Turning Point, part 2

Once I got over the shock of the phone call telling me that, no, I was not going to have surgery; and therefore no, I was not going to be a parent anytime soon, I began a rapid cycle of emotions not dissimilar to the stages of grief. Denial lasted maybe an hour, then quickly morphed into depression, which clung for several hours before morphing into anger – a lot of it. I was really, really mad. First at Dr. S herself, for raising our hopes so high and then letting a cheerful voice on the phone pull the rug out from under us. Second, at Cheerful Voice herself, for not having more tact and for not giving me any direction other than “go see your doctor.” Third, and most of all, at myself for being in such poor health. I was angry, I was crushed, and I felt completely helpless. (This is important, because the helplessness is the key that turned the lock for me.) At that point in my life, I had reached a place where I felt as if there was nothing I could do to change my level of health. I had had so many years of failure, of struggling, of praying, of gritting my teeth and screwing up my courage and manufacturing will-power, trying so hard to change, that I had effectively given up. I was a victim of circumstances, of genetics, of the restaurant industry, of the ticking clock, and because of this I was to be denied my lifelong dream of having children.

My mother, poor thing, was witness to some of this anger and the subsequent bargaining stage. Naturally nothing she said was getting through to me. One of the things she pointed out was that I could try another fertility doctor, but even in my state of mind I knew that shopping for a doctor who was willing to take a bigger risk was not a smart idea. I was still open to adoption, but I believed I was also facing a genuine loss: the loss of the possibility of bearing a child myself, and it hurt! I heard myself saying aloud “I’m not going to have a baby. I’m never going to have a baby. This is so unfair!”

Being a Christian, and believing that prayer is a powerful thing, I naturally took the matter to God. I had been praying about my weight, my health, and the issue of parenthood for years; but I must admit this particular prayer session was more whining than anything else: “Why, Lord? I would be a good mom, I know I would! Why do we have to work so hard to be parents when so many others fall into it? It’s not right! And why is my body betraying me? Why can’t I lose weight and get healthy? I’ve been praying and trying for so many years and I am not getting anywhere!” and so on, you get the idea.

It was in the moment, when I was teetering on the border between depression and rage that I felt the following words speaking deep in my spirit: "This is something you have control over.”

Now, I am quite sure that I have heard those words before, likely thousands of times, but for some reason, this time, perhaps because of my emotional or spiritual or mental state, I really heard them. There was a locked door in my mind, and those words were the key that fit the lock. Call it an epiphany if you like, but in that moment I had a fundamental change in my thinking. Nothing had changed in my circumstances, or my health, or my body; but something changed in my brain. For the first time in a long time I felt like I had some power. I found myself standing in front of the mirror, talking to myself (stop laughing, you’ve done it too, and if you haven’t perhaps you should try it!), saying things like: “You can lose weight if you want to. You are the one who decides what goes into your mouth. What? Are those chocolate chip cookies buying themselves and leaping onto your mouth while you are sleeping? You are the one who decides if you are going to exercise. You can choose your behavior. What? Do you expect God to zap you with awesome metabolism, a love of sweat and a hatred for sugar? What about free will, hmmm? You are not a puppet or a robot or an infant. Is it going to be easy? Probably not – but what have you accomplished by doing what is easy, huh? Nothing, that’s what, So get with it, missy!”

That was the beginning, and since then I have lost 40 pounds, lowered my A1C to 5.9, developed better eating habits, begun regular exercise, and no, it hasn’t been a cake walk but it hasn’t been that hard, either. Why? Because my thinking changed. I don't want to oversimplify things, but you have to be in the right head-space in order to lose weight successfully. For some people, like me, it takes an emotional benchmark. For others, perhaps, it does not have to be so dramatic. I also believe that I was praying for the wrong thing for years. What I wanted was to eat whatever I wanted, lie on the couch watching TV instead of exercising, and be thin and healthy. I just couldn’t understand why God wouldn’t let me have it that way. I wanted to have all of the benefits of self-control and self-discipline without practicing either, and it just doesn’t work that way.

So that is my story; at least the beginning of the story. And by the way: I am having the surgery this Friday. :-)