My twins turned 22 months yesterday. Which is also the number of pounds that I’m above my pre-pregnancy weight. And that was ten pounds above my pre-trying-to-conceive weight, thank you nine months of IUIs, a laparoscopic surgery, fertility drugs, and IVF. Do the math and that’s thirty two pounds I haven’t lost. What’s worse is that a month after I had the twins, I weighed twenty pounds less than I do now.

Oh, how I wanted to be in the best shape of my life before I got pregnant. I only had ten pounds to lose, really, so I started Weight Watchers in February 2006. I ate better, more frequently, took the time to buy fresh vegetables and meat, measured them out, prepared the food accordingly. I would go to the gym on the way home from work, and I’d go run on the weekends. By May 2006 I had lost the ten pounds but was soooo much leaner, too. I felt great. And, looking back at pictures from my cousin Jai’s wedding that May, I looked pretty good, too (even though at the time I thought I should have been thinner). I have this picture with my sister, my mom, my partner, and my now-sister-in-law at the reception and I miss that person. And those clothes, collecting dust in my closet. I affectionately refer to my physical condition at that time as “Jai’s Wedding”.

C-Sections are a bitch, but they’re not an excuse. I know plenty of mom’s of multiples that had c-sections and have flat bellies. And their kids are younger than mine. Sure, most of those moms are younger than me (I’m about to be 36), and thus more elastic. Not an excuse. Though I sure have used it!

Here’s a low point in my warped logic for you: it’s easier for straight women to lose weight. WTF, right? Wait, wait, don’t send hate mail! I mean that as a compliment. You’ve got your man and you want to look good for your man (ok, yeah, and you). Not to mention, it seems for all women, it’s a badge of honor to have given birth, shrink down to pre-pregnancy weight, and a gold star for getting to a dress size smaller than pre-pregnancy. That seems to be a popular gloat on one of the parenting boards that I peruse.

Here’s the thing though, women are generally more forgiving of one another. And so my partner hasn’t exactly motivated me to get my fat ass off the couch because she’s just so sweet and compassionate and loves me for who I am. It’s all her fault! (Kidding!)

Oh, do trust that all the comparing to other women is not the underlying reason for all my self-loathing and insanity, but a byproduct of it.

But you see what kind of madness I’ve had in my head justifying the fact that I can’t fit into 80% of the clothes in my closet?

And the thing is, I can’t even really say that I’ve struggled with losing the weight, because in all honestly, I haven’t really tried. Where’s that DRIVE I had before TTC? I’ve searched for it, but I keep losing my grasp of it under the piles of laundry or the meals that need to be cooked/frozen, or getting bumped for another work meeting, or my commute, or underneath that hotwing sauce. (See? I really do accept responsibility.) I have to eat lunch out with my co-workers and hell if I’m paying more for a salad than for a burger SO I GET THE FRIGGIN BURGER. AND FRIES.; I have no time to exercise; I have twins.

I have twin toddlers JUST LIKE HUNDREDS OF FIT MOMS OUT THERE who get it all done.

So yeah, no excuse.

I wish I could afford to buy the kinds of healthy foods I was buying back in 2006, carefully measuring out portions and calculating protein content. Sure, I could go to the gym on the way home from work to “take care of me”, but then I wouldn’t get to see my kids before bedtime. And as it is, I only see them 30 minutes each morning and each evening five days per week. So get up early! That’s a failure waiting to happen because I couldn’t sustain a 4:00 a.m. wakeup for long. Run in your neighborhood! Not well lit, urban, nuf said. Work out after the kids go down! But for cooking, cleaning, maintaining my relationship with my significant other, working, (okay, yeah, and blogging), and the fact that all that has to happen between 8:00pm and 11:00p.m. I have so many “excuses” and justifications that if I’d just get rid of them, that’d probably be ten pounds worth right there.

Here’s the ugly truth: I do not take pictures with my kids because I hate the way I look. Therefore, I have very few pictures of me with the children that were borne of my womb. Forget the photo from Jai’s wedding. I just want to look good enough to have a picture with my kids that I’m not embarrassed that it exists. That’s right, folks. My twins are nearly two and I have less than ten pictures of them with THEIR MOTHER in them.

It’s not that I don’t know what I need to do – hell, I’ve done it before (albeit with a lot more resources and a ton more time). It’s just that now that I actually give a damn, I am so overwhelmed it’s hard to know where to start. Though it appears Facebook had a suggestion for me:

I have hit rock bottom.

So for the last two mornings, I’ve risen with the first snooze, while my family is still sleeping, and when it’s still way too dark, and have stumbled into the living room for a round of free weights, ab exercises, and push ups. I’m sore this afternoon, so that means something is working, right? RIGHT?

I am sure there are scores of mom’s out there in their mid 30s who can offer suggestions on how they snapped back into shape six weeks after birth, but hearing from y’all just makes me feel worse about myself. And if you are under 30, don’t you dare comment! (LOL!) Instead, I’m interested to hear from the mom’s out there who ARE or WERE in a situation like mine, where 12+ months after birth, they needed to get their assess kicked by the likes of Jillian Michaels. C’mon. Please let me know I’m not the only one.

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When she’s not making weight-loss excuses, Rachel and her 40 lbs of extra ass blogs over at Motherhood.Squared .