Remembering is hard

People told me that once I had a baby I wouldn't be able to remember/imagine life without him. I had a problem with that because mathematically, it just didn't make sense.

He's cute and all, but not a Men in Black style mind eraser.

Even if I counted the time I was pregnant as "with" him, which I don't, I had 30.5 years under my belt as a non parent. Somehow, it turned out to be kind of true though. I mean, I can obviously remember my life just fine, but it does seem like a million years ago that I was pregnant and we were a family of two, not just LAST MONTH. In fact, there are a whole bunch of things that I feel like I actually can't really remember or just seem ridiculous (I just have stuff I want to say so I'm pretending it has a theme).

I can barely remember:

1. Weird pregnancy anxiety things

I guess it's not that weird but when I was pregnant I kept thinking "I love sleep SO MUCH how am I going to deal with a crying baby waking me up all the time?". And it would be incredibly annoying having a stranger constantly interrupting your sleep, which is what I imagined, because he was a stranger at that time. But once the baby is born, he's not a stranger anymore, and it's not some random baby needing my attention at 3am, it's a member of my family that I'm happy/desperate to help. I'm not saying I won't be excited when way down the line I get a full night of sleep. I might not even be saying anything that makes sense. But past pregnant me would have been relieved to read that yes, of course it's exhausting, but not terrible getting up with your own precious tiny baby. Now when he's older, that might be a whole different story, but we're still solidly in the time where it's completely expected so that's how I feel at this moment. I was also scared that I wouldn't bond with Dalton and I think I've documented here that that has been far from true.

2. Doing things two handed

Kind of a lie because I am typing two handed now, but I've learned to let go of the expectation that it's a given and I've learned to do so much one handed. I can brush my teeth with just my non dominant hand now.

3. Being full

When Dalton was in my belly I sometimes felt Thanksgiving dinner level full on half a sandwich. Now that he's on the outside and I am actually "eating for two", being full is a thing of the past. I just pack snacks anywhere I go and accept that the best I can hope for is "less hungry".

4. Laying on my belly

The whole thing is still very tender to the touch and I steer clear. Someday, I will experience that joy again.

5. Kicks in my belly

I legitimately forgot what these feel like immediately! I just made my friend let me feel her baby's butt through her belly to try to bring it back. Is this normal? It's so sad!

6. Wearing different outfits

A nursing tank top, yoga pants and my Charm City Run Christmas gift, a Brooks jacket that I was smart enough to get in a size up in case I finally ever got pregnant has been my daily uniform. I could theoretically wear other shirts but then nursing gets more complicated. When he was first born I could wear dresses and that opened up my wardrobe quite a bit. Now it's too cold out unless I get all fancy with tights. But then I have to wear real shoes and not my Northface flip flops that I have literally worn every single day since the school year began with the exception of the day I went into labor when I was getting observed by a billion people. Maybe I'm fooling myself because I don't want to face wearing pants in a larger size but I did try on one pair of pants that zip and button (fat pants, clearly) and it was very uncomfortable. Girls say they have nothing to wear and it's an exaggeration usually, but this time, nope.

7. Being active

I've actually kind of gotten to the point where I miss running. The problem is I feel confident that how I remember it and how it will actually be are not one and the same. Not the same at all. The thought that I ever once ran 26.2 or more miles at once is mind boggling. I can't imagine running one now.

From the days when I ran ten mile races like it was NBD.

A picture with ALL THE SPORTS seemed fitting here

8. Contractions

I most certainly do remember these but the memory is starting to slightly fade and become less vivid, which will only continue as proven by the fact that multiple child families exist. I still shudder at the thought but it's not quite at the Theon Greyjoy/Reek level of horror that it was.

 

Cute baby palate cleanser needed after remembering those awful scenes from season 3.

That time it was cold out and I thought maybe he was big enough for his adorable little baby peacoat.


9. Not waking up in a panic like when you miss your alarm and you wake up ten minutes after you were supposed to leave

The first week home one of us woke up and frantically searched the bed for the baby at least ten times per night, certain we'd fallen asleep with him and lost him in the bedsheets. Knock on wood, this never actually happened, every time he was safely sleeping in his own bed next to us. I hear this is quite common, though. We both still wake up with a start no matter what because IS THE BABY OK ANYTHING COULD HAVE HAPPENED WHILE ASLEEP. Now that he is occasionally starting to have some longer stretches of sleep, it's even more frightening. The first time we woke him up to eat and good lord was that a mistake. The next time I just stared at him and googled "four week old asleep ___ hours" and finally posted it in the mommy FB group and of course even at 3:30am I got immediate answers and the unanimous response was "go back to sleep yourself".

I feel obligated to note due to annoying internet mommy bragging that this is not me saying "look at my one month old sleeping through the night bitches!" or anything of the sort. I don't even know what qualifies as "night" right now, his whole life is just a series of eating and sleeping. This is just referring to times he slept a bit longer than other times and my crazy paranoid new mom reaction. It's not just me though. The other day Eric came out of the shower while I had Dalton in the bouncer "watching" me cook dinner in the kitchen. He came racing into the kitchen demanding "WHERE IS HE" and I was like "um look down". His initial reaction was apparently not only thinking that I lost the baby, but that my next move was "well, dinner sure ain't gonna cook itself".

 

What did you think you would never forget but now find you can barely remember?

 

An unexpected marriage booster

I'm not exactly someone one might refer to as "socially adept".

Please help me, I don't know how to act when doing things with people.

Not because I'm a jerk or I act like Sheldon Cooper or anything, just because I struggle with awkwardness and the more new people I'm around, the more uncomfortable and awkward I get. Which is why for the past few years I've exclusively turned to the internet when I want to add to my social circle. But I did the unthinkable and didn't scare away real life people, and reaped the rewards after the new mothers group last week.

 I ONLY have him programmed in that way in case of emergency (and it has worked in the past).

We went out for the pregnancy forbidden food, sushi.

We rolled in swinging our three babies in their car seats, taking over the largest table in the restaurant as all the business people enjoying their lunch looked up in horror. The kids were really good though! I even nursed Dalton in my lap while still eating sushi (not with chopsticks, I'm too white for that). We've come a long way since the days when it would require all four hands from both his parents for him to eat successfully.

The week's excitement did not end there.

Um, how did this happen?

I was reading something last weekend that referenced October 23 (Dalton's one month birthday) as part of the upcoming week, and I was positive that there was some mistake, either I was reading it wrong (a common problem these days) or the writer was incorrect. I pulled out the calendar and everything. But it was correct, and somehow October passed in a wonderful blur and it's been a month since he arrived. My previous childless self reading this would have rolled my eyes and been like "um, it's a month, he's not off to college, pull yourself together". But those days are done and now I get why moms cry when packing up the outgrown clothes (he already doesn't fit in the outfit he wore home from the hospital!).

We celebrated a month of Dalton successfully surviving inept new parents by going to the happiest place on earth.

Baby's first Wegmans trip

I'm pretty sure he loved it, he slept in the Ergo the whole time but I know he felt happy, because it's impossible not to at Wegmans. It's important to honor his heritage as a half - Rochesterian baby.

Some other stuff happened. We went on a 2-ish mile stroller walk the past three days in a row!

My friend convinced me to get Snapchat - still not convinced it's not just for drunken nudie pic sharing.

None of these walks ended with me in immense pain or with signs that I might hemorrhage and die. I even pushed the stroller for about a third of the time.

Even better, Friday's walk was back to the pumpkin farm.

Everyone knows photo ops like this are the real reason people have babies.

Do not climb the pumpkins.... but it's ok to dress like one and have someone put you on there against your will.

Sometimes mommy brain pities you and throws you a bone. I can't remember what my husband said to me 45 seconds ago, but somehow it occurred to me that I never spent a generous gift card that my dad got me for my 27th birthday. I'm 31. And 4 months. Anyway, I used it for a much needed new bed set.

 

I even took the Boppy and burp cloths off for this picture to show the full effect.

It's so pretty and comfy and fluffy and I love it. I don't care if I'm not getting a solid 8 hours for a while, I'm enjoying whatever I do get even more now.

 

 

I watched a video of a C-section (a real one, not the one in Breaking Dawn). If you've been following this blog, and especially if you know me in real life, this should be shocking. Eric and I went to donate blood when we had been dating like a month. I got denied because I coughed, and I peaced out of there and let my friend stay with him because I hate needles/blood/anything medical so much.

The back story is, at the new mothers group, I brought up my frustration at being a month postpartum, and being able to do significantly less than I could at 9 months pregnant. I thought I was good at the whole "not comparing myself to others" thing. Then I realized that I was only good at not comparing myself to randoms on the internet, because we all know the world is full of crazy. I was comparing myself to friends though, because obviously they are people I respect and know are intelligent and not crazy. And they could all do more than walk across the street 4 weeks out.

The nurse who runs the group (who also taught childbirth class) told me that people who get the same surgery for other reasons are generally not working, driving, or doing anything but resting for 6-8 weeks. Women who get C-sections have the same incision and general procedure, but they are immediately caring for an infant (duh), which is essentially the opposite of resting. She also pointed out I might be extra sore since the doctor was most likely much rougher on the retractors and my organs since mine had to be carried out so fast (so hopefully if I end up having a scheduled one for the next kid recovery will be easier!). And, obviously, everyone is different so my body really doesn't give a crap what my friend or enemy or anyone else was doing after delivery, it will recover whenever it damn well feels like it.

The nurse he referenced the video we saw in class of a c section, and when I told Eric the story he was like "you saw that! You were sitting right next to me looking at the screen!". Yeah, well, I also bounced on the birthing ball and stared lovingly into your eyes while we practiced breathing through pretend contractions but that didn't turn out to be reality either. Clearly I had my eyes closed during the video.

But now it can't scare me anymore because my anxiety stems from when I perseverate on something until it becomes worse and worse in my mind (I'm looking at you, returning to work) but this already happened. The video was disgusting but also interesting. I want to watch another one, actually, because that one was for premature twins, and I want to see one similar to mine. It's actually kind of frightening how many videos of surgery are on YouTube.

 

A huge benefit in Eric's mind to the possibility of a planned c-section in the future is that he won't have to comfort me and can just enjoy watching the whole procedure. Him seeing my organs has really improved our marriage and brought us closer, which is an advantage I hear just isn't there for vaginal deliveries.

 

Are you fascinated or horrified by modern medicine? (Horrified in an "ew gross" way, not like let's bring it back to just biting a bullet while we saw your leg off like that scene in Gone with the Wind that I fast forward through every single time.)

 

 

 

Parenthood - the unexpected (but no poop stories)

So while I do mainly mock and ridicule blog and social media posts, one that I kind of like is what people find is unexpected about life as a parent. So here's some stuff.

1. I'm a billion degrees

Before I was pregnant, I was the freak show shivering in a sweatshirt in August. Being pregnant pretty much caught me up to the temperature of those around me. Today, I went to the grocery store in a tank top and shorts and was totally comfortable. As I looked around in the checkout line, I realized everyone else was in pants, long sleeves, and occasionally jackets. So that's different.

2. I thought I did strength training while pregnant to prepare to constantly carry my baby

I was wrong. What I really needed those bicep curls for was to arm wrestle my baby. I thought the Twilight series was just a guilty pleasure, but it turns out they were right about newborns having superior strength. The other thing about newborns that I've learned is that they fight their own survival. This kid will yank his food source out of his mouth and start sucking his fist instead, and no amount of explanation from us will convince him that no nutrition is available that way. You would think it would be easy for me, as an adult, to just take his fist away, but no. It is not easy.

Looks innocent, but he's secretly a bodybuilder.

3. Babies don't read

Specifically, the baby books and the baby item product reviews. Kara was nice enough to pass down her Rock and Play. It's the Rolls Royce of baby beds. In fact, if you google ways to help a two week old sleep, like 95% of the responses say to buy a Rock and Play. Try it. Dalton isn't so convinced, and really prefers to sleep on one of us. I can't really blame him though, his father is renowned for his hugs.

They are both pretty awesome.

4. The night is dark and filled with (even worse) terrors

I went into pregnancy with a crippling fear of needles, and I got out of it with five tries to put an IV in and a needle in my spine and I didn't completely succumb to panic. I was patting myself on the back for becoming slightly less phobic due to all those blood draws in the past nine months. Well, the joke was on me, because it turns out that things can get much worse than dealing with a fear of needles getting stuck into you. After pregnancy, people want to stick needles into your baby.

I haven't even really dealt with it yet. He got his post-birth tests/blood draws when I was cracked out on morphine and didn't even know what was happening. Then he got his follow up PKU test last week, and I left and hid in the bathroom and ran the water so I couldn't hear anything (Eric stayed). I might do the same for the one month vaccines. I realize this is a prime opportunity for people to say "just wait until ___", and I realize I will have to deal with it someday, but today is not that day.

5. I don't need to know lullabies

One of the weird ass things I got nervous about towards the end of pregnancy was not knowing any songs to sing Dalton to sleep. It turns out babies don't care, and you can sing Katy Perry instead of Rock a Bye baby, and it works just fine.

6. I don't always hate physical contact

I'm renowned for hating hugs, and generally touching of any kind. Two people sent me this article. But I often have to force myself to stop hugging and cuddling this guy. I never want to not be snuggling with him.

He's just so squishy and kissable.

7. Not all infants are boring.

They're all so cute. But let's face it - as great as it is to hold other people's kids, they don't do much. Especially at this age. Adorable, but not interesting. Unless it's your own kid. Then every yawn, sneeze, and blink is fascinating. Really. I have actually watched a video of him hiccupping when I missed him while he was sleeping. This one isn't technically that unexpected, because I'm the same way with my nephew. I'm including it though because it was something that concerned me before I became an aunt.

8. Mommy brain is worse than pregnancy brain

This is also something people warned me about, but I'm including it anyway because if you actually listen to everything people warn you about while pregnant you'll definitely lose your mind. I'm also including it because the actual #8 came to me while I was working on this post, and I grabbed my phone to record it in the notes section with the rest of the items on the list. Literally by the time I unlocked the phone I had lost the thought, and I swear I do not just throw the word "literally" around unless I mean it.

9. I became a caricature of a mom. It happened before I expected.

I got really brave today and we went for our first outing (a walk down our street) just the two of us, mother and son. I got the diaper changed, put Dalton in a fresh, cute outfit, and brought the baby carrier out and started to put it on, announcing "ok, we're all ready to go on our walk!". Yeah, one of us wasn't ready. One of us was in a spit up stained nursing tank, pajama shorts, and had hair sticking up like a cartoon character who just stuck a finger in an outlet. Full disclosure - I put on a headband and pants, but the spit up tank remained.

I had another one about poop but there's enough of that on the internet, and I wouldn't want someone blogging about my bathroom habits, so maybe I should give my kid the same consideration.

Unrelated - if you are interested in reading and reviewing my aunt's book (I posted about it yesterday), or really, if you don't know if you are interested, you can read the first chapter on her blog. It's a fantastic dystopian novel.

What was unexpected about a major life change for you?

 

Four things Thursday

1. I fully admit to being dumb and trying to do too much too early and not letting myself recover. I really appreciate everyone who has had a c-section commenting and sharing their experience and saying nice things. I went to my doctor today for my follow up and asked her about what I could and couldn't do, and I summed up her advice as "don't be dumb". She agreed. I will now work on not being dumb. (For the record, my husband did offer to clean the floors but I felt bad since he's already doing everything and did it myself anyway. Dumb.)

2. I'm now allowed to drive again! Although I don't really want to go anywhere, as I have everything I need at home.

But now I can. Luckily for me I'm not really one prone to cabin fever. I'm perfectly happy to have a week of snow days where I don't see the outside world other than through the window. That mentality works out pretty well while caring for your first brand new baby. We did stop at Trader Joes on the way back from the doctor, and I got a few groceries. It was my first time going to a place that wasn't a doctor's office. It doesn't really count since I went in alone while Eric and Dalton stayed in the car, but still. But it was exciting to be in a grocery store and be like "Now I can eat whatever I want!"

3. I made a pregnancy/baby page with all the posts I wrote about pregnancy. There were more than I thought, so I figured I might as well catalogue them. It's been a project spanning several days. I also saved all my pregnancy posts as word documents during the process so I can look back on them someday when Blogger is but a memory. If I'd been smart, I would have been doing this all along, possibly with all my posts. But I'm not smart.

Shocking, I know.

4. I made lactation cookies. I didn't even know this was a thing.

The ingredients that make the magic happen.

Supposedly it works, so, best case scenario, you help your baby, worst case scenario, you just eat cookies. It's a win win. They are cooling now, so I'll report back on the taste (but there's butter and sugar and chocolate chips, so I feel it's safe to say they will be delicious).

I guess they don't actually look like much. Too bad you can't smell them.

One more thing -We are committed to trying the Little Caesars pretzel crust pizza tonight, so hopefully I can report back on that as well. Who said the romance dies when you become parents? We're still living life in the fast lane, clearly.

 

Would you get cabin fever never leaving your home, or are you more like me and could take or leave the outside world?

The first week - random thoughts

 
I definitely never intended to write a "mommy blog" (and back when I started blogging, kids weren't even remotely on the horizon and I would have never guessed I'd keep it up so long! TWSS). Hopeful it won't stay a mommy blog forever, but right now, that's kind of all that I have. I'm on maternity leave, recovering from surgery, and caring for a newborn. I guess I could blog about current events or something, but let's be honest, the rest of the world is much less interesting to me right now.

Kind of all I care about currently.

We came home from the hospital on Saturday, when Dalton was four days old.

Getting ready for his world début!

 

We were in the hospital an extra hour waiting for a wheelchair. That I had to walk over and get in to. Policy, I guess.

 

The hospital was pretty sweet, but I was weirdly excited to “introduce” him to his home. Because he totally knew the difference.

 

Welcome home! See how psyched he is?

He got to meet 4/5 of his grandparents right away! My dad is coming this weekend to complete things.

 

 

My mom and stepfather stayed with us until Tuesday, and it was amazing. I basically did nothing but cuddle with and feed Dalton, and they cooked us gourmet level meals and cleaned the kitchen. Actually, even after the sad goodbye, we're still on that plan because they left us plenty of extras. 

 
We are now on day 9 of his life, and have spent one full day caring for him all by ourselves (so expert level now, obviously). Here’s a random collection of thoughts about it.

 

1. Anyone who knows me knows that next to needles, there's nothing I hate more than hugs and inspirational, cheesy quotes and clichés. That said, it turns out that all that crap about motherhood being a love like you've never known and being instantly infatuated with your kid is true. Who knew?

 

Home in time to cheer the Ravens to victory.

2. Obviously a week or so is nothing and my feelings can change at any moment (especially on all these hormones), but I would rate the past week as approximately the best of my whole life. I'm excluding the day in labor since he was actually in my life for less than 45 minutes of that day, and the next day of nothing but a drug filled haze.It's up there with our honeymoon. Clearly in a different way, the honeymoon was great in more of a relaxing, fruity tropical drink filled way, but in terms of pure happiness, they're pretty comparable.

3. My stomach is so soft and squishy. I don't know if that's what normal stomachs feel like and I just got used to it being super hard because a baby butt was pressing out, or if that's just part of the healing process. What non-pregnant women feel like letting me feel their bellies to compare?

4. I painted my toenails! It didn't even hurt or cause me to breathe like I was winning the 100 yard dash! It turns out that a lot of the things that you look forward to when not pregnant (rolling over in bed, going from sitting to standing, and picking things up off the floor without all of the above being an ordeal, mainly) aren't in place right away when recovering from a c section. So the toenails were a huge victory. How about instead of a gross foot pic, we enjoy another adorable baby shot?

He's a "first bath by inept new parents" survivor.

5. I finally get why people say it's hard to lose the baby weight. Because people bring you delicious food. Just yesterday we had three sets of visitors. One brought a gift card for takeout, one brought an awesome toy, and the last brought delicious macaroni and cheese for dinner. I have a giant stack of candy on my dining room table that people have brought me, including five large bags of M&Ms (candy corn, peanut butter, and pumpkin spice, in case you were curious). On a scale of 1-10, I'm upset about this -5. My philosophy has always been that many, many things taste better than skinny feels. One of them is macaroni and cheese.

6. Two things that I thought were hyperbolic descriptions.

• That scene on Friends after Rachel has her baby when she's looking at her sleeping and is like "I actually miss her right now".
• People telling me that you will lose so much self consciousness in the hospital that you can be breastfeeding and tell the janitor to come on in.

Turns out neither one of these is an exaggeration. Both 100% accurate.

7. We had our first outing yesterday, to the pediatrician. Dalton has surpassed his birth weight, and gained even more than the recommended amount. I was super excited over this, which means I've officially entered lame mom territory. Even more exciting, that means we don't have to wake him every two hours to eat anymore. Something I didn't realize is that "every two hours" isn't really two hours, because it's start of feeding to start of next feeding. So if he eats at 1am -1:30 am, and goes back to sleep at 1:45am, you need to wake him back up to eat at 3am. Again, I don't mean that as a complaint, because I was honestly just so happy that he was eating well. But it's exciting to let him call the shots now!

8. We were only a slight mess leaving the house. One lesson I learned was that you are supposed to apply deodorant under your sleeve. It doesn't work on top of clothing.

Eric insisted that picture make the blog

Lesson #2: It takes a little longer to prepare to leave the house with a baby. I thought I had enough time to get ready and get both of us fed. No. I barely had time to feed him and incorrectly apply that deodorant.

We got the baby in the car, pulled out, and then I realized "hey, we have a baby now! We're supposed to bring the diaper bag with us!". Luckily we hadn't gone far and could go back and get it and still be on time. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be extremely necessary.

9. We started watching The Strain. Creepy vampire violence. You can't go wrong.

Best week of your life. Go.

 

 

 

Mom report card, according to the internet

I'm officially a mom now, except that's weird, so maybe somebody could fill me in on how long it takes to get used to that title?

As we all know, I spent a lot of time during pregnancy reading mom blogs and birth stories. Most pregnancy/mommy blogs are written by people who know the right way to create, carry, and birth a baby, and like every woman, I strive to emulate them. It's time to put my teacher skills to use, even on maternity leave, and grade myself based on all that reading.

1. Staying active during pregnancy: A+

I worked out 6 days almost every single week, and clearly that makes me better than almost every other woman on earth, ever. I lost count of how many people attributed my smooth pregnancy to exercise, and how many people promised me an easy, fast delivery for the same reason. I always maintained both of those were just luck of the draw. I don't know what I did to make the pregnancy gods smile on me like crazy, but I don't think it was the fact that I read a magazine on the elliptical regularly. And all those quality hours with my bump on the treadmill with Buffy or in spin class sure didn't get me that easy, fast delivery.

2. An unmedicated, natural birth: FFF

That's right, triple Fs. I get the first for not even attempting that torture. If it were up to me, I would have had that epidural in on the first contraction. I further failed by being strep B positive, and needing antibiotics upon arrival at the hospital. Then, I agreed (readily) to use Pitocin to speed things up. I was medicated all around!

The ultimate fail was delivering via C-section. Totally unnatural. Let's talk about how guilty and sad I feel as I mourn that experience. That's a big fat zero. I firmly believe everyone is entitled to their feelings (and I've certainly had my share of irrational ones), but for me, a healthy baby truly was the only goal. All's well that ends well and I look back on that day with nothing but happiness (well, I do still shudder at the contraction part a bit).

3. Skin to skin time: F

I might as well not even bother trying to mother this kid, because the internet has been quite clear that skin to skin time after birth is the be all and end all for motherhood. I looked forward to that precious moment when your baby is finally placed on your chest and you experience that love like you've never known just as much as any mom - to - be.  I had that moment, but right after delivery, when I was strung out on painkillers, the room was spinning, and I couldn't move or feel anything but my head, well, that wasn't it. Actually, it's not even my fault, because I totally could have still had skin to skin time while I was getting stitched up if someone spotted me. The problem was my son was too "busy" receiving "life saving interventions" and didn't have time to cuddle up with dear old mom right away. RUDE.



So busy moments after birth. Whatever.

4. Eating healthy nonstop except for very few instances that I can reasonably blame 100% on cravings from the fetus and not my own crack in my perfect willpower - Big Fat F

I had my fair share of healthy meals, and my pregnancy brain led me to accidentally buy organic or low fat versions of things more than normal (truly accidental, like I was too dumb to read labels correctly). But as I've documented extensively, I enjoyed plenty of burgers, fries, delicious desserts, and many other foods for fatties while pregnant. Guess who wanted all those things? It sure as hell wasn't the fetus the size of an orange. In fact, I eat all that stuff even when I don't have an innocent little friend growing in my womb to blame it on. I'll even continue to now! And I'm going to let Dalton eat sugar! Not three times a day every day until we end up on the Biggest Loser, but life without fries and chocolate isn't worth living in my humble opinion.

5. Pregnancy weight  gain - C

The largest point

I don't really understand why this number is something that I see shared on blogs all the time. Never mind, I do, because what's the point of only eating organic kale chips and fruit for dessert (or gross crap like Artic Zero) if you don't have a super low pregnancy weight gain to smugly brag about? I gave myself a C because mine was solidly in the healthy range, and if you aren't my doctor or my husband, it's none of your damn business. I thought that went without saying, but then people ask. And don't drop it when I try to politely decline sharing.

I will say one thing that I wished I had known a few months ago. I gained way more weight than you are supposed to in the first tri (no morning sickness was sweet!) and was starting to freak out that I would gain 75 pounds and be delivering a 12 pound baby. It all evened out by the end though, and my doctor was never concerned, so if that happens to you, don't stress over it!

6. Post partum weight loss - NA

Well, I've weighed myself every day since the birth, and taken stomach progress pictures, and developed a complicated post partum exercise plan that involves a minimum of 3 daily workouts beginning when my baby is 2.5 weeks old, and started charting my calories through daily mile, but I TOTALLY don't actually care about losing the baby weight!



I read that statement "I'm not thinking about the baby weight at all" a lot, but I actually mean it. I have not done any of those things. I'm not saying that will be true forever, but a week out, I'm strictly following my recovery plan of snuggling with my baby as much as humanly possible. And blogging, because Eric wants some cuddle time too.

Here's what I'm actual doing:

• I'm positive I lost at least 6 lbs, 14 oz so far.

One step closer to my skinny jeans without this dead weight.

My mom made me a ton of delicious food, and I'm eating all of it.

Leftover chicken marsala and lasagna for dinner

Pumpkin cream cheese chocolate chip bread for dessert



• Today we walked down the stairs (we live in a third floor apartment) to say goodbye to my parents, and then we took a walk down the street. I didn't time it, but I'd estimate 4-5 minutes.
• I don't mean to brag but.... my pre-pregnancy pajama pants already fit again.

7. Gratuitous belly pictures: B-

Eh, I could have done better, but I kind of loved being pregnant and felt the need to document here and there. But I always kept my shirt on and never subjected the internet to my pale flesh, so there's that. And I think I kept it to a minimum.

8. Breastfeeding: A

Let's hope I didn't jinx anything, we are only a week in and it's good! I'm not sure why everyone and their mom leans in confidentially to say "nobody tells you this, but babies get night and day confused" like they're dropping a huge knowledge bomb. I could have actually used some of that information that nobody tells you about breastfeeding. Like the fact that sometimes it requires all four hands (from me and Eric) to prevent him from eating his hands instead, because he's much stronger than any mortal baby should be. But we're tag teaming it, so we are able to out-wrestle him like 80% of the time. Also, other stuff that doesn't belong on the internet.

9. Sleep deprivation: A

Get ready for me to rock your world - newborns need constant care! Even overnight! You can't just have one and then sleep all night! Brand new information, right? Well, it's kind of what we signed up for when we decided to become parents, so excuse me if I don't write a whole post where I'm a whiny little bitch about it. Besides, I'd much rather stare at this face at 3am than just be up with pregnancy insomnia (or general insomnia), or taking my temperature while I was trying to get pregnant.

Not that he sleeps in that hat.

10. The shock of how great a dad my husband is: F

Stick with me. Yeah, he's pretty awesome in general, and exceptionally so at this dad thing so far.



The thing is, the overall tone on these posts is one of shock and awe at this revelation. The fact that he's an incredible father warms my heart, sure, but it doesn't surprise me. Granted, his good looks are mainly the reason I married him, but knowing he'd eventually be a top notch baby daddy was a consideration as well. I feel like there's a lot of low expectations for husbands in the blog world.

11. Eating my placenta: E for EWWWWW

That's nasty, and I'm judging you for it. Sorry I'm not sorry. We need a cute baby palate cleanser now.

 

Getting his hearing test. (He passed!)

Actually, eating placenta is so nasty we need double baby to get it out of our heads.

 Choose a smug blogger edict to grade yourself on. You don't even have to be a teacher! In blogging, everyone is an expert on anything they want to be.

 

My triumphant post partum plan to return to running. Spoiler alert -I'm not

When I was first pregnant, it kind of felt like I would be pregnant forever. Obviously I knew it meant a baby was coming, but nine months is just such a long time. I never thought it was before, but when your baby is the size of a poppy seed and you just want to fast forward and meet him or her immediately, you suddenly realize it is LONG. Thinking about the future meant like... the third trimester.

Now, the end is actually in sight. I can conceive of a time in the near future where I won't be pregnant. Of course, this means I'm also pretty close to the process involved in getting to that point, but we'll ignore that as best we can (you probably are better equipped than I am). That means I'm starting to think about another popular blog topic: my post partum body/recovery/fitness.

I'm not going to lie, if there was some magic pill I could take that would allow me to come home from the hospital in my pre-pregnancy jeans, looking great, I would take it in a heartbeat.  I don't want to hang on to my baby belly once the baby is out any more than anyone else. I don't own a single pair of maternity pants (only shorts/dresses) so if I can't fit into my regular pants by Christmas, I guess I'm screwed. I feel this is a pretty strong possibility, so, my coworkers can look forward to seeing me wearing tights all winter.

A common blog theme is the "omg I totally don't care about losing the baby weight! But here is a detailed list of my weights and progress pictures from every week post partum and you can friend me on my fitness pal where I dutifully log every one of the 900 calories I eat daily while breastfeeding." I really, really hope I can fight the sleep deprivation enough to create a post to mock these posts. I actually have a trick up my sleeve that gives me an advantage over these obsessive bloggers though: a job. Something to think about other than exercise and counting calories! Imagine that!

I have two post partum goals - care for my baby, and do my job. That's it. I'll reevaluate in June when the school year ends. I'm not planning any races. Racing isn't going anywhere, and I have no desire to push myself to the brink just so I can say "I did such and such race at only x weeks postpartum!". In fact, I have no interest in doing any fitness event at a time when I'm still measuring the post partum period in weeks.

It's all relative, and there are tons of careers that are WAY more demanding than mine. I seriously hate teacher martyrs that whine and post articles on social media about working 15 hours a day and grading papers from dawn till dusk every weekend. No. If that's your life, you are doing teaching wrong, and no one is impressed. (I will continue to complain about my lack of bathroom breaks.)

However, it's also not like when I worked at Starbucks, for example, and you punch in and punch out at assigned times and when you punch out, you're done for the day. You do generally have to devote some evening and weekend time. Personally, I find teaching to be a huge emotional investment. I feel like it's draining to do my best normally, and I'm fairly concerned about balancing that with being a mom.

Obviously, caring for the baby and work are non-negotiable. I just can't see adding anything else on top of that in the early stages. Plenty of women are able to balance infants and challenging jobs and train for races, so it's clearly do-able. But that would require a ton of dedication, and something would have to be sacrificed (I'm guessing it's sleep). I'm certainly not saying it's impossible, in fact, I think it's really impressive. I'm saying it sounds too hard for me and I don't want to do it.

Here's my post partum "plan" 6 weeks before my due date.

1. Sadly, it doesn't go without saying in the blog world, so I'll say it: I won't be doing any exercise before I'm cleared by my doctor. Hopefully we will take some walks, since a huge advantage of a fall baby is supposedly nice weather. That's it though.

I can say that much definitively, and the rest of this post is just my naïve musings from this side of the delivery room. Maybe I'll follow it, maybe I'll laugh at myself.

2. I won't be making a paper chain like the kind kids make to count down for Christmas to count down to when I can run/exercise again after delivery. I'll start when I feel ready. That might not be until 2015. Right now, I just feel like my 12 week maternity leave is going to fly by, and soon I'll be handing my baby over to someone else to spend the majority of his day with. I just want to enjoy the time I do have with him. Of course, that's super easy to say now when I'm living in an idealized mother/baby dream world and not actually sleep deprived and caring for a crying infant. Maybe I will be chomping at the bit to get outside for a run, in which case, I'll go for one. But I'm not putting some arbitrary date on it, aside from waiting till it's medically safe.

3. Once I return to work, I'm hoping to do some type of workout 5 days a week, because health/fitting in to pants/etc.  We have Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred and Insanity T25, which are both 25 minute exercise DVDs. They pretty much make you feel like you are about to die for 25 minutes, so I'm thinking they might be the way to get the best bang for my buck with limited time. I don't relish the idea of waking up several times a night to nurse, then getting up at 4am to do an 8 mile run before getting myself and a baby ready for the day and being at work by 7:30 or 8.  Maybe this kid is going to be a phenomenal sleeper right off the bat and I can easily train for a marathon this spring, but I can barely even type that without laughing.

4. Eating. I actually have no plan here except that I definitely plan to continue doing it. I've only made two freezer meals so far. I should probably make more. They are both dairy free though, just in case. If I'm still really fat and it's getting towards summer, I'll probably try to limit desserts or use My Fitness Pal or do something. You'll know if this is the case because I'll only post pictures of the baby or myself from the neck up.

I apologize in advance to anyone who was hoping the nonstop baby talk was coming to an end and I would return to blogging about running soon. Not likely. But, my running buddies and I do have very, very tentative plans of meeting to do the St. Louis marathon (one of them moved there recently) in October 2015, so there is that.

Tl:dr version: duh I want to get re-skinny after baby, but I only have room in my brain to obsess over so much, and being a good mother and teacher at the same time has prime real estate.

If there's one thing I value, it's strangers opinions on the internet, so let's all weigh in. You don't have to be a runner, mother, or #motherrunner. Anyone who has a keyboard can participate!