A time for every season

I don't know if anyone will read this now that the challenge is over, but I need to write it out for me.  I totally checked out of the challenge this week.  I didn't exercise a single time, and I ate multiple desserts every day. Let me go back up though, to the beginning of this story.  Around Christmastime, when my daughter Grace was just over 2 months old, she started crying during every feeding.  EVERY FEEDING.  I was completely overwhelmed, and cried all the time for her, and me. :)  I had no idea what to do, and everything we did didn't help (priesthood blessings, change of diet etc).  I had started exercising a few weeks before (6 weeks postpartum), and took a break over Christmas vacation and then started right back up again for this challenge.  I also put myself on a diet of absolutely no desserts at the beginning of the year.  So basically, this challenge should have been a piece of cake for me!

I worried about Grace, I worried that I would lose my milk because I was exercising too much, but I was so focused on me, and my weight loss, that I pushed it aside for the first weeks of January.  Grace continued to cry for 50-100% of her feedings, and I was constantly mentally exhausted.  I was losing my appetite, and definitely not getting enough calories in during the day, always hurrying to get a big snack in before 8 PM, and it just wasn't enough.

I asked my husband for a blessing at the beginning of February, and Heavenly Father told me that if I listened to the spirit, it would tell me how to help Grace.  I sent an email to my family members asking them to pray for Grace.  I stopped exercising, and I started eating desserts again (mostly at the urging of my husband - he didn't think it was healthy to stop eating any desserts just to binge whenever I finally started eating them again, which I totally would do).  I prayed for guidance and started swaddling Grace every time she ate, and made sure that my 2 year old was playing a game or watching tv so that he wouldn't disturb her when she ate, because she's so sensitive to noises.

And prayers were answered.  Tuesday last week we went for an entire day with zero crying during feedings. She even took a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, which hasn't happened for months.  She has cried at only 2 or 3 feedings total in the past week.  I'm eating many oatmeal cookies everyday, and not even considering exercise, and my daughter is happy.  I actually weigh a little bit less now than at the beginning of the challenge.

I cried a little bit as I wrote this out.  It has been such a hard few months.  But I know that HF was looking out for me, and he had to get around my selfishness of wanting to lose the baby weight and look just like my old self, in order to bless me and my family.  It has certainly made me appreciate my body more, and the miracle of what I can do with it to give birth and feed my children.  I realized that this is not the season for me to be vain about the way I look - now is the time to be taking care of my children in the way that they have need of it.  Listening to the promptings of the spirit and the promptings of my body and my mother's intuition has made a huge difference.  Reading my scriptures every day has made a huge difference.  My body might not look any different right now, but I know my spirit and testimony are stronger.  Thanks to all of you for your encouraging words.  Thanks to Angela for putting this together.  May God bless you in all of your goals.