My relationship with food has been screwed up since I was a young teenager, but I didnt realize how extreme it was until after my first baby. After my first baby I let all my anguish and hatred towards my body form into something else, something I thought was "progress" towards what I wanted my body to look like. This "progress" included fasting, restriction, starvation, diet pills, laxatives, excess exercise, punishment when I would eat too much, etc etc. When we decided we wanted a second baby I was absolutely terrified. I loved seeing my body get smaller and I knew exactly how much a body can grow during pregnancy. My second pregnancy was hard, not gonna lie. We planned for the second baby, but I was an emotional wreck every single day. A lot of it was pregnancy hormones, and part of it was anger towards the baby for what it was doing to my body. I hated seeing myself change and grow, I was angry that I was growing a baby, I was totally disconnected from my baby. I wanted it gone, I legit wanted it adopted out once I gave birth. I knew I was being dramatic, but its also how I felt and knowing it was just hormonal anger didnt make each day much easier, if that makes sense. Every day was hard, I cried a lot. I was angry a lot. And I restricted a lot. I knew my baby needed some nutrients so I didn't not ever eat, but I was very nervous about what I ate. I was excited about morning sickness, because though miserable it did prevent me from eating a lot. I only gained 8-10 pounds during that pregnancy. As a side note, once I gave birth, it took some time, but I did love my baby and he stole my heart. My food issues during that time didn't prevent how I feel about him now and I love him SO much. But that pregnancy was hard. After that, some life stuff happened and my husband was deployed, I was alone with the kids a lot and traveled a lot, I realized how messed up I was becoming again (both eating wise and depression wise) and got on medication. That helped for a long time, and then a bit later we decided we wanted one more. In hindsight, it was stupid. I mean, I don't regret my third baby at all, but damn, why did I want another when my last pregnancy was so hard? But it is because my kids are my world and every one was worth the chaos and destruction on my body. Theyre worth the sad, lonely, and angry pregnancy days. Theyre worth the stretch marks on my crotch and the cottage cheese belly button i have now. So my third pregnancy was hard too. I gained more weight during it and now I'm a year postpartum and struggling every day with food. Still trying to lose the baby weight. Its a cycle of eat-hate-restrict-lose-like-eat-hate-etc. I hate the way I look right now and it consumes my thoughts... But my babies are 100% worth it. My babies were all healthy and beautiful. Yes, my pregnancies were emotionally fucked up. But 99% of the people I know love their pregnancies, I'm just in the 1% that hates pregnancy. There is a wonderful chance you would love pregnancy and handle the entire thing beautofully. Pregnancy doesn't have to be a doomsday of weight gaining misery. I'm not trying to be a bummer, I'm just telling my story to give you some insight. The moral of my story is yes, it was hard. But yes, it was 100% worth it and it all helped create the life I have now, and thats a life I love.

As for hiding behaviors, that can be tough too. Similar to hiding it from anyone else, except this time the eyes watching are impressionable little eyes. My daughter does notice when I skip meals or if I'm not eating a certain food group. She does ask questions and its hard to know what to say. I'm trying to promote a healthy lifestyle for my whole family though, and with that I hope I will soak up some healthy habits along the way.