9 Life in the (Fat) Mommy Lane

I tell people how much I love to drive my minivan. I have friends who flat-out refuse to buy such a vehicle; doing so, to them, is officially cashing in every cool point they ever had. I thought I was one of those people. Before I had kids, I told anyone who would listen that I wouldn’t be caught dead in the modern-day version of the “family truckster.” I had a zippy little red Toyota Corolla that was excellent on gas and therefore perfect for my two-hour-a-day commute. It had leather seats and a sunroof, and even though I was way over 250 pounds, somehow I felt sleek and hip driving that little car. Mind you, getting out of the thing as a very large person was no easy task. I learned to park in such a way that I would not have an audience when I exited the vehicle—no one needed to witness that heave-ho process. And I avoided parking on inclines like the plague—they made it nearly impossible for me to break free from the front seat.

When I had my first baby, I dutifully put her car carrier in the middle of the backseat, because safety experts agree that is the best place for a baby. And because she was in an infant seat, it was easy enough to snap her into place and put the carrier on the base that always stayed anchored in the back. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that eventually they outgrow the infant seat, usually at around six months or so. That’s when you have to physically get in the back with them and strap them into a larger chair. And the babies are no longer quiet little snuggly newborns either; often moms have to wrangle, convince, cajole, even wrestle their children into the seat. It’s a lot of work, not to mention what it takes to physically haul yourself in and out of the car. So when I was pregnant with Eli, I was relieved we had outgrown my zippy little Corolla and gladly gave in to the mounting pressure to get a certified mommy mobile. With a minivan there’s no bending down, no heaving yourself in and out, all while maneuvering a squirmy child. It’s easy peasy, if not very stylish or hip. Whatever. I was really in no position to fight for cool points.

As a very obese woman, I realized motherhood was going to be somewhat different for me. The extra weight I carried touched every aspect of my life, and I knew being a mother certainly wouldn’t provide an exception to that rule. Heck, I even had doctors try to talk me out of getting pregnant while I was so heavy. And now that I’ve been pregnant twice while being grossly overweight, I’m not sure I disagree with their warnings. I wouldn’t want to see anyone deprive herself of happiness, but I also believe that mothers have to put their children’s needs before their own. I had to seriously question my ability to do that when I watched my newborn son in the NICU, in no small part due to my inability to put his health before my food addiction. Did I mean to cause my baby harm? No. But could I have avoided his being sick by waiting to get pregnant until my weight was under control? Undeniably, yes. There are so many things that can go wrong in a normal pregnancy, so maybe it is a good idea to avoid having a child while you’re fat. Life as a large woman is certainly tough enough without adding carrying a baby to the mix. Not to mention actually giving birth and all that entails. It is, of course, possible to have a baby when you are obese, even morbidly obese. But trust me when I say it is not ideal, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Many doctors say the differences between a normal-size woman and an obese woman being pregnant start at conception. In other words, it’s way more difficult for a heavy woman to conceive a child. The theory is once a woman reaches a certain weight, she stops ovulating. Having been told this by more than one doctor, I assumed it would take many months and a small miracle for me to conceive, but alas, that was not the case—I got pregnant right away, both times. But it didn’t take long for the differences between me and my thin counterparts to crop up. It actually started with peeing on the stick.

We’ve all seen the commercials: Find out if you’re pregnant five days sooner if you buy this certain pregnancy test. Anyone who knows me knows that patience is one of many virtues I sorely lack. So once Michael and I decided to try to get pregnant, I had to know immediately if our efforts were successful. So I figured those standard at-home tests were for chumps—I was going to get the test you could take five days before your missed period. I was going to find out as soon as possible!

So I bought the test. I peed on the stick. I waited. No second line; I wasn’t pregnant. I was so disappointed, and a little part of me wondered if the doctors were right, if perhaps I was so fat that I’d stopped ovulating and it would be impossible for me to get pregnant. Sadly, I broke the news to Michael: We were not successful.

Only, more than a week later, my period still hadn’t arrived. And I’m never late. And maybe my mind was just playing cruel tricks on me, but I could swear I was feeling some breast tenderness, one of the many early, telltale signs of pregnancy. I bought a standard at-home pregnancy test. I peed and waited. And it took forever, but finally, very, very faintly, a second line showed up. I thought … I was pretty sure … I was pregnant.

Before getting too excited, I called the doctor’s office and spoke with the nurse. I explained how the early test was negative, my period was late, and the regular test looked faintly positive. “Sounds to me like you’re pregnant,” the nurse declared. I was ecstatic. My heart pounding, I asked her what she thought about the early test coming out negative. Did that mean that something was wrong? The nurse laughed, saying I was probably fine. “Are you very overweight, dear?” she asked. My smile quickly faded and I swallowed hard. “Um … yeah,” I said, weakly. “Well, that’s probably it, hon. When you’re heavier, it’s harder to detect the HCG hormone in your urine.” I couldn’t believe it. My being fat hadn’t kept me from getting pregnant, but it had already inserted itself into my pregnancy experience—and had done so even before I knew for sure I was with child! How else would my weight affect the next nine months? I had to wonder.

In more ways than I could dream. I wasn’t as heavy with my first pregnancy as I was with my second, but still I was about 260 when I became pregnant with Emma. So you can imagine there was no little pregnancy bump to speak of, no one coming up to me and gasping with glee at my burgeoning belly, asking me the due date of my blessed event. Indeed, me as a pregnant woman definitely fell into that category of “Don’t ask.” You men know what I’m talking about: If you don’t know for sure a woman is pregnant, never, ever ask her if she is. That should just be man code, something they teach you along with how to aim straight when peeing or how you never complain about your wife’s cooking in front of your mother. You just don’t do it. Thankfully, I am most relieved to report, no one has ever asked me if I was pregnant when I wasn’t; I have mercifully been spared that humiliation. But conversely, I missed out on all the happy speculation and surprise—I had to tell everyone, or always remind everyone, that I was indeed pregnant. Strangers really didn’t know just by taking a look at me. And there were no cute maternity clothes to buy—no oversize tops to graduate to, no borrowing my husband’s long-sleeved work shirts to wear to bed. My already limited wardrobe was now stretched to the max as my belly grew, and at the end I found myself shopping at the big and tall men’s specialty shops. Nothing says “cute little pregnant girl” like a beefy T-shirt in 4X.

I was even bigger when I got pregnant with my son, not far from three hundred pounds. And I had the same problems with detecting the pregnancy in the beginning; I had to take several at-home tests before getting a faint positive result. But this time around, there were further issues. When I went in for that first vaginal ultrasound, the doctor couldn’t see the baby. “You’re sure the home test was positive?” he asked, and I nodded my head yes, my heart sinking. He called the lab, and the pee test they’d performed had been positive as well. Perplexed, he sent me to the large ultrasound room, where the technician was able to find the baby right away. The stress of the whole experience took years from my life, especially since Michael and I had announced to our whole family we were pregnant again just days before, at Emma’s first birthday party. But I was relieved to call Michael and tell him everything was all right—because of my weight, the vaginal ultrasound had trouble detecting the pregnancy. And the same exact thing happened the next month: My regular doctor tried to do a vaginal ultrasound and couldn’t see the baby. So once again I had to have an ultrasound done using the large machine, where everything was all right. I tried to take it in stride, but these little scares were stressful! By the third month my baby’s heartbeat should have been detectable with a Doppler, but the nurse couldn’t hear it. My doctor was called in, and she reassured me right away: Sometimes in early pregnancy, it was hard to hear the heartbeat, especially if the mom was heavy. I choked back tears as I went yet again for the big ultrasound machine, and yet again, everything was fine. I was barely four months pregnant, and I already had more ultrasound pictures than I’d had during my entire first pregnancy. If these early weeks were any indication, it was going to be a rough road.

I suppose there was a bit of a silver lining: I didn’t gain much weight with either pregnancy. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a conscious effort on my part. In the beginning with Emma, I ate heartily, for once not feeling guilty about every morsel of food that went into my mouth. But then I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and the ballgame changed. I had to watch what I ate, and that affected my weight gain. I will say that my doctors never really scolded me about how heavy I was; it was as though they figured it was too late to worry about it so what was the point in berating the mother? I didn’t feel pressured about my weight, and perhaps consequently, my weight gain was kept to a minimum. Score one for the big woman’s side.

When it came time to have Emma, my water broke but I didn’t have contractions. They admitted me to the hospital and started to administer pitocin. They outfitted me with a baby monitor, a belt that wrapped around my belly that measured my baby’s heartbeat. What a thrilling sound that was! I’d spent most of my pregnancy a paranoid mess, always wondering if she was doing all right. Now I could lie there and listen to my baby’s heartbeat all night—I found it so reassuring. Only, the belt kept coming unattached, and we had to call the nurse in there several times to hook it back up. Finally our nurse called her supervisor, a woman who was clearly having a bad night and seemed tired and frustrated. She started to show my nurse how to fix the problem, and I guess for a moment she forgot that I, the patient, was sitting right there. “Sometimes this happens with our big mommies,” she muttered as she wrestled with the belt. My nurse looked mortified, and I guess the whole room, filled with my parents, brother, and other family members, just kind of stood there in shock. The nurse finally realized her faux pas, looked at me, and smiled nervously. “Oh, hon, I’m sorry.” She truly looked upset, and I couldn’t stand it. I laughed and patted her arm. “It’s okay. You’re just telling the truth!” I said, somehow anxious to make her feel better. She slunk out of the room, and my mom looked like she was going to kill her. But I shrugged it off. I guess I was too excited to meet my baby to get worked up.

Despite pushing for a few hours, I was unable to get Emma out—she was stuck in the birth canal. My doctor recommended a C-section, and I was too tired to argue. Emma Taylor Joyner was born, weighing in at eight pounds, three ounces. She was beautiful, and I was relieved. I was anxious to try and nurse her right away, and the nurses encouraged me to do so, even though it would be a couple of days before my milk came in. But try as I might, I just couldn’t get Emma to latch on. I found the whole process awkward and uncomfortable, and I’m sure no small measure of that had to do with the fact that I’d had a C-section and was incredibly sore, and it was hard for me to move around in the hospital bed.

But being so overweight, I’m also sure, played a role; I just couldn’t get into any sort of position that worked. My breasts were a swollen, misshapen mess, and my big protruding belly seemed to get in the way of putting the baby in a position that accommodated the nursing process. Bless Michael’s cousin Jenna’s heart—she literally got in bed with me and tried to help me put the baby where she could drink. It was horribly embarrassing, but I was determined to try and provide my baby with the best nutritional start possible. No matter what we tried, what position we went for, we couldn’t get it to work. I called in a lactation specialist, but she wasn’t expected until the next day, and the hospital nursery asked if I minded if they gave Emma some formula from a syringe. I wanted her to have my milk, but I couldn’t get it to work and I was worried about her nutrition. I reluctantly agreed.

The lactation specialist came the next day, and when we couldn’t rouse Emma from sleeping enough to try nursing, she showed me how to pump. She also gave me some tips to try when Emma was more awake, but no luck there, either. They recommended someone else, and I was going to call—but admittedly, I gave up. I was too ashamed … I felt like I was too big and my swollen, disproportioned boobs were too weird. I decided, dejectedly, that breast-feeding wasn’t for me. But I knew breast milk was best for Emma, so I pumped for three months. Yes, it was a huge inconvenience, and it made me sleep deprived beyond belief. I also missed out on the beautiful bonding experience I’ve heard so many mothers talk about. Eventually my body couldn’t keep up the milk supply, and I had to let go of pumping. I did try, and I did give myself some credit for that. But to me, breast-feeding was just one more casualty of my being fat.

Pregnancy and birthing problems aside, I was eventually sent home with healthy babies on two separate occasions. And I am so grateful for that—we all know the myriad things that can go wrong, and I feel blessed to have faced relatively minor challenges in conceiving and birthing my children. But my weight was only beginning to color the experience of being a mother, in ways that I couldn’t even imagine.

There are the embarrassing, gotta-laugh-or-you’ll-cry moments that tend to pop up everywhere in life, but more so when you are an overweight mom. Take the time Emma was a baby in the church nursery and I attempted to participate in a Bible study once a week. Regularly, I’d get called down to soothe my not-yet-walking baby—she was fussy and just didn’t like being there without her mommy. Usually I’d rock her in the rocking chair while she calmed down, and eventually she’d scurry off my lap and crawl across the floor to play. When that happened, I tried to sneak out of the room without her seeing me leave and getting upset. One time I stood up so quickly, the snug rocking chair stuck to my ass. Meaning, I was too big for the chair, and when I stood up, the chair went along with me. It took some effort to wedge the arms of the chair off of my hips and put the chair back down. I wish I could say there were no witnesses to this spectacle, but you know that’s not the case. Several of the nursery workers, along with a few moms, saw the horrible event. What did I do? The only thing I could do. I laughed—and they slowly laughed with me. I could have let it shame me into oblivion, but mercifully, I was able to find the humor in the situation. This, of course, was an exception for me.

There are, unfortunately, several pitfalls for an overweight mom to fall into along the path of motherhood. When Emma was just six months old, I enrolled her in an infant music class. Some may think it’s a silly idea, but I thought it would be great to take my baby to a fun environment, expose her to some music and other babies, and possibly help introduce myself to other moms. Because I’d worked so much, at a job out of town, I hardly knew anyone in my city, let alone women with children. I thought this class would be a great way to have fun with Emma and make some friends. I just didn’t get that it would be so physical. Emma was crawling at this point, so she was constantly scurrying out of my lap as we all sat in a circle on the floor. It hadn’t been easy for me to get down there in the first place, and here I was, having to heave myself up to chase a baby, several times in a row, in a small room with no windows. By the end of the class, I was tired, sweaty, and winded. I was already self-conscious about my size; these conditions made it even more difficult to get comfortable enough to let my guard down and get to know these strangers.

Thankfully, I did eventually find some mommy friends to hang with, and boy did I need them. When Emma was barely walking, and I’d just found out I was pregnant with Eli, I was at a restaurant with an indoor play area for kids. There was a little toddler section to play in, along with one of those large indoor slides that bigger kids had to crawl up into and go through a maze of tunnels before sliding back down. The other moms let their babies climb the slide, so I shrugged my shoulders and let Emma do it, too. Only, Emma got stuck. And screamed. And I couldn’t reach her—I was physically too big to get up there to get her. One of the other moms realized my dilemma and climbed up to retrieve my child. I was mortified. I soon learned to visit those places only when I had a very close friend with me or my husband—I couldn’t risk having to admit to a perfect stranger that I was too fat to rescue my daughter.

Anytime we were invited to a playdate, I had to scope out the location and size up the possibility for disaster. Bounce houses? Forget it. How was I going to be able to climb in and get my child if he or she needed me? With my luck I would deflate the damn thing! You know how the mall has Santa trains at Christmas time? No way. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fit in those little cars, and my children were too young to ride by themselves. So we only went when Daddy could go with us and I could feign the excuse of having to stay out and take pictures. And let’s not even talk about the little chairs in the preschool classes. When Emma was two, her class hosted a mommy’s day tea. All the moms were to sit at the little tables, on the preschool chairs, and have tea and cookies served to us by our kids. Only I couldn’t trust that those little chairs could hold me, or that I’d be able to get up once I managed to actually sit down in them. So I stood up and drank my tea like a moron while everyone else sat, acting as though it was perfectly normal. No one said anything, thankfully.

There are literally hundreds of examples like that when it comes to being a fat mom. I remember seeing mothers sitting on the swings at the park with their babies in their lap, pumping their legs, going higher and higher to their kids’ delight. Eli asked me to swing him, but I told him we had to hurry up and get home. I couldn’t admit to my son that I was afraid the swing would break under my weight. I avoided paddleboats with Emma because life vests were mandatory, and I just knew there wouldn’t be one to fit me. Instead of risking the humiliation of finding that out in front of a crowd of people, I feigned a headache and said we had to leave. At a birthday party, I told the other moms I got carsick, and asked if they would do a hayride with Emma. I watched on the sidelines as another mom held my daughter on her lap and I took pictures. I was too scared I’d cause the trailer to scrape the ground.

Probably the worst thing was water. It’s been duly noted that I avoided wearing a bathing suit for years—I just couldn’t bear “baring it all” in public. But what are you supposed to do when you have young children who can’t swim? You can’t just send them in the water and hope for the best. This may explain why Emma was two and a half before she ever saw the ocean, despite our living only an hour and a half away from the coast. The first time Emma and Eli stepped foot on the beach, I made sure I had reinforcements, taking along both Michael and my mom. They each grabbed a hand and took my babies into the water while I watched from the sidelines, fully clothed. The next year, Mom couldn’t make it, and Michael and I took a day trip to the beach ourselves with the kids. I still couldn’t bring myself to buy a bathing suit, so I watched as Michael tried to handle two toddlers in the surf by himself. He was more than a little annoyed with me, and I was so sad I was missing out on the fun. I knew something had to be done, but I couldn’t imagine being in a swimsuit, weighing more than three hundred pounds. Friends would invite us to their pools, and I always made an excuse. I just couldn’t put myself out there.

My biggest disappointment as a fat mom was pictures, or the lack thereof. When my children were born, I did the obligatory hospital photos with them, me looking dazed but happy alongside my pink newborns. And even when we first brought them home, there are shots of me outside holding them with the stork in our yard announcing their birth, giving them their first bath, or simply gazing into their tiny faces. But very soon after, I started to do my usual: avoiding the camera at all costs. I, as a fat woman, became the official picture taker. In other words, I avoided being in the shot by being the one behind the lens, which is really ridiculous when you think about it—my husband makes his living as a photographer, for Pete’s sake! But I could not stand seeing photos of myself, hated the thought of leaving tangible proof behind that I was ever that big. Remember: In my mind, my situation was temporary; I was always on the verge of unlocking the mystery and finally getting the weight off.

Yes, I regretted not having pictures of me posing with Emma in her first Halloween costume, or a photo of Eli and me as he met the Easter Bunny for the first time. Pictures and videos of all my children’s birthday parties will show my mother-in-law or my mom presenting the kids with their birthday cakes, waiting for the candles to be blown out. It’s a job I should have done as their mother, but I was too embarrassed to get in front of the camera, so I stayed behind it. It made me sad, to be sure, but I figured, or at least hoped, that there would one day be plenty of pictures of me with my kids, once all of the weight was gone.

In my darker moments I beat myself up for once again letting down the ones I love. Of course my kids will notice I am not in any of the pictures. Will they wonder if I was even present for their big events? I put so much time and planning into birthday parties and Christmases. Will my children ever know how much effort I gave to make their lives picture-perfect, including leaving out photographic evidence of their big fat mother? I used my guilt to further torture myself, providing proof that in addition to having a husband I didn’t deserve, I now added two wonderful children whom I had no right to have in my life.

In the moments I tried to feel better, I would remind myself that my kids were too young to realize what was going on. I didn’t have to be embarrassed around them, because they didn’t know what fat meant or that Mommy was morbidly obese. But we all know that kids are far more perceptive than we give them credit for—mine certainly have shown me that time and time again. One day, when Emma was barely two, I was on my way out the door to pick her up from preschool when I spilled Coke on the front of my shirt. I hastily changed and hurried off to her school. As soon as I walked into her class, she came up to me and said, “Mommy change her shirt?” She remembered that four hours before, I had worn a red shirt and now I was dressed in black. And she was two! What else did she notice? I wondered. Could she see that her mommy was bigger than all the other mommies? Did that make any sort of impression on her? I started to really contemplate what my being so overweight meant for my children.

I wanted to set a good example for Emma. I so didn’t want her to struggle with her weight and her appearance like I had as a child—and I certainly would never want her to evolve into the mess that I found myself in as an adult. On the one hand, I was very strict with what she ate and the food choices that she was allowed, but what would happen when she was old enough to challenge me? How long before she realized I was setting standards for her that I didn’t bother to keep for myself? And Eli—I know it sounds childish and stupid—but I wanted my son to be proud of his mother, to feel good about having me meet his friends. Were we that far from the your-mom-is-so-fat jokes among his peers? Would I see the day when he didn’t want me to pick him up in front of the school, afraid of what others might think?

I knew being a fat mom would only grow tougher. Eventually I would have to put on a bathing suit, for heaven’s sake. Michael wouldn’t always be there to take the kids swimming for me—eventually I’d have to figure out how to get them to the beach and pool. And wearing a T-shirt over my bathing suit as a cover-up wasn’t going to work, I learned. Years before I had kids, Michael and I went with my brother, his wife, and their young daughter to a water park. Normally I would never have agreed to such an outing, so afraid was I of having to wear a bathing suit in public. But we were on a beach trip with them for a week, and I really wanted to see my then-three-year-old niece enjoy her first trip on a water slide. Michael convinced me to go, and I agreed, thinking I wouldn’t get in any kind of water, I would simply watch from the sidelines. Even though I’d managed to go the whole week without one, I did actually wear a bathing suit, just in case, but I put a T-shirt and capri pants over it, thinking I would never, ever take them off.

Well, I don’t know what in the world happened to my senses, but by the end of the day, I was tired of looking at everyone else have the fun; I wanted to participate. Michael could hardly believe it, but I followed him and my brother up the big, winding staircase to the tall, swirling water slide. My sister-in-law and niece cheered me on, staying down at the wading pool to watch me slide down. I couldn’t believe I was doing it, but I figured one time wouldn’t hurt, and besides, I planned to still wear my T-shirt over my bathing suit. Plenty of people did that to avoid sunburn, right? For once, I decided to let go and have some fun.

We got to the top, and I watched my brother go down the slide, then Michael. When it was my turn, the young teenage boy manning the slide stopped me. “I’m sorry ma’am, you can’t wear your shirt on the slide.”

What? He said something about how my shirt could get caught and I could get stuck. I was mortified, but I didn’t have time to stand there and debate what to do, there was a line of people waiting for their turn. I sure as heck wasn’t going to draw even more attention to myself by trying to argue with the kid. I quickly took off my T-shirt and sat down at the top of the slide, putting my shirt across my body. I was thinking (hoping) it would provide me enough coverage.

Of course, you know what happened. The slide was twisty and curvy and wet and jumbled and I got thrown all around. Before I knew it, I hit the daylight and the wading pool in one big splash, legs all akimbo, my T-shirt crumpled in my hands, providing no coverage whatsoever. I’m splayed out like a Thanksgiving Day turkey, and the best part is, I have my whole family there waiting for me, taking it all in. Michael immediately stepped in to help me, while my brother turned and walked away as discreetly as he could. As gracefully as possible, I stood up in the water and got the heck out of there as fast as I could, ringing out my T-shirt and putting it back on, sopping wet. Humiliating doesn’t even come close to properly describing the situation. It would be years and years before I dared to don a bathing suit in public again.

Watching on the sidelines, fully clothed while my kids swam, or trying to cover up my body with a T-shirt, was not going to work as my kids got older. And it wasn’t just water parks or Santa trains at the mall that I had to fear.

Before I had children, I learned that as a morbidly obese person, I had to avoid amusement parks at all costs. Growing up I had always loved visiting fairs and thrill rides, always game to try the latest and greatest roller coaster. As I started to gain weight, I suppose it didn’t occur to me that not all of these attractions would be available to me. When I’d reached about 250 pounds, Michael and I visited Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia. They had a brand-new roller coaster at the time called the Alpengeist—it was one of those that ran on rails above your head and your feet dangled down. The lines were long and the day was hot, but Michael and I were excited to ride, so we settled in for the wait. As I looked around, I started reading all the signs that said how the Alpengeist wasn’t for everyone and how you should avoid the ride if you were pregnant or had heart trouble. Well duh, I thought to myself. My own heart dropped to my knees, however, when I read the other signs. They said that “some larger passengers” might have difficulty fitting on the ride and that there was one row of seats reserved for “larger riders.” I gulped. I felt silly, because it hadn’t occurred to me that I might not fit on the ride. I hadn’t had any trouble with the other coasters at the park, but this was a newer, fancier ride, and apparently it had restrictions. How would we know where the line for the larger seats was? Would I have to humiliate myself and ask? Plus, could I even bring myself to tell Michael I was worried about such a thing? I looked at him while he people-watched, oblivious to my worry. I made a comment about having a headache, trying to set the stage for a possible bailout.

As we inched closer, I strained to see where the larger seats were and which line we needed to go to in order to get them. I didn’t see any signs, so I just started to look for “the larger people,” and sure enough I noticed the beefier men tended to go to the row in the middle. As deftly as I could, I steered Michael toward that middle row, waiting for him to figure out what was going on. He was oblivious. As we stood and waited, I wondered what would happen if I was too big for the fat seats. Would I be asked to step off the ride? Surely that had happened before, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine it happening to me. I would be so devastated, so embarrassed. My heart pounded and I felt nauseous. Michael finally commented on how quiet I was, but then went on to tease that it must be because I was scared of the ride. I played along, not wanting him to know the real reason for my fear. All I wanted to do was throw up and run away.

It was finally our turn. I got into the fat seat and held my breath while we waited for the harness to automatically come down. Mine did, and it fit me—just barely. I was safe. Michael didn’t know any better. I’d managed another escape.

I knew a life with kids wouldn’t provide many chances to avoid fat pitfalls. I felt I had to get the weight off—and fast—to avoid further embarrassment and humiliating my kids. Life in the (fat) mommy lane would not get any easier.