Size matters

After my 20 week anatomy scan ultrasound, I just figured the next time we'd be seeing our son (trying to get used to saying that.... weird) would be the delivery room. I was pleasantly surprised that my doctor ordered an ultrasound when I saw her this week. She said I was measuring on track, as I have been all along, but wanted to check the baby's size as a routine procedure. No arguments here!

 

You can sign up for various pregnancy apps that compare your baby to some sort of fruit or vegetable every week. I found it really helpful in the beginning to know if the baby was the size of a blueberry or apple or carrot or whatever. At that point, the only proof I had that a human was actually growing in there was hearing the heartbeat every four weeks at the doctor's office, so it still seemed pretty unbelievable. It was cool having something concrete to connect to. Now, it kind of seems like they've run out of the bigger produce items and are really stretching. Plus, I can just look down and see him move all the time, so it's easy to connect without fruit comparisons.

 

I swear he's been the size of a pineapple before. Also 5 weeks left OMG.

Even though people say ultrasound weight estimates are notoriously inaccurate, I was still eager to see what they said he weighs. We went this afternoon, and even though I've been able to feel him moving every single day for months now, it's still surreal to actually see a person inside your body.

The ultrasound tech was really nice (they all have been!) and tried to get us a good face picture, but he had his arm in front of his face the whole time. I wasn't too concerned, since we will be seeing him 24/7 soon enough! There were some exciting findings though.

1. He's head down

I had no idea until I was pregnant how much of a big deal this is. Basically, babies are supposed to come out head first, so if his head was up by my ribs, I'd be en route to a scheduled C-section. Not the end of the world, but I'd be happy to avoid it. The tech said it's possible for him to still turn around, but unlikely. I've long suspected that he was in this position since something has been hitting my ribs for weeks, but I'm a first timer and know about as much as Jon Snow, so it's good to have actual confirmation. I've read in multiple places that 1/3 of babies are delivered by C-section, so obviously I realize it's still a decent possibility. That's fine with me if that's what it takes to deliver a healthy baby, but I'm still pleased he's head down.

2. He has hair! Who knew you could see this on an ultrasound? Not me, that's for sure. But the tech pointed out the hair on the back of his head to us! Crazy! I've been picturing him born bald for no particular reason, so I'll have to amend my mental image.

3. They estimated his weight at five pounds. This blew my mind. Even though the app says 4.9 pounds, even though I've seen a pineapple, that all seemed a little abstract to me, and it's just based on averages and not my particular baby anyway.

However, I do have a pretty solid perception of what a five pound baby looks like. My nephew was under five pounds when he came home from the hospital.

So we have this situation.... except imagine the child is INSIDE ME.

 

I've included more pictures so you can get the idea and because I love them and never get tired of looking at them.

 

My baby could be this size RIGHT NOW.

I definitely remember holding Harrison on that first day home from the hospital and it's just really throwing me for a loop that my baby is the size of an actual human baby that I have held and rocked and burped.

I also read this in a magazine this weekend. Again, not really new information, but the visuals help make it suddenly real.



Also, he's five pounds already, and he has up to seven weeks to continue to grow in there (and they can grow half a pound a week!). My plan today was to get his clothes unpacked into the dresser, and it's looking like I need to make sure to include some bigger sizes! I've had it in my head that he will be on the smaller side, I guess because of wishful thinking, but it's time to face facts and it's just as likely that I could be cooking up a 9 pounder.

In other news, I haven't run in about two weeks. I've made two attempts, and both times I stopped because of pain all along the outside of my lower right leg. I mean, it wasn't anything concerning or that I couldn't run through, but I didn't see the point and just did something else pain-free instead. I did realize that since I'm not training, I've abandoned all I've learned about the importance of shoe maintenance and have been running on long dead shoes. At some point I'll try out new shoes (I got a pair right before I found out I was pregnant and have been "saving" them for some reason). In the meantime, I've been having much more fun at spin class, a strength training class called Body Sculpt, kickboxing, and the elliptical. All comfortable and non-torturous, so that's working for me.



Gratuitous spin bike belly shot. This was one of the days I originally attempted to run, and was therefore not in bike shorts, so that was a bit painful.

Today is, very, very sadly, the last day of summer. I'm working at my school the next two days, and then our district officially starts on Monday (teachers only). I can't say I'm thrilled to introduce the alarm clock back into my life, but it was a pretty fantastic summer, and the fact that it's over just means I'm closer to meeting this kid! We are having one last hurrah at Five Guys tonight, because it's delicious and even though it's across the street, the first and only time I've ever been there was last July after the Endless Summer 6 hour race, and that's just a crime.

I know most of you are in real careers where you don't get a summer break, but pretend you do and share your perfect last summer day. I'm pretty psyched to fold teeny tiny baby clothes, stuff my face with ridiculously greasy food (it's cool though because I just had sliced cucumber and dip as a snack so it evens out), and watch the last two episodes of season 2 of Orange is the New Black (which is also sad because I'll miss it).

 

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!

Let's talk exercise - pregnancy edition

Mondays can be really rough, generally people agree that it's the worst day of the week. You know what perks them up? Not going to work. Mondays are basically just as good as weekend days now! This is the first summer I've actually taken off work, so it's really exciting to me. Just so you don't hate me too much, I am going to work Tuesday, Thursday and Friday this week.

I just got that Timehop app (it shows you all your social media posts on that date from years past) and started reminiscing about the olden days when I could run distances over 3 miles. I even used this blog to mainly discuss running and training for races. Insert photo montage of me happy and smiling at races past.

Mile 38 of the JFK 50 miler. Today I couldn't even run 4 miles.

It almost seems made up now. In fact, a year ago today I ran EIGHT MILES. I barely ran 8 miles all last week (actually, I think my total was ten). That's not a complaint though, in fact, it's quite the opposite, the fact that I could run at all after thinking it was all over at 23 weeks was the best birthday present I could get, other than Peeps.

I find it's pretty hard to stay motivated to exercise and eat healthy during pregnancy. The only real reason for it is just....to be healthy. Theoretically this should be the most motivating thing there is, but we all know if that were true, drive through fast food options wouldn't exist. I prefer the external motivation like training for a race and not being a fatty. When those are both off the table, it's kind of hard to get to the gym, especially when you have a built in excuse to lay on the couch and no one will really question it.

In keeping with the pretense of the blog purpose, let's talk a little about some pregnancy exercise options and the pros and cons of each. I swear I didn't make graphics to be pinterest-y, I hate Pinterest, I just couldn't figure out how to do charts in blogger and have some extra time on my hands anyway.

That didn't work out exactly the way I thought because I also really like spinning and kickboxing and the elliptical but they didn't really have enough pros and cons to make a graphic. I've also only gone swimming twice. I keep telling myself to do it more so I have some sort of exercise I can cling to when I'm gigantic but it's just boring as hell.

I ran 3.3 miles on the treadmill today. I foresee the majority of whatever runs I have left in me being on the treadmill. It's hot and sticky and disgusting outside, and when running is this difficult, I really need Buffy the Vampire Slayer to distract me. It also means I'm never more than four seconds from a bathroom, which is of the utmost importance. In the interest of full disclosure, I consider any distance covered by more running than walking to be a "run", regardless of how slow the running and how small the difference in time between the two is. I've read a lot of blogs of runners while they are pregnant, and I definitely did not appreciate just how difficult it is. It's not just the extra weight making running tougher, that's for sure.

I mentioned returning to "race shape" postpartum - whatever that means, right now probably just to be able to run a few miles without walk breaks. I still have no race plans for the future. My goal continues to be to figure out life with an infant, and then figure out life with a full time job and an infant, and if I can fit some runs in there, great. I mean, ideally I'll be working out once I'm cleared, because, you know, health and all, plus I'm sure I'll be sick of being fat. I'll admit I'm lusting after the ultimate in running strollers, the B.O.B., after trying my friend's last week. But the idea of following a training plan....that might have to wait.

What's your main motivation for exercise?

Running is hard, then and now

Once upon a time, this was a running blog. Now, I'm not really sure what it is, just one of many "random rambling" type blogs, I guess. But, for old time's sake, let's talk about running a little.

It's really weird and surprising to me that I'm nearly at the halfway point of this baby making adventure, and I still feel like I would be a solid contender for "I didn't know I was pregnant". I mean, yeah, almost none of my pants button, but it's not like I'd be the first American to ever experience such a thing.

The one major difference is running. It's not like running has ever been effortless for me, but it's a whole new ballgame now. I said at the beginning that I would only run until it became too uncomfortable, and then it was out. I said that was fine with me, and I meant it. I guess I had in my head that I would make it until at least like, 30 weeks before that happened though. I started seriously considering giving it up here in the teen weeks, and I'm really not cool with that. Apparently I like it more than I thought.

Here's what I've noticed about pregnant running (warning - a lot of it has to do with peeing).

• Speed. My old easy pace now feels like a sprint. My new pace (I won't say easy) is something I didn't even realize was a running pace before. It started right away, before I even found out at 4 weeks, and continued to decline. This isn't particularly troublesome, I didn't plan on setting any new PRs. I've kept my daily exercise time roughly the same, so now that time just allows for fewer miles.
• Walking. It now happens on every run. Even with my new slower pace, my HR still gets above what my doctor recommended, so I take walk breaks to get it back down. I used to HATE walk breaks, but now I pretty much live for them.
• Breathing. My lung capacity seems to have been cut in half immediately following conception. When I gave the Maryland state assessment, I have to read several pages of directions allowed, and I kept having to stop to gasp for air this year. During running it's even worse. Someone explain this please, because the state tests were when the baby was still like the size of a grape.
• Bathroom requirements. This is my major issue. I've been renowned among my friends for years about my extraordinarily small bladder. I've always out-peed every pregnant person I've ever hung out with, even within weeks of their due date. I literally have never, ever made it through an entire night without getting up to pee, even on Tylenol PM or codeine. Now, I enjoy about five minutes after every bathroom break where I don't have to pee before the urge hits me again. Running now creates this crazy pressure against my bladder so I constantly feel that "OMG I gotta pee NOW" sensation. This happens even when it's empty, so I can't even fix the problem by just stopping and finding a bathroom. I've been advised to just ignore it, but it's really hard to ignore a feeling that my brain has spent the past 30 years conditioned to attend to IMMEDIATELY. I usually make it a mile on the treadmill before I cry uncle and waste time on a pee break that I don't actually need.

That's about it for now. I haven't really had any round ligament pain while running, it seems to only hit with sudden movements, like hopping up from the couch. To deal with the annoyance, I switched to running every other day. In between, I've been doing Jillian Michaels DVDs. If this keeps up, it's possible that I wouldn't lose an arm wrestling contest with my baby, if such a thing were possible. I'm considering joining a gym to do some swimming and yoga and stuff.

Today, I shockingly had a GREAT run. I ran 2 miles without a break, and ran for an extra half of a Buffy episode (1.5 total) for a whopping five whole miles!

I reflected in the shower, and came up with two possible reasons.

1. Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment, and she assured me I wasn't doing any permanent damage to my bladder by running (she couldn't make the same guarantee for pregnancy), so maybe that gave me the mental boost I needed. I was sure I was setting myself up for a lifetime of embarrassing incontinence.
2. I had a McFlurry last night. I really wanted one and that fact that it was pouring rain didn't stop me from sending Eric. I had a Mcflurry the night before I unexpected PR'd the 10k last year, so clearly it's a recipe for success. To test it out, I bought some ice cream on my way home from work.

What's your favorite/least favorite type of exercise? My favorite is clearly running, least favorite is probably boring weight lifting in the free weight area.