Although I was always heavy in school, I was not what was considered obese until I had my first daughter in my early twenties. I struggled to lose the weight, and I would lose it for a time, but it always came back, plus more.

In 2002, I began to research weight-loss surgery and I was approved in April 2002 for the surgery. Then I found out I was expecting a second child and I put the surgery on hold.

I had a miscarriage, due in large part I feel to my weight, and so in October I went back to the surgeon and set a date for December 3, 2002. At that time, there were very few people in my area who had had the surgery, so I had no idea what to expect.

I woke up in a lot of pain, but it got better and I was able to go home with no trouble. Everything went wonderful for about 10 months, on Labor Day weekend 2003 I began to have excruciating pain whenever I ate and started to vomit uncontrollably. I went back to the surgeon, who told me nothing was wrong. I went to other doctors, and they could find nothing wrong either. I lost 25 pounds in less than a month and I thought I would die, but then just as quickly as it started, the pain went away.

Fast forward to November 2004, I am pregnant with my second child and the pain begins again. I cannot eat, I am not gaining weight, and the baby is not doing well. My OBGYN blows me off saying that I have to eat and that the pain cannot be that bad. So I eat what I can, but still the baby does not grow. I eventually wind up having to have ultrasounds every week to check the baby's growth, and begin to vomit so uncontrollably that even water will not stay down.

I am admitted to the hospital and they find that I have an obstructed bowel caused by an internal hernia that has been there since 2003 and was not caught the first time. I was about 20 minutes away from dying and losing my unborn child. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision having this surgery, and other times I think I did the only thing I could do. I say all this to warn everyone to be aware that it is not all a bed of roses. I was an ideal candidate for surgery, and did wonderfully well. I know everyone says they would "do it again in a heartbeat" but I am not so sure. I think we should all try to love ourselves for who we are, not what we look like. I am still the same old Christy, just with a different (droopy) body.