The P! True Pregnancy After WLS story

Everywhere I go . . .
People wanna know . . .
'Bout pregnancy after weight loss surgery. . .
So I tell them:

And just when you were thinking I don't keep my promises. Yes, I did remember that I'd promised this.

So, how long between your surgery and your pregnancy, anyway?
I had roux en y gastric bypass on October 15, 2002. I found out that I was pregnant in late September 2003. So, not quite a year between the two. Weight-wise (for those of you who measure "in-between" in poundage increments), I weighed about half of what I did when I had surgery. So, in other words, I was down about 150 lbs.

Did you get knocked-up on purpose, or was it one of those post-surgery hormones-gone-wild like I read 'bout with gastric bypass? Or, your malabsorption fucking with your birth control pills? Or quite simply a Festivus miracle?
Naturally, since post-wls email groups are always chatting on (and on and on and on . . . ) about those Surprise! pregnancies after wls, I couldn't help but wonder about it (who the hell could not?). But the truth is, I was just sloppy with my birth control, which is something that pre-surgery I could always get away with. Immediately following my surgery though, I was ultra-strict with the birth control, really I was quite devout. But that is not my norm and I soon returned to my slovenly ways, as I am so totally unaccustomed to such disciplined birth control practices after marriage. Honestly, since finding out I had pcos, I've been fast and loose with the birth control So Much that I never gave a thought to it catching up to me. Or, if I ever did, those were way back in the day and I've completely forgotten that I had them. So, even though the pregnancy was a surprise, it wouldn't have been a surprise to a normal person and even though it was unexpected, we were certainly happy. I mean, come on, I am a recovering infertile, after all. And I naturally love to pee on sticks.

So, I've heard that after gastric bypass, you hardly gain any weight while pregnant and afterwards, the weight just melts off you like magic. So . . . did ya? Did Ya? Did you lose weight while you were pregnant?
I gained loads of weight while pregnant, much like a pig being fattened for the slaughter, somewhere in the neighborhood of 40lbs or so. Keep in mind this is in sharp, sharp, oh-so-sharp contrast to the rest of those bitches on the pregnant after rny chat room who leave pregnancy weighing at least 62 lbs less than before. And, God, yes, it was disheartening to see the scale rapidly climbing back The Bad Way, since I'd become so used to seeing it slide down The Good Way. And especially since those aforementioned bitches had assured me that weight gain just wouldn't happen. Seriously though, that kinda exaggerates the amoung of my angst over my pregnancy weight gain. In the moment, I was way too totally wrapped up in the baby-growing and dead baby thoughts to obsess much over my pregnancy weight. Dr. W said that my weight gain was totally fine, so he was my enabler in this instance. Plus, there were lots times I could hardly keep anything down (both wls and the pg were causes of this) and if I didn't eat, I got incredibly light-headed, and like only 5 different things would stay in my pouch (aka stomach for those non-wls people). And at least 1 of those things was named pizza. So. Therefore. When only 5 things will stay in your pouch and one of them is pizza, you can only worry about weight gain so much, ya know? Cletus the Fetus had to eat sumpthin'.

Did you have an easier pregnancy/do you think your pregnancy was easier since you weighed less?

Hell yeah. Even though at the end, my pregnancy went to hell in a handbasket, I really never felt bad bad. I think I was always used to feeling "bad" because of my obesity and I had felt "bad" because of the obesity for so fucking long, that pregnancy complaints just never touched that level of bad-ness. Which may have led to the delay of my HELLP syndrome diagnosis. I totally believe that if I had weighed nearly 300 lbs (like back in the old days), that pre-eclampsia/HELLP syndrome would've found me much earlier. At least I was almost at term and in otherwise good health when the bad shit started.

Good things about wls and pregnancy?

Getting pregnant at all, ever, in the first place! Starting pregnancy with no blood-pressure or blood-sugar medications and in reasonably good health! Fitting into normal-sized maternity clothes! Actually being able to look pregnant!

Bad things about wls and pregnancy?

Lingering, sneaking, guilty doubts about possibility of malnutrition playing crucial role in causation of pre-eclampsia. Difficulty in choking down horse-pill-sized prenatal vitamins.

How did pregnancy affect your surgery results? Did it "undo" your gastric bypass? Come on, do tell about how those excess pounds just melted right off.

Ahem. Well now. Honestly, to this day I am still up 10 lbs from my prepregnancy weight. I can't seem to shake those, unfuckingfortunately. My pouch is no longer the "enforcer" that it was prepregnancy, but I have no way of knowing if that's due to the pregnancy or simply due to the fact that I'm two years out of surgery. I have to consciously strive to make healthy choices when I eat (much like a so-called normal person) and I'm told that this is a normal stage for someone as far out from surgery as I am. Shit. So. I am currently deluding myself that once Baby C sleeps through the night reliably, I'll feel more like exercising. And that actually may happen. 'Cause I do miss exercising. Well, as much as one can miss exercising. Well, I miss the quiet solitude that a mother gets for a blessed 3-4 times per week when she shuts herself into a room with headphones and a treadmill and suffers through the goddamned exercising.

So, any regrets about the whole shebang?

Well, that's hard to say. I do wish I'd had wls sooner in my life. I wasted too much time being scared of the surgery and suffering with my weight and and and . . . I just wished I'dve done it sooner is all. But that is just my experience with wls, and may not be true for anyone else at all ever. Ideally, I wish that I had been a little further out from surgery before getting knocked up, but a girl who is as unfertile as me kinda has to take any pg she can get, ya know? I wish I'd waited just a bit more, solely to have given my blood pressure time to stabilize. Pre-wls, I'd suffered from high blood pressure. However, since the spring following my surgery, my blood pressure was firmly in the normal range. Would a few more months of being normal bp-wise have prevented my pre-eclampsia? Or is this just more of me trying to blame myself for my body's shitty reproductive tendencies? Who the hell knows.

I feel like I'm forgetting vitally important info here, so let me know if I haven't answered your questions. Really, I do what I can. Really.