I lived in fear of gaining weight. Then I got pregnant and suffered from perinatal depression because of my body changes.

• I had an unhealthy relationship with food after losing 70 pounds in my 20s.
• When I got pregnant and started gaining weight, I felt out of control.

In my early 20s, I lost a lot of weight — about 70 pounds. As the pounds started to come off, people started treating me differently. Suddenly men were holding the door for me and people were just generally more friendly.

I felt better about my appearance, and people were constantly reinforcing this by telling me how great I looked with the weight off. It was a slippery slope.

Once I had reached a new low weight, I wanted to maintain it no matter what. I would weigh myself daily and change my eating habits based on what the scale was reading that morning. Thinner was better, and I wanted to stay thin.

When I got pregnant, this all became more complicated. I gained weight and hated being pregnant. Losing control of my body and weight made me develop perinatal depression.

My eating wasn't healthy

My relationship with food before my first pregnancy was not good, to say the least. I had a system — certain food rules to follow. Coffee in the morning, work all day, random snacks in the afternoon, and then dinner. On the weekends, anything went. My disordered eating worked for me — for a while. I felt in control of my weight.

In my early 30s, I got married, and we planned to build a family together. When I became pregnant with our first child, I was excited. I couldn't wait to see my cute little bump grow. I was hoping for a perfectly round little pot belly that I could show off in cute maternity dresses.

I didn't want to know how much weight I'd gained

As weeks passed in my pregnancy, I quickly began to gain weight. It became clear that my pregnancy body dreams were not a reality. I carried super high, and I felt that my bump looked more like extra weight than a baby bump.

I'll never forget being at work one day when a woman pointed out that I was getting "chunky," at which point I had to tell her that I was nearly eight months pregnant. I was so fearful of the weight I was putting on that I would not allow the nurse at the obstetrician's office to tell me how much I weighed each time.

I didn't want to face that number on the scale.

I suffered from perinatal depression

I was so anxious, and for the first time, I felt out of control of my body. When you live your life in fear of gaining weight, body changes during pregnancy can be overwhelming.

With all of this anxiety came depression and panic attacks. I remember sitting in the parking lot of a store with my husband one day just bawling my eyes out because I was so upset about my appearance. My worst fear was being "fat" again, and the fear I felt about it was real.

I remember googling "celebrities who hated pregnancy" just looking for someone — anyone — who had felt the way I did. I was relieved to know that other women had actually hated being pregnant too.

After we welcomed our son, my perinatal depression became postpartum depression. I reached out to a therapist to help me work through the depression and body-image struggles. She helped me to see that the sum of my self-worth was not the number on the scale.

I would never claim to not think about my weight or even not want to lose weight at times, but I understand now that I am so much more than just how much I weigh.