyes out for no reason!! Thank you for reminding me that they also probably play a role on the days I feel like crap. In that respect, I find that pregnancy is like PMS on steroids. For the past couple weeks, I have been really trying to let go a bit and start eating “less clean” again. We have a lot of Easter candy in the house at the moment, which I am enjoying a lot. I also stopped doing kettlebells and I am now doing prenatal yoga. I bought myself a pair of maternity jeans that actually fit me nicely and that’s also been helpful for my confidence. This weekend we are going out to eat 3 times and I will try my best to order what actually sounds good (within the safety guidelines for pregnancy of course so no raw meat etc.) instead of the lightest thing I can find on the menu.

Thank you but repeating the weight gain guidelines is not really helpful. These guidelines say “all amounts are approximate” because everybody is different. It’s like the BMI calculation; it doesn’t work for everybody. As I said, my mother only gained 10kg (22 pounds) with all 3 of her pregnancies. I have a very similar physique to hers so I will probably end up in the same range - or not, who knows! As long as I am not restricting, my weight will end up where it’s supposed to. The point is not how much I should gain , it’s the mental aspect and the mental struggles that come with gaining weight and seeing my body change. I am just finding it difficult to accept those changes. If you don’t understand/ can’t relate that’s totally fine.

I am sorry if my post irritated you. I was just sharing my thoughts as I thought maybe someone else struggled with this. I know I *should* not care about weight gain in pregnancy because pregnant women are supposed to gain weight, but eating disorders don’t work like this - try telling an anorexic person that he/she *should* eat. I’m pretty sure they know, and yet they can’t/ they struggle to do so. Anyway, I don’t think those weight gain guidelines are applicable to everyone. My mom gained 10max with all her pregnancies and she never had eating disorders but she is slim. I am eating to fullness and I have gained 8kg so far and I still have a month to go. My gynecologist says it’s fine and my baby is growing as he should. I am just really struggling with body image and accepting myself with this huge belly. I know it’s normal to have a big belly while pregnant but I still hate it. Can’t help it. I feel like shit no matter what I wear and I don’t feel like being intimate with husband because I am so self conscious.

Thank you for the congratulations and great advice/ insights!! @skwigg , what you wrote about telling another pregnant woman that she shouldn’t gain weight/ have such a big stomach really struck a chord! What an awful thing to say and also I know that pregnant women are objectively supposed to gain weight/ grow a belly, so my thoughts are ridiculous! However, I do find it hard to love my body if it’s not thin and I don’t have a flat stomach. @Hayley , thank you for sharing your experience! I can relate to wanting to gain as little weight as possible during pregnancy and being eager to return to exercising and “bouncing back”. It’s too early for me to say that I “missed out” but I definitely haven’t been enjoy being pregnant and I know it’s purely due to my difficulties in accepting the changes in my body. But you are right that this is all temporary; I have to keep reminding myself of that. Of course this also opens the door to other thoughts like “what is my body going to look like after the baby is born? will I have loose skin? stretch marks? cellulite?” But I will try to take it one step at a time. The crazy thing is that I was so sure that I was “100% recovered” from my eating issues, but I guess it’s actually a lifelong battle. It's easy not to obsess about food when you effortlessly maintain a body thin enough for your taste. I had not yet been in a position where I wanted to lose weight or didn’t like my body since finding my “happy eating place” so now comes the real challenge. @Tonya you are exactly right regarding the “out of body” experiences! My body feels foreign and actually when someone asks me what it’s like to be pregnant my answer is: “everything feels weird” (your belly changes, you grow hair in weird places, your boobs change, your emotions are all over the place, your libido is different, your taste is different, you smell different…) But maybe this could actually help me take a step back and talk to myself as I would talk to another person! It sounds kind of weird but maybe I can use the fact that “pregnant me” doesn’t feel like “me” to talk to it as if it were another person. I am not sure it makes sense but I will try it!