Every Monday, eMothersOnline will have a weekly challenge called Mama Mondays for everyone to participate in via their own blogs. This week, the challenge is to write something about our First Mommy Moment. When you’ve written your entry, go back and leave a link to your post so we can feature you and your blog!

My first mommy moment happened almost as soon as I became pregnant. Up to that moment, I’d never been very concerned about my health. The only thing about my body I worried about was my weight, but even then I was never proactive about doing anything to really keep it in check. I was certainly no gym rat and ate anything I felt like within reason.

A few months into my pregnancy, my doctor in Japan cautioned me against “excessive” weight gain. (I can’t remember how much I gained or how quickly, but I remember checking those numbers against weight recommendations for pregnant women in the U.S. and I was not gaining at an abnormal rate.) Threatening me with preeclampsia, high blood pressure, and other horrible health consequences, he told me I had to keep my weight down; I wasn’t to gain more than 22 pounds (10 kg) by the time I gave birth.

As soon as I got home after that dismaying prenatal check-up, I developed a plan of action. My body was no longer mine to do with as I wish. I was a mother with obligations to my child. I had to be physically fit for my baby so that he could have a nourishing environment to grow. And, although I’d been loathe to count calories all my life, I designed a spreadsheet to record every bit of food I ate and the approximate calorie content. I also plotted the predicted rate of growth and end pregnancy weight (once an epidemiologist, always an epidemiologist). When Stephen was born, my final weight was just two pounds over what the doctor ordered.

My body has not been solely my own for over three years. From breastfeeding to sleeping to going to the bathroom, Stephen has had a say in when and how I do it. But children own mothers and fathers in many ways beyond the physical. From the time Stephen entered our lives as a tiny little embryo, he took control of our hearts.

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