Meet Amy

I’ve known Amy Wagner Baird for just over 2 years. A full-time Associate Media Buyer at an ad agency in Chicago, Amy was a friend and client of my husband Fran. She reached out to me when Fran was very ill in hospital and became an enormous source of support and friendship from afar during that time. We’ve since become great friends.

Amy’s story is incredibly inspiring. Only 32, she has been through a lot as a mother and a woman. Major surgeries, divorce, and raising her beautiful daughter Gracie –  through all these experiences, Amy struggled with her weight, fitness and body image. She’s now married to the love of her life, a commercial airline pilot (“The Captain”) and getting ready for her reception party later this year. I’m so proud of Amy for sharing her inspiring story today on Fit Mama Friday.

 

 

STRUGGLING WITH WEIGHT.

I’ve struggled with my weight my entire life, which is glaringly cliché for a fitness blog, however true it is.  I grew up with a family who cooked out when they celebrated, drowned their sorrows with ice cream, and snuck snacks when stressed.  I’ve never been called skinny in my life, and maybe only considered thin by others occasionally after a bought of severe food poisoning.

In preparing for this admission for Carly, I calculated that since high school I’ve lost and gained well over 300 lbs.  I’m your classic emotional eater combined with bad hips.  Not that they misbehaved or anything, but mechanically bad, like I had the hips of an 80 year old in my 20s. Nothing good could have come of it…

PREGNANCY.

Early in my pregnancy with Grace I would have considered myself “svelte”.  Not skinny or thin, but not heavy.  I think knowing that my belly would be growing and I’d have an excuse to not be physically perfect helped me remove that mental pressure.  Early in the pregnancy my healthy eating habits came from a mothering place, only to provide the baby with the best nutrients.  I exercised as much as I could and got plenty of sleep. Then it hit me, ultra severe morning sickness. I was sick all the time, and by the twentieth week I had LOST 15 lbs.  Secretly I was thrilled; especially knowing the baby was perfectly healthy. But mentally I was drained from feeling ill all the time. I stopped exercising. All I could do was work and come home to sleep. During the hardest days I would look at the few outfits we had for her to help me visualize that tiny little human that would be wearing them in mere months. Eventually the morning sickness let up, but most of what I ate and tasted good consisted of my four main food groups:

• fruity pebbles
• skittles
• ice cream
• baby carrots

I ate baby carrots every night on my 1.5 hour train ride home.  And every time little baby Gracie did a happy dance in my stomach.  She’s 5 and a half now and they are still one of her favorite foods.  While I felt better, I never did get back into working out.  I had a 4 hour daily commute, and growing a human is tiring.

A week past her due date, tons of Pitocin and 30 hours of labor later baby Grace finally decided to make her entrance. I fell in love immediately. My first thought was, “Most beautiful baby ever!” and I cried. My life has never been the same.

BABY WEIGHT.

It was near impossible for me to lose the baby weight I ended up gaining after the morning sickness wore off. My milk never came down so I couldn’t nurse (which is what I so desperately wanted).  I was forever exhausted from the 4 hour commute.  I wanted to spend any free moment with my little Gracie – which meant no gym and quick meals.  I pretty much gained an additional 20lbs after I had her in that first year.

My 80 year old hips had enough, and my left one gave up on me.  I couldn’t walk more than 10 feet without it dislocating.  Endless doctor visits, hundreds of Xrays and 9 surgeons later I was diagnosed with Hip Dysplasia.  It’s pretty uncommon to begin with – there are a few types.  Mine meant my hip sockets were so shallow I basically didn’t have any.  The pregnancy and added weight ruined whatever hold my joint tissues had on my leg bones, hence the constant dislocations.  I was only 27 and ineligible for a hip replacement.  I could either live with it (impossible!) or get an osteotomy, which is a fancy word for reconstruction.  They basically cut out my socket, rotated it outwards and made a new socket so my leg would stay where the surgeon put it.  Grace was 9 months old at the time, and all she wanted was for me to carry her around.  I couldn’t even walk for 2 and half months. At her first birthday party I was on crutches and relied on everyone else to do the decorating and such.  It broke my heart but knew in the long run it was better than not being able to walk ever.  Slowly but surely I was back to “normal”.  But all the weight I put on after the pregnancy and surgery seemed impossible to get rid of.  Combined with an increasingly sad marriage, I ate every feeling I had.

DIVORCE.

Right about when Gracie was 2 years old, her father and I spilt.  It was incredibly difficult but man, did it change my life in just about every way possible!  I moved closer to the office so working full time and taking care of a little one would be more manageable.  Plus, I really leaned on my oldest sister in that first year after the split and she was one El ride away from the office.

Gracie was fine throughout the whole divorce process.  The one blessing is that she was so young and never remembered her father and I being together.  Even today if she sees pictures of me in the “old house” she asks why I was there.  When I finally found an apartment for her and I to live in, splitting her time between both parents was normal to her.

Once I was officially on my own with Gracie, everything changed.  It was nice to live closer to work and have 2+ hours back to myself every day.  Being that It was just her and I for the first time in her life, I was caught off guard at first, knowing I was her most important influence.  That’s when things naturally changed for me.  Even though the split was difficult, I knew it was the right decision.

KICKING ASS AND TAKING NAMES.

Just by starting to feel real happiness again I ate less and moved more.  And the more I moved the better I felt.  The better I felt the happier I was.  It was a blissful cause and effect.  Within 6 months I had lost 60 lbs.  Yes, I ate better, stopped the late night snacking.  I worked out just about 6 days a week and got a trainer once every week or so.  I had never felt better in terms of my health or my self-esteem.  I was a magical force, taking care of a toddler, working full time, working out 10 hours a week and almost all on my own.  I was kicking ass and taking names.

That’s when the love of my life walked in.  Well, or was electronically pushed through via eHarmony.  “The Captain” and I (he’s a commercial airline pilot) met on-line and talked for a few weeks before we actually went out.  Our emails were fine, nothing spectacular.   It was the phone conversations that convinced me to go out with him.  He’d call and we’d talk for HOURS on end.  Without stopping.  He and I would be falling asleep, but still finding the words to say.  He picked me up for our first date for a July lunch date.  We had so much in common, so much fun, so much chemistry that lunch turned into dinner and… gasp! Breakfast.  He wasn’t the first man I dated since my divorce, but I wasn’t looking for a serious relationship.  He just kind of happened.  Our second date was a “U2” concert.  I remember us joking and laughing, dancing and singing.  At one point I looked at him and said in my head, “SHIT”, I’m  going to marry him. He makes me feel like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world.  He made me confident to be a sexy woman, and I believed it for a short time.  Cut to now.

SPEED BUMPS.

Our road has been as bumpy as it’s been romantic.  I don’t trust men, period.  Without getting into the details enough of them have betrayed my trust in the last 6 or so years and I refuse to let my guard down.  Even today The Captain and I struggle with my emotional pain.   All of the working out I did has been wiped out.  Luckily the weight gain hasn’t been as dramatic as the loss of fitness, but it’s all enough to make me sneer at myself every time I walk past the mirror.

Why??  Why am I here again?

I have a supportive, loving man in my life.  An adorable outgoing little girl and we live only 20 minutes away from my job.  Our little world is tightly wound together in a protective little bubble together.

Well, all that working out I did pretty much speeded up the deterioration process on my right hip.  It was time for a reconstruction.  This time it was far more painful with a serious infection and a longer recovery.  Even though I was in far better shape for this hip than the prior, I think the extra few years of aging made a tremendous difference.  That and the damage I had done to it over the years.

Throughout most of the recovery, Gracie stayed with her father.  He did bring her to visit me often to ease that pain of being separated from her for so long.  I cried a lot those first few months because it hurt to not have her with me, even though I knew I couldn’t have taken care of her.  And if something happened to her and I couldn’t save her or help her than I would have felt even worse.  She didn’t remember the first surgery since she wasn’t even  a year old.  But this time around she was 4 and that makes everything different.  Even when I was in the hospital she thought the whole thing was kind of fun.  The nurses spoiled her and she got to be the center of attention.  I was in so much pain it was a nice distraction.  But I remember The Captain’s mom coming to visit me at the hospital and meeting Gracie there for the first time.  I was so incredibly stressed.  This is when real life and hospital life collided for me.  I was horrified that Gracie wouldn’t just sit there and be good.  Looking back I think it was the only way she could cope and it probably felt normal for me to yet again say, “Gracie, just sit down!!!”.

The Captain was amazing.  At the time we had only been dating around 6 months when he decided I had to move in with him so he could take care of me through the recovery.  Without him I would have been stuck on the 3^rd floor of a 1800s house in a suburb of Chicago, with 2 very narrow staircases separating me from the world.  He set up his room so I had the spot on the bed closer to the door and the bathroom.  He rearranged furniture so I could get around on crutches.  Being a pilot he has little to no control over his schedule.  Every day he begged the schedulers to give him a trip that would get him home to me at night so he could take care of me.  His whole world revolved around me and getting me healthy.

Slowly but surely, we got me back to about 80% before I was able to return to the office, close to five months later.  It was great to be back at the office and get back into a routine.  The Captain decided to make it official and have Gracie and I move in with him.  Everything I had ever wanted I suddenly had.  I went back to the gym and started strength training.  It was an uphill battle, but one I was excited to conquer.

MORE HEALTH ISSUES.

There was only one thing that never seemed right about this right hip repair.  I could never sit in a chair and bend straight down to tie my shoe.  There was a pinching in my hip that we all thought would go away as the swelling decreased.  Not only did it not decrease, it increased accompanied by the worst pain I had ever felt.  I was like a needle was stabbing me in the hip joint in any position.  The only way I was mildly comfortable was lying straight down.    For the next 8 months, I grew increasingly depressed and angry.  Doctor after doctor told me it was nothing, and some even said it was something my mind made up.  They just gave me prescription after prescription.  I stopped working out, everything hurt my hip even with the pain meds.  Sitting straight up in a chair caused so much pain I started getting cluster migraines on top of it.  I was tired of getting phone calls from family members who were worried about me because it was such a dramatic change in personality for me.  I was angry!  After everything my body has gone through I felt I was right back to where I started, unable to do anything.  And then I felt guilty for being angry because it was not a life threatening disease.  And I hated myself for being so weak and angry.  Thus started another abusive cycle of eating, lack of sleep, etc…

It took several more visits to the hospital and another surgery to remove the extra bone that had grown directly pointing in my right hip joint after the reconstruction.  This recovery took a few months, but I was able to walk again pretty quickly.  I worked from home for a month or so and since then have been trying to get back to the normal Amy.

Oh, and the best news?  And about a year and a half after The Captain and I met, we got married. Eloped. I wore my Blackhawks jersey, natch.

NEVER GIVE UP.

I looked at myself this morning and almost cried.  The muscle tone in my arms is far gone.  My former somewhat flat stomach is only that way when I lay down.  Let’s not speak of the legs, oh my horrible legs.  I am facing the huge mountain again and I’m not sure I have it in me again to climb it.

Then I look at something else, a picture of The Captain and Gracie.  I know that I have to conquer the mountain again.  It doesn’t matter if it’s the 100^th time, I have to keep pushing.  Neither of them cares of I’m thin or skinny or muscle-y or can row for 50 minutes.  They just want their Amy all the way back.  The one that laughs more and plays a lot.  The one that’s not afraid to see old friends for fear they’ll give me that “Oh shit, she let herself go” look.    They want the Amy back that has sunshine in her eyes and rosy cheeks.  The one who will run to the park and jump on the swings before the kids.

And even though the mountain is larger than ever, and I seem to be more tired and beaten than ever before, I’ll do it.  I’ll do it for myself so I can be excited to go shopping for clothes again.  And so I can watch the guys at the gym get out of breath before I do.  To show Gracie what a healthy woman really looks like, not what she’s forced to process from a tv commercial or magazine ad.  I will do it so when my wonderful husband says I’m the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen I’ll believe him.

I worked out last week for the first time outside of physical therapy in almost two years.  Tomorrow starts week 2 and I have to do it.  Our official wedding reception is in 15 weeks and counting.  I have my dream dress and my dream husband.  And for once in my life when my friends and family tell me I look beautiful I’ll believe them too.

 

Amy, thank you SO much for sharing your story! I know you will look and feel stunningly beautiful at your reception – I can’t wait to celebrate with you!