Hortus Deliciarum

I’ve seen the story about the Bellevue couple that starved their baby mentioned all over the place. My first reaction? Well, folks, that’s what happens when you have a weight-obsessed society that prioritizes thinness over health.

My second reaction? There but for the grace of God/Goddess go I…

Six weeks before my son was born, a tremendously mean, and probably fatphobic, ultrasound tech told me at a scan that he was already six pounds and that I’d “better hope he stopped growing.” She clearly believed that I was horrendously unhealthy and that I was dooming my son to a life of fatness. Although I knew better than to stop eating, you’d better believe that I was terrified that I’d end up with an enormous baby.

He weighed six pounds, nine ounces. He was around the 25th percentile for newborns in the UK and, although he was a skinny little thing and I knew the stats for bigger babies being healthier, I was pathetically grateful that he was small. I wanted a small baby because then, at least, nobody could blame the DEATHFAT! mother for having a DEATHFAT! baby. Bear in mind that all of these thoughts were *after* having started the process toward intuitive eating and eating disorder recovery, though I hadn’t yet seen any professionals about that process.

When he shot up to nearly the 50th percentile by 12 months, I was panicking. Brittainy Labberton’s words about her own baby, when she hit the 50th percentile mark, that “my husband has a weight problem and we didn’t want our daughters to be fat” could well have been mine, except that I would have said that I’m fat, have been fat all of my adult life, and I don’t want my child to suffer the pain that comes from being fat in Western society. I was deathly scared that because he’d changed percentiles upward, they were going to blame me. It was going to be my fault that I was turning my baby into a fatty.

Something, perhaps the three years that I’d spent working on intuitive eating and getting away from my self-hatred, made me realize at that point that I really, really needed help. Although I didn’t find the courage to seek out a nutritionist and a therapist until a couple of years later, realizing that the thoughts I had were really and truly unhealthy, both for me and for my son. Because I have a loving husband and family, I was in a place where I could realize how scary and screwed up my fatphobia was…and I let my son eat. He still hovers around the 50th percentile in weight, and the 50th-75th percentile in height, and I sometimes still have to bite back worries that he is eating too much, or eating too little, but I can let him be the size he is.

But…and there is a but…I’m grateful that he’s not fat. I recognize that for the unhealthy thought it is and can steer myself toward healthier attitudes, but the fear still lingers.

So, for Brittainy Labberton, at least, I have sympathy. News stories generally state that she is anorexic and that she may well have dieted during pregnancy (ironically enough, putting her baby at a higher risk of being fat in later life as a result). Her husband may be abusive. Her family may well not be supportive or loving (I don’t know). While, as an adult, the onus was on Mrs. Labberton to seek out help for her own disordered eating and CARE for her children instead of starving them, I know that my thoughts are not so far from hers. I may have made wiser choices but I suspect I also had more help in making them, thanks to the people who care about me and my son.

Those who look at her story in light of the rampant fatphobia in our society, claiming not to understand how she could do it, are lying to themselves. What she and her husband did is absolutely, terribly wrong. I would never do what she did. But…and there is a but…I understand why she did it.

Tags: news stories

There’s a great grocery store about ten minutes away that has a truly remarkable deli section. A month or so back I discovered that on Saturdays they serve prime rib. That visit I chatted with the guy at the counter and found out that his mom was from England. He and Graham then talked a bit about the UK. When we got home, the serving of prime rib was a great size and it was absolutely delicious, so this week I was having a hankering for more and, figuring my little carnivore child would be amenable to the idea, we went back to the store to pick up a couple of prime rib dinners.

I knew right away that the guy last time must have been very nice to us, because the servings this time were about half the size. When we got home, though, was the true disappointment.

I like my meat juicy. A bit of fat (yes, I’m one of those people who like it, but I try not to eat as much as I could, although it’s tasty, because I get paranoid that I’ll drop dead of a heart attack). A nice, flavorful crust on the outside and meltingly tender meat on the inside, preferably medium-rare. My dad likes his meat dry. By dry, I mean sawdust-overdone DRY and my entire childhood/young adulthood I thought chicken breast was foul…only to discover that no, when it’s cooked to done but not too done, it’s not as good as dark meat but tastes okay.

This prime rib, that I paid $12.99 for and was looking forward to? Dry. Dry as a dry, dry bone. So dry I couldn’t eat it. Jus is NOT supposed to be there to add moisture to the meat. Flavor, yes, and a bit of additional juiciness, but good prime rib should be delicious even without the jus, so I never order it (I drip it all over myself and don’t see the point).

This was not good prime rib. Even Graham, who will eat well-done meat (I’ve converted him to medium from the days when he’d only eat well-done), thought this stuff was overcooked. He had a piece from the center and it was still brown all the way through. Not even a hint of pink. The POINT of prime rib is that you don’t cook it past medium unless you’re a cretin. For the entire thing to be brown means the ends, which should be delicious, crusty, salty bits of heaven were hard and dry. Moisture-suckingly dry.

So now I’ve totally missed out on a meal I was anticipating with some delight and am feeling let down. I’ve got plenty of other food in the fridge but what I really, really wanted was prime rib, dammit. Good prime rib.

Do I write a letter that will probably have no effect whatsoever? I don’t know. I do know that I’m sorely, sorely disappointed that

Tags: bad food, cravings

I’ve been alone in bed the last couple of nights because my husband has a cold and is in the guest bedroom, so it’s just me and the baby monitor. Last night around 1:15 I heard Ciaran shuffling around in his bed, a few thumps, and nothing more. I needed a trip to the loo anyway, so got up and went, then headed into his bedroom to make sure that he’d settled back down (he’s had a cold too, poor guy). Initial pat around the pillow = no Ciaran

My sleep-dazed mind took a moment to assimilate this and then thought, quite logically, Oh, right, he’s probably gone into my bed while I was in the bathroom. I went back in to check in my bed. No Ciaran.

A little more worried but hey, Graham’s in the guest bedroom, so clearly Ciaran’s gone there. I go in and look. No Ciaran.

Panic.

My brain was still too sleepy to make much sense of this but I tried to find a flashlight for a couple of minutes, so that I wouldn’t wake him up when I found him. I hadn’t checked the foot of his bed, so maybe he was there. Was he on the sofa? My sister helped me clean this weekend and a few things (like, apparently, flashlights) weren’t where I remembered them being. Finally fear won out and I just turned on all the lights and hurried from bedroom to bedroom. No Ciaran.

Graham didn’t wake up the first time I shouted at him that Ciaran was NOT in his bed. He did the second time and was up like a shot. We were both panicking as I tried my last resort, going upstairs to see if he’d somehow blundered up to my parents’ space. I think my voice was calm as I called for him.

My dad answered. “He’s with us. He’s asleep.”

I couldn’t sleep for an hour afterward, thanks to the adrenaline and pounding heart. He’s never gone upstairs like that in the night, so for a long couple of minutes I thought he could be gone. I went from sleep-haziness to the sudden shock of gritty, terrible, very real fear almost instantly. LogicalMe knew that I still needed to check upstairs but underneath the frantic, screaming MotherBeast was ready to tear the house apart to find my child. A scared voice that’s watched too many crime programs was also whispering in the back of my head They’re going to blame you! They always look at the mother first!

If something were to happen to my child, I’m quite sure it would be MotherBeast who won, and not LogicalMe. I have never been so scared in my life, except in those very first few moments when his body was finally outside of my own, they were giving him oxygen, and I thought he might die. Even that, though, was nothing in comparison with the gut-wrenching terror at the thought of losing the little boy that, even on his worst days, fills my heart with joy. I cannot imagine life without him and even now that I know he’s safe and happy (he was quite pleased with his accomplishment – “I woke up and I went upstairs and I went to Noni and Baba’s bed! It was a treat for my! It was my treat!”), little frissons of remembered fear keep gripping me.

I hate going to doctors.

That conversation yesterday, that I thought I could brush off fairly easily, has lingered. I found myself desperately wanting to EAT EAT EAT! yesterday afternoon, partly because I forgot my high-protein snacks, a mistake rectified today, but also because there was that deep emotional despair that always seems to bubble up around anything medical.

My current GP isn’t that bad. I think she wants very badly to have the Weight Loss Chat with me but hasn’t and I respect that. Her website is very positive and I think that overall, she’s a good doctor. I just hate seeing her. I hate seeing any doctor. I wish I could figure out exactly why…I end up putting off visiting until I’ve got so much stuff going on that I take up too much time (a no-no, I know) but I just don’t want to go. I hate having my blood pressure taken, hate sitting down on that chair/bed and feeling like suddenly I’m a Subject To Be Studied [tm]. I hate every single part of it.

Maybe she doesn’t want to have the weight loss talk with me. Maybe it’s just my perception. I feel like I talk too much or don’t talk enough…like I never manage to say the right thing at the right time. I feel stupid, undereducated, and lumpish.

I had to go to a gynecologist a couple of months back and the nurse took my blood pressure – she managed to get the right size cuff but didn’t support my arm at all, so I think I ended up something like 140/90. “Have you ever had problems with high blood pressure?” she asked me.

What was I supposed to say? That every time I’ve ever had an electronic machine take my BP, it refuses to read it and gets so tight on my arm that it causes me physical pain, so it’s hardly surprising that they get no reading or a high one? That most offices don’t bother to follow correct BP procedures and therefore I do read high…but when they DO follow correct procedures (once or twice in the last four years), it’s normal? That despite all this, no doctor has ever suggested treating me for high BP or discussed it at all? Why? If high BP is so bad, why don’t they follow up if they think mine might be high?

Every time I go to a new practice, I feel like I have to defend myself…and then I have to admit that I don’t currently exercise, that I AM a disordered eater who is working hard at recovery but not there yet…that oh, yes, I have depression, and hypothyroidism, and PCOS, and the laundry list of things that make me SOUND sick but that I don’t feel unhealthy. I’ve had some great GP recommendations from the LJ Fatshionistas but the last thing I want to do is call up a new doctor.

The last thing I want to do is leave work early to take the damn bus to my current doctor, then catch another bus back to where I’ve parked my car, and all because she needs to see me, presumably to tell me to get another thyroid blood test, which will require more hassle and time.

Did I mention the phlebotomist last time who acted like it was my fault that I have tricky veins? I should have had more water the day before. “If I can’t get it in three tries, I have to give up.”

And it all makes me feel fat, unhealthy, ugly, and fundamentally worthless…when that starts, the hypochondria sets in. I’m sure I’m going to drop dead of cancer, or heart disease, or something else that will keep me from seeing my son grow up. I won’t ever go see a doctor about it, mind you, because that would involve, you know, SEEING A DOCTOR but I worry. I get scared. I wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, wondering when I’m going to die, wondering what’s going to kill me when it all finally catches up with me.

Wondering if maybe my son wouldn’t be better off without the fat mom who has to play not-scared all the time when inside she’s absolutely terrified.

I don’t hate doctors. I just hate ever having to see one and be reminded of how worthless and small I really am, even though I’m huge.

I’ve been searching for a size-friendly physician in the Seattle area for some time now. My GP has been nice enough but I know that, deep down, she’s desperate to tell me to lose weight. I could deal with that but her assistant has gotten very bad about returning calls (I have asthma and am fat, two risk factors for H1N1, and they never returned my call about getting on the waiting list – no worries, got it through work last week, but still…a doctor should return calls!).

So, last summer I had asked my nutritionist for HAES-friendly docs. She said that many of the doctors that they work with tend to be full but suggested calling a nurse practitioner who works close to my area (North Seattle). I finally got around to calling her today, because of this persistent not-answering issue from my current doctor. “Oh, let me see if she’s accepting new patients,” said the receptionist. I was then transferred through to someone else (office manager?), who said that said nurse practitioner did have appointments available and what was I needing to be seen about?

A thyroid check, replied I, and mentioned that I’d been referred to her by my nutritionist. She asked my nutritionist’s name and then asked if she could ask me a “personal question.” Of course, I told her (doesn’t mean I have to answer, right?”

Did I have an eating disorder?

Yes.

Nurse Practitioner In Question is not accepting new ED patients.

But…that’s not what I want to see her about! Doesn’t that matter?!

She’s not accepting new ED patients.

Even if I’m in recovery and NOT intending to discuss those issues with her?

She is not accepting new ED patients.

BUTBUT!

Yeah.

Well, gee. I don’t think I’ve ever been turned down by a “family practice” doctor because of a specific health issue. What a bloody slap in the face. I’m actually quite shaky now and almost on the verge of tears – this woman offered no other referrals, no reasoning behind the refusal to accept new ED patients, and no sympathy whatsoever.

Even if I could, I wouldn’t see the NP in question.

I also e-mailed my nutritionist to let her know, because I’m doing pretty well in recovery from compulsive eating, all told, and well along my path to intuitive eating. Imagine what hearing THAT could do to someone who wasn’t anywhere near the point I am now, if it’s making me this upset.

And people wonder why fat people don’t go see the bloody doctor more often. Maybe because even if we’re TRYING to get better (those of us who are emotional eaters), we still get slapped in the face.

I don’t talk much about my garden, for this being a journal that looks like it should BE about gardening. It’s becoming appallingly clear, however, that I am a compulsive plant-buyer. I can resist clothes (it’s easy when you’re at the top range of even plus-size stores and 95% of other clothing stores don’t sell your size at all), shoes (wide feet, need I say more?), books (I’ve become extremely picky about my reading material and the library is free!), and even cross-stitch supplies. What I can’t resist are plants…

My sister and I went to one of my favorite local nurseries this weekend. She wanted to buy a plant for my mom. I’ve been looking at the same three plants in my office for a couple of months now and “needed” a trailing plant to set on top of my tallest filing cabinet. Of course, I had to have a look around the main greenhouse and was sorely tempted by any number of other plants. I suppose the nice thing about my gardening situation is that I’m stuck with a deck that gets some morning sunshine (one corner gets afternoon sunshine, but that’s it), so I can’t do plants that need full sun. A lot of flowers are therefore out (I pine for dahlias and roses).

I really miss my balcony garden in Manchester. It was south-facing and I could grow just about ANYTHING.

That’s the veggie end (see the lettuce?)

Flower end, in early spring before the real summer show.

So, for a partial-sun to shade garden, what can one do? Primroses, and Sky had a gorgeous selection that they were setting out. I crave plants like other people crave shoes, or clothes, or makeup. Digging in the dirt and seeing something grow may just be the most remarkable thing in the world. Last spring I intentionally bought quite a few insta-bulbs (bulbs started in plastic pots for replanting in larger containers or the ground) because I wanted my spring planters to come out in color again this year and look the way they did last year, when I first planted them, so:

This has succeeded pretty well, except that my primroses are only just starting to come out and the ones in the store are so PRETTY and BIG and COLORFUL whereas all that’s showing in my pots are little poky bulb shoots about half an inch high and some battered primrose foliage. Also, in one pot they died off completely, thanks to last summer’s heat, during which I was in Syracuse and couldn’t water them. As a result, I feel that I NEED to get more beautiful primroses to plant in those planters anyway. Oh, and let’s not forget the window boxes, which have other bulbs planted that won’t even flower until early summer. They look so bleak…MUST get violas and primroses to plant so that they look nice NOW!

Oh, and they had insta-bulbs on sale! TULIPS!!! Really, tulips like full sun, so they may fail miserably, but FLOWERS!! PLANTS!! NEED!! First-world problems, I have them. Still, plants (and planting) make me feel peaceful. If I only had a couple of really nice, bright windows I’d have orchids, and begonias, and and and…

It’s just as well I don’t have a huge, sunny yard or I’d never have any money ever again.

If you’re looking for donation options for the earthquake in Haiti, Huffington Post has a list of possibilities.

If you can spare it, please donate what you can to the organization of your choice.

My son is the world’s worst sleeper.

No, I know that’s hyperbole. I know that he’s no worse than average (these days, anyway – in his newborn days he was The Sleepless Devil Child [tm]). Still, though, I hear tales of parents who have children that sleep from 7:30 PM to 7:30 AM and I think What did I do wrong? How did I fail as a mother? I ask this question because my child does not sleep later than 6:30 (he goes to bed by 9:30 but frequently isn’t asleep until 10) unless he is sick. This last week? 5:45 has been the waking time of choice. This morning? 5:30, bright and early.

Now, my alarm doesn’t go off until 6:10. My husband generally sleeps until 6:30. We do NOT want a toddler clambering up on us, kicking, wiggling, thumping, and other violent activity that knocks sleep out the window. I am TIRED. I can’t go to bed until he does, which means that I’m getting less than eight hours of sleep at the moment because HE is and I don’t get to take a midday nap!

Yes, he still naps. Yes, we have tried cutting out the nap. He still wakes up by 6:15 at the very latest (two days ago it was 5:45 anyway, without a nap) and is the grumpiest child in the WORLD all afternoon/evening. He seems to need his nap.

But seriously, I need my sleep or I’m going to do him in. Coffee is all well and good but it’s EXPENSIVE. I want to be able to go to bed by 9:30 and wake up at 6:10 without having to keep telling a 3.5 year old that he needs to GO BACK TO BED! IT IS TOO EARLY!!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY CHILD?! Dammit!

Comments about “oh, it’s still better than five-year-olds/ten-year-olds/preteens/teenagers *chortlechortle*” will be summarily deleted. Yes. Great. What do you want me to do about that now? We’ll get there when we get there. Right now I’m parenting a three-year-old, so those are the problems I get to deal with.

I’ve been having a bit of writers’ block lately regarding this blog. That personal bugbear of the enneagram Type Four, I’ve been feeling dull and boring. Nothing that I say seems at all creative, here in my journal or in my creative writing. That little inner child starts screaming, “I’m not GOOD ENOUGH! I’m not SPECIAL ENOUGH! I’m not CREATIVE ENOUGH! Everyone thinks I’m boring/stupid/pointless and nobody wants to read, WAH!”

This is not a plea for comments, mind you. Just an observation that I’ve hit this point in my spiral of journeying again – that broken place that feels unappreciated and unloved because I feel uninspired and uninspiring. I hate this place. I hate reaching this stage, because it’s the one that threatens most strongly to pull me back into depression. I put too much importance on being unique, on being “special enough” to deserve respect and love.

So I think: I could write about parenting but meh. What is there new to say about that?! I intentionally do not write about work in this blog, except in the vaguest of terms (yes, I know what “dooced” means). If I want to write about library & information science, I should do it in my pathetically ignored LIS blog and build it as part of my portfolio. I mostly try not to write about friends (and even when I have only personal therapy in mind, it gets me in trouble). I just feel stupidly boring this week.

I was excited about the prospect of trying out a new craft, mosaics, but I couldn’t find the supplies I needed at my local Michaels, which means I’d have to buy online instead and shipping fees are a pain in the bum. I feel like I should take an intro class before I plunge into it, lest I screw up utterly with pricy materials, but the day-long class (which I’d love to take) is $150. Ouch. I can pay for it but should I for something that is entirely frivolous?

And then, would I be good at it? You see, doing crafts is only fun if I’m good at it. I don’t draw, so I tend to steer away from traditional artforms, like painting, drawing (naturally), and, yes, mosaic. I do a lot of cross-stitch but I haven’t been in the mood for that. I’m craving the tactility of placing tiles, or at least I think so, but I’m afraid that my innate lack of creativity (see where that deadly “I’m not SPECIAL ENOUGH” causes problems?) will mean that I’m no good at it and will have wasted time and money on something I suck at.

I hate, hate, hate this place on the spiral. Here’s hoping it passes quickly.

Hello, my name is Heidi.

Yes, I have been compulsively refreshing my Gmail account for the last two days, because I’m bored – normally I enjoy my job but at the moment it’s pure data entry, which means that I’m going a little nuts and need a couple of minutes of *interesting* reading every little while to keep from drowning in a sea of applicant names and addresses. Never fear, for the nosy, I do get all my work done too. And more.

I keep thinking, “Hey, if only your posts were more interesting, you’d get more comments!”

Or, “Hey, why not start a flamewar on a parenting community in Livejournal” (not hard but really, I’m not a troll).

Or, “GET BACK TO WORK, WOMAN!” (what I mostly do)

What do YOU do when you’re needing mini-breaks to keep your sanity at work and your e-mail is just NOT coming through quickly enough?!

Addicted? Me? Never!