Exhausted

Well still my biggest symptom of pregnancy is super exhaustion! It doesn't seem to matter how much sleep I am getting I have days where I just feel tired constantly. I know I was tired when I was pregnant with Zelda but I don't remember being this tired. I guess one big difference is when I was pregnant with Zelda I didn't have Zelda! And now I have this happy, hyper two year old jumping on me if I try to rest on the couch for a bit! So anyway I'm dealing with that, but although I'm tired I have managed to exercise most days.
Tuesday: Ran 5 miles
Wednesday: Insanity Upper Body weight training
Thursday: Ran 3 miles.
Tomorrow's Friday and I plan to workout; either weights, walking or calisthenics, we'll see what I feel like doing tomorrow!

Baby # 2

Yesterday, Wed. Oct. 22, I took a pregnancy test, it was positive! Woohoo, first month of trying so I was expecting it to be positive! Super excited, I just want to tell everyone and yes I have told a few people. It is however, early so I know I need to try to keep quiet a little bit longer.  The main symptom I'm having is exhaustion, just sleepy all the time. I am doing my best to not become lazy, Monday I ran 2 miles, Tuesday I ran/walked 8 miles, it took me an hour and 40 minutes so yeah I was definitely taking it easy. Today I ran/walked 3 miles. I hope I get some of my vigor and energy back soon because this is rough but I guess if it's my biggest symptom I have it pretty easy.
Food that sounds delicious lately is anything vegan, well vegan plus cheese I guess. Which is technically vegetarian but I am trying to cut the cheese out, it just tastes so good! This doesn't mean that I don't like meat anymore, I do, but on a day to day basis thinking about what to cook for dinner, pretty much anything vegan sounds great! When I was pregnant with Zelda I was more concerned with getting enough protein and thought vegetarian wasn't even enough to cut it. I am more knowledgeable now and I know that even vegans get plenty of protein even if they're pregnant. So anyway my point is I'm not worried about that this time, I am just going to eat as healthy and as vegan as I want to! It is my goal to be much more careful with the junk food, I got lazy last time, but this time I want to make sure everything I feed myself and this baby is quality!

Gearing up for Baby # 2

Well it has been 2 years and 1 month since the "Birth of Zelda Eden" and I am ready for another newborn in my life!  My husband and I are weird in that we are planners when it comes to our baby's births. My husband is a teacher so we try to time the birth for the beginning of the summer so that he can be home with the newborn and myself for the entire summer! For us that means the goal is to become pregnant in September or October. So what am I doing to get ready for pregnancy? Exercising and eating well of course! I believe women would benefit from getting their bodies strong prior to becoming pregnant! Pregnancy causes our bellies to grow and our ligaments to become lax, making it more difficult for our muscles to hold everything together. This is why many pregnant women find themselves uncomfortable and dealing with all sorts of aches and pains they've never had before. I believe these common pregnancy complaints can be diminished, alleviated, and possibly eliminated by staying active and strong prior to and during pregnancy! Which muscles should be focused on for strengthening? I would say primarily the ones that attach to the pelvis; we're talking Glutes, Hamstrings, Quadriceps, Abdominal muscles and even the Erector Spinae and Latissimus Dorsi muscles attach to the pelvis! For me all this really means is I'm continuing my normal weekly exercise routine of  running, weight lifting/calisthenics and stretching/yoga. If you don't already have a weekly exercise routine some good starting exercises I recommend are squats, lunges and planks.  So right now instead of training for a particular race I am focused on my next pregnancy! That's how important pregnancy and birth are to me, with the end goal being of course, to deliver a healthy baby without the assistance of drugs! I do realize that labor can be unpredictable (this is also what makes it so exciting to me) and we cannot always control the course our labor takes, however I also believe that our bodies were meant to be active during pregnancy and labor and staying strong and exercising throughout pregnancy will help myself and my baby to better handle the stress of labor and birth.

 A look back: Me, about 5 and a half months pregnant with Zelda, exercising on the stability ball

4 Weeks Postpartum Thoughts

Zelda is four weeks old this week and she's still the cutest, most adorable thing I've ever seen! She blows me away every time I look at her!

She makes these noises that sound like a squeaky toy when she's sleeping, it's so cute and it makes me laugh! Remembering back to the whole birth experience I see it as exciting!  Despite how uncomfortable I was through a lot of it I am now able to remember it as an exciting event and I feel like I did a pretty amazing job dealing with it! Before I felt like I had not handled the pain very well because I was just shocked by the emotional and physical intensity of it, but now when I look back I'm just proud of myself!
In church I am helping go through a series about sex with the middle school girls. We're discussing God's plan for sex and on Sunday the girls got into the discussion and somehow brought up the idea that women have it harder than men with the whole childbirth process. Women have to carry the baby for nine long months and then go through painful labor and birth. I was listening as they discussed this and thinking this is exactly how I felt when I was those girl's age. But after going through it myself I feel completely different. Childbirth isn't a burden it's a blessing! Women don't have to carry the baby for nine long months we GET to. And that's something that men do not get to do.  But don't worry guys, you play a major role in this as well. I'm so thankful to have Michael around.  Not only did I need him during labor and delivery but the recovery has been a lot harder than I imagined, and I couldn't do it without him. 
Those are my thoughts right now and I'm glad I was able to get them out! I want to hold on to this feeling as long as I can. 

The Birth of Zelda Eden

Monday June 4th was my due date, which started out as a normal day. I wasn't expecting much because I had been having irregular contractions for weeks at that point. As you know I was an avid runner throughout my entire pregnancy, although by that week I was mostly walking. We went for a 3 mile walk and everything continued as usual. That evening we went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with my family. We were seated, ordered our food and waited. Right as the waitress brought out my food and set it in front of me I felt a "pop." My first thought was that the baby kicked me, but it felt really low. Immediately then I felt a GUSH of fluid which was unmistakably my water breaking! I know some people have a small trickle....well my shoes got soaked, this was no trickle. This was at 8:15 pm. We immediately got our food to go and went home. I was not having contractions yet so we sat down and ate our food. Michael called our nurse midwife and told her the situation and that we were going to stay home as long as possible and rest, she approved of this. 

The contractions started around 10:00 pm but weren't hard yet. We went to bed. I lay awake for a while and just as I was relaxing and dozing off, my contractions picked up enough to keep me awake, well that and the endless trips to go to the bathroom. I lay there dealing with them for a while before waking Michael and saying that we should try timing them. They were never consistent, I would have them 3 minutes apart, but the next would be 4 minutes and then 5 and then maybe nothing for 15 to 20 minutes. This continued for hours, however my contractions kept getting stronger and I found them very difficult to deal with. We were having a hard time deciding when we should head to the hospital. At around 3 am we ate some cereal and listened to my relaxing labor mix CD. The music helped me deal with the contractions but after an hour we decided to go lay back in bed to get a little more rest. Around 6 am I felt really sick to my stomach and rushed to the bathroom where I puked my guts out. I felt a lot better after throwing up but my emotional sign posts were much more serious and Michael decided it was time to head to the hospital and fortunately he had already loaded the car with everything we needed, so I didn't have to wait for stuff to be ready. Michael called the nurse midwife to let her know that we were on our way.

We arrived at the hospital a little before 7 am and I was asked to fill out some stupid paperwork even though I had already preregistered. After that they took me into triage, which I could only describe as torture! I waited alone for about 15 minutes before a nurse came in and hooked me up to the fetal heart rate monitor. She made me stay on my back for this, which was incredibly uncomfortable. She began asking me a endless number of questions. When my midwife came in to check me, I was happy to hear that I was dilated to 7 cm and 100% effaced. After 45 minutes they finally let Michael come in. After another round of a billion questions they finally let us go to our L&D room where they continued to mess with me more. The nurse did a horrible job of trying to get my hep-lock in. She had to poke me in both arms to try and get it in. She also came in every hour to strap me up to the monitor and always made sure it was nice and uncomfortable. 

Labor continued for hours. I never found a comfortable position to labor in but we did try quite a few. I started feeling the urge to push, so we had our midwife come and check me and I was only about 8 cm.  I spent a few more hours laying on my side as the need to push continued getting stronger and impossible to fight. The next time my midwife checked me there was a lip of cervix left on one side so she had me change the side I was laying on (apparently I had not switched sides at all). About another hour passed and when she checked me again there was still a small lip of cervix left so she decided to hold it out of the way while I pushed the baby's head past it.  I was excited to finally be able to push! I used the squatting bar for a while but I guess my midwife could tell I was extremely tired so she had me switch to laying on my back to push. Around this time a new nurse came in and she turned out to be very helpful by coaching me through the pushing. They had me feel the baby's head as it started crowning. I got excited thinking that the end was near, however I was very wrong. Her head crowned for about 2 hours (but I didn't tear or need stitches thanks to the patience of my midwife). I felt the "ring of fire" and I kept thinking that it couldn't get worse but with every push it did. Finally her head finished coming out and it was just a few more pushes and her whole body was out! 

Zelda Eden Shaw was born at 3:53 pm weighing 7 lbs 6 oz and 18.5 inches long! 

I look back on the whole experience and I find it amazing! I'm proud of myself for doing it without any drugs, just like I planned from the beginning of my pregnancy! 

39 Weeks

Well we are almost to the due date, but I am not holding my breath on delivering just yet, I'm pretty sure I will at least make it to my due date, which is next Monday (6 days from now), and possibly longer, which is okay I guess. The only thing that makes me a little nervous is that my step Mom took off work this week and next in order to be available around the time of the baby's birth and her parents are coming all the way from Illinois next week also to be around for the birth. It's definitely a great idea and I'm excited that they all want to be around for the birth, but part of me thinks "what if she's not born during that time?" That would kinda stink, but it's out of my control. Mostly I miss running, and I really don't enjoy my feet being swollen and sore all the time, and I'm often very tired but for the most part I don't seem to be getting any more uncomfortable so as long as I stay about like I feel right now it's bearable. 
This past Sunday I had a hard time getting up and I felt kinda sick and crampy, like menstrual cramps kinda. We got up, went to church like always and by then I felt a little better. However during lunch I started having some pretty strong Braxton Hicks contractions and we tried timing them but they were very irregular and like 15 minutes apart so not enough to excited over. Eventually they went away and then tonight I got really hungry before dinner and had a few contractions so I think we've decided that being overly hungry causes me to have contractions, or at least to think that I'm having them. I mean I've been having irregular ones for a while now but hunger is one thing that just seems to set them off.  
I'm still going for walks and doing yoga at Destination Maternity twice a week. Michael and I even went to partner yoga this past Saturday and told the instructor we thought it would be our last partner yoga but then the instructor told us that the next one would actually be this coming Saturday June 2nd soooo we will probably be there since my due date is not until June 4th. 
Several friends and family members actually texted me today to see how I was feeling which I thought was very sweet of them! 
Meanwhile Zelda is always squirming around, I always feel her back on my right side and her feet (or something) poking out on my left side. She gets hiccups A LOT, even has them right now! I still appreciate the feeling of her moving inside me, I wonder if I will miss that after she is born...

38 Weeks and Super Tired

37 week Belly Shot

Today I am 38 weeks and 3 days pregnant. I've stayed super busy and productive most days this week. The days have kinda blurred together, but I spent one day cleaning and organizing like a mad woman, so that hopefully I will not have to do a deep cleaning like that again until sometime after the baby is born. I went to yoga twice this week and went for a walk/run once, I mostly walk now, if I jog it's incredibly slow and only for maybe 30 second increments.  I've got 6 meals in the freezer, 4 of which I made and 2 were from a lady from my church. I bought a closet organizer for the baby's closet and got that set up today. I've been meaning to pack for the hospital but I'm having a hard time doing that, I feel like it would be easier to do it once I'm in labor and I know I'm going to the hospital soon, versus having that bag sitting there for weeks. All that said I went ahead and have started packing today, mostly the baby's things and some clothes for me, I guess that's better than nothing for now. So I feel like I've been pretty productive this weeks, however today I just wanted to stay in bed. I didn't but I felt like I was dragging myself around, to yoga and then a couple errands. It was rough, so I finally gave up and attempted an hour and half nap, which was more of doze but that's okay it definitely helped. 

I've moved on from reading about labor and delivery to doing more reading about breastfeeding. I plan to breast feed exclusively but I've heard it can be a challenge so I want to be prepared for it just as much as I've prepared for labor. I've been to 3 La Leche League meetings, which have been great! There's not as many pregnant women there as there are women who already have babies, but they've all told me that I'm smart for going to the meetings before having my baby. The books I've been reading are "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding," and "Eat Well, Lose Weight While Breastfeeding." Both are great, especially the first one, it offers TONS of great baby care information. 

It's crazy to think that I basically have a whole infant inside of me right now! If she were born right now she'd be completely ready for life outside of my body however, the more time she gets inside the better! Babies practice breathing movements before they are born and at this stage my baby should be taking 40 practice breaths each minute. I never knew that newborn babies can't produce tears! According to www.whattoexpect.com it won't be until sometime after the first month that she will cry real tears, despite the fact that she'll probably be crying upon birth. I'm surprised I never noticed that with my baby brothers.