In high school I had an eating disorder. You wouldn’t know it because I had bulimia and my weight never dipped low enough to be considered a low BMI, so on the outside I seemed fine. But I was on a fatal path, and it took years of outpatient programs and group therapies to recover. However, in the process of recovering, I gained weight. Then college happened, and I gained MORE weight. Then my mom became and alcoholic, and next thing I knew I was 215lbs, 36BMI.

I always knew I needed to lose weight, but I’ve been terrified of relapsing into an eating disorder (anyone who’s had one knows just how easy it is to relapse). Over the summer after ttc for several months with no luck, I began restricting my diet. As I feared, it triggered anxiety, guilt, obsessiveness, dangerous eating habits, and self hatred that led to my period being two weeks late. The fact that I almost threw my fertility down the toilet terrified me, so I worked to just maintain weight and nothing else.

Now after almost a year of trying, I went to a gynecologist to talk about the fact that I think I have LPD and that it’s affecting my fertility. I was hoping they’d test for progesterone levels or maybe even thyroid function, or suggest some vitamins that could help. Instead she told me that until I’d been trying for a year AT A BMI OF 25 OR LESS, she wouldn’t do any tests, because she was confident that getting my weight right would fix it.

I was angry at her, but also ashamed and scared. I know I have to lose weight, I know it’s the healthiest thing for me and any babies I conceive. But I’m SO scared that I’ll never be able to lose weight without relapsing, and it’s stunting my progress. I just feel so hopeless at this point...