i wish i had the motivation that i have now back when i was pregnant with my first child, after believing that it would never happen to me and that i was a slim build and i just wouldnt put much weight on during pregnancy.... 30kgs later... after giving birth to my first child i was mortified with my weight!!! i feel into a bout of depression over it and over the following 6 years attempted diets and exercise but never actually stuck with it!!

after finding out i was pregnant with our 4th child i was finally accepted into the birth center at the royal womens hospital. (i had applied to get in there with every pregnancy but was never successful in their ballots) my dreams of a water birth were finally going to be coming true... until i had my first appointment with them at 20weeks.... i was told that to have a water birth i needed to keep my weight under 100kgs!! i left that appointment with a completely different view on life!! i went straight out and joined a gym and am now on a "diet" to make sure my weight doesnt exceed the limit!

the first week of my "diet" i lost a staggering 4kgs!! i was blown away and didnt think that was truely possible!! i am nearly at the end of my second week and i snuck onto the scales today and was a little dissappointed to find that i had only lost a mere 200grams

after sitting down and actually thinking about what went wrong in the last week i come to the conclussion that it couldnt of been that 1 banana smoothie i had made myself the night before! i debated with myself and finally realised that i should be happy with any weight loss... i should be happy with even no weight loss!! my body is GROWING a baby and im expected to put on some weight but considering that i didnt put on any then i should be cheering for joy!!

i was not going to let this weeks little 200gram loss spoil the effort that i have put in so far, i have dreamed of having this water birth for 6 years now and after all the trouble i had to actually get into the birth center i was not going to let my weight stop me from achieving this goal!!

i am going to the gym a minimum 3 times a week and doing a least 30 - 60 mins of cardio and then doing light weights to to tone! i have also started doing some of the classes that the gym has to offer... so far i have only made it to a pump class but i had soo much fun and really felt the difference the next day in my body ... ouch lol!!

i have 14 weeks left of my pregnancy and compared to the 1.5kgs that i was allowed to gain to get my water birth it is now sitting at 6kgs!!! and hopefully that will keep going down

i am soo surprised at the extra energy that i have, i get up and am happy and it doesnt take me an hour to actually wake up like it use to!!

i truely believe that this is the start of a whole new lifestyle for me


sorry this has turned into a novel..... i just hoped that if i shared my story then others might not give up on their hopes and dreams of their perfect birth and that just because u are pregnant it doesnt meant that u cant start something that u didnt do before pregnancy

I have also ditched the car and walk to and from work.
To get a car space at the hospital is near impossible so i park a few blocks away and walk to my appointments.
Plus i have a border collie dog that needs LOTS of exercise otherwise i would have many holes in my back yard

Thanks for the tip on the fit ball Jules.

Hayleysangels thanks for sharing your story.