Hello friends!
Gosh, I want to start out tonight by thanking you for the outpouring of love, joy and excitement for Steven and I after our gender reveal video post!
We are absolutely shocked and overjoyed that we have a little girl on the way!
We both thought — with absolute certainty — that this little nugget was a boy, just given the fact that I’ve had:
1. Absolutely zero morning sickness.
2. No nausea
3. No acne
4. No mood swings
5. No food aversions
6. Salty cravings
However, those who have seen me in person, and can see that I am “carrying round” all guessed GIRL, and well…they had it right!
All I know is…by golly I am pregnant! (She says while sitting on the couch eating straight peanut butter from the tub)
I wanted to share something exciting that came across my desk yesterday:
I was ranked the #2 Eating Disorder Recovery Blog on the Web for 2024 by Feedspot!
And the #1 Eating Disorder Recovery Blog in the US!
This is such an honor, and something that I am totally humbled by and grateful for.
I’m going to be honest, since finding out last week that I’m pregnant with a little girl, I’d be lying if I hadn’t thought about how to best foster a healthy relationship with food in our soon-to-grace-the-world baby Berb-ette.
Behind, of course, fostering a solid foundation in Christ, and bringing her up to love others and love her family, supporting our future daughter with a healthy body image and relationship with food is right up there with those other “foundational pillars.”
Having suffered through and overcome a severe case of anorexia that nearly took my life — it goes without saying — is not something that I want for my daughter — or anyone else’s.
And simply the fact alone that I was able to conceive this miracle babe, after my anorexia left my body so ravaged and depleted that I didn’t menstruate until I was 29…I know acutely just how devastating the toll it takes on the sufferer and her loved ones.
It is actually one of my deepest prayers to our Lord, as He is forming her in my womb, that He protect her mind from any and all lies from the Enemy about her body, her self-worth, her beauty, and her worthiness to be loved.
That is my deepest prayer. Especially since recently learning that anorexia is largely hereditary.
But I am placing that fear in God’s hands. And I’m already proclaiming that He has protected her from that genetic disposition, and poured out His grace on me to have the wisdom and discernment to bring her up to love and embrace who she is, and the beauty of Christ shining through her.
When I decided to start this blog anonymously back in 2015, I had one goal: to share the reality of anorexia and eating disorders so that loved ones could get a glimpse into what their daughter/friend/sister is thinking and going through. Because the number one thing I would hear from my loved ones is that they didn’t know how to get through to me — how to reach me. How to help me. They felt their hands were tied.
And so this blog started to be a resource for just that: Sharing the inner voice of an eating disorder, and what things could have reached me during my darkest times.
And boy, what a journey God has taken me on through it all.
This blog has been such an incredible source of healing for myself and my own family along the way, as I have unpacked so many things that I had bottled up and tried to bury, never to be uncovered again.
But the truth is, in order to truly heal and be able to genuinely move on from a self-inflicted, sustained trauma like that, you’ve simply got to get messy, get vulnerable, and work through the emotions, the pain, the hurt, the guilt, regret, shame and anger that you’re carrying. And then seek forgiveness – from God, from others, from yourself. That is where true healing takes place. And it’s the only way to thrive.
This pregnancy has taught me more about my recovery than the 17 years I have been living it.
It has really reaffirmed the fact that, until you surrender your body — and all the disordered expectations you have of it — (I won’t list them here, as not to trigger any ED-Warriors that may be reading) — but until you surrender your body to God — the Creator of it — your recovery will be superficial: unsteady, lacking foundation, lacking purpose, lacking a cornerstone, lacking the strength to persevere in the hard times.
This pregnancy has been a real “rubber meets the road” kind of situation, because I’ve been forced to step outside some real comfort zones I had developed in my recovery, that have made me reaffirm my trust in God. Because a) my body belongs to Him, and b) everything I’m doing now has an additional purpose: for my baby.
Which again confirms that a recovery is only successful when you acknowledge that there is something greater than yourself to recover for.
Anywho. A bit of musing tonight, as this recognition reminded me just how far God has brought me — from the basement of rock bottom, without hope and without a way out — now, to the absolute most incredibly blessed life with an amazingly loving husband and a miracle baby girl on the way.
I never could have even dreamed of this life when I was deep in the dungeon of anorexia.
Yet again, proving that with God, all things are possible.
God bless you, and my deepest thank you for your friendship over the years. I owe much of my recovery to this beautiful little community on here. ?
Love, Caralyn