IVF 3: Weight

I am two weeks into this cycle and already my body is starting to expand. Using my usual hole on my belt is starting to feel uncomfortable and my trousers seem just that little bit tighter around the thighs.

Damn. Unfortunately, both the drugs they use for IVF cause weight gain, so it is practically inevitable. Some of the gain is just more retained fluid from all the hormonal disruption, but some of it will ultimately be more fat. I also have bad headaches but, for some reason, it's the weight gain that really hurts.

I've lost quite a lot of weight in the last two years. All the baby weight and some more as well - around 23 kgs or over 40 pounds. I've been eating a lot better, and also eating less, but I've also been swimming and going to the gymn.

Strangely, and unlike most women, I didn't always mind being heavier. There is something actually quite comforting about letting yourself get plumper and settling into the sofa. But when I was heavier, I always had this moment of unfamiliarity, of disorientation, when I looked in the mirror. The self I was in my head didn't match with the one in the mirror. Somehow, this matched what I felt about my life. Nothing was what I imagined it would be, including myself.

Now, I'm oddly familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I can't actually quite see that I look better at this weight. People tell me I do. They comment a lot. But actually, I have a similar feeling of disorientation when I look in the mirror. To myself, I look longer rather than skinnier, more as if I've grown a few inches upwards rather than lost a few around the middle. But I can see that I look more like I did as a girl - a younger, almost teenaged Emily looks back at me and I remember that person.

So losing weight hasn't been the overwhelmingly positive thing I hav always thought it would be. But now that at least some of that effort is at risk, I find that I do mind. The skinnier Emily has more energy and feels younger, somehow. I move differently at this weight. I don't think I realized how much more energy it takes to keep a bigger body moving around in the world. The day ends and, instead of feeling completely exhausted, I still have a reserve.

Also, it's completely illogical, but somehow at this weight I feel more in touch with the girl I was - as if the world has more possibilities.

I don't want that feeling to be taken away from me.