Euro Pregnancy

For those of you wondering... still no Baby G. My efforts to convince her to come out yesterday were useless. I hear it might take some jalapeno eating too con her into coming out to play.

Yesterday afternoon there were two European couples at a gathering we were at. They've each had children in the past couple of years and one of them is pregnant right now. At one point the conversation turned to the topic of drinking alcohol while pregnant. One of the husbands commenting, "It's fine to drink while pregnant as long at you don't get stinking drunk."

They were pretty surprised by the warning labels on the beer that said not to drink while pregnant. They were even more surprised when I told them of all the signs posted in restaurants which warn people about the dangers of drinking while pregnant. Apparently if you are having a Euro pregnancy a few drinks a week is perfectly fine.

It's interesting to think about all the cultural differences out there. Aside from this whole drinking concept there are differences in views of what pregnant ladies can / should be doing. For example, do you think there are a lot of women in third world nations who get put on bed rest for the last month of pregnancy? How many of them are tested for gestational diabetes or get concerned about gaining too much weight? How many countries have a 12 week maternity leave?

Sometimes it's worth while to take a step back and think about how different we all our. What would things be like if you were born into a family on the other side of the world or even one on the other side of town?

09-09-09

In the middle of the day I realized it was 09/09/09. No Baby G on labor day, no Baby G today. Wonder what day she's going to arrive...

----

I've been wearing the same TYR swim suit since the beginning of the year. Somehow the miracle suit has lasted / stretched through my entire pregnancy. A few weeks ago the strap stitching started to come apart and I worried, what if it breaks before Baby G arrives? No worries, I'll just keep wearing it until it stops stretching or breaks.

When I took it out of my swim bag after practice I noticed the strap had broken, no bueno. If you look carefully in the picture above you'll see a broken white strap. Carla thinks it'll be fine on top of another suit so we'll go with that for a while and see if it lasts until Baby G arrives.

Shortly after taking this picture Ali arrived and I told her my bad news, "My swim suit broke."

"At your stomach?" she asked.

We all got a good laugh at that image, my suit stretching so much at my stomach that burst apart like a Hulk Hogan shirt.

Benchmark testing

After 9 months of being pregnant there's some inevitable physiological changes that take place. There are the shrinking parts; non-existent bladder, highly compressed small intestine, and all the muscles which have been working out less. Then there are the growing parts; you can see some of them but there is also a growth in heart and lung size.

This implies some potential fitness benefits, such as increased VO2 max, which I don't have a means of testing right now. Instead I have been subjected to a more simplistic testing protocol: the stair test.

My OB's office is on the 5th floor of her building. I've been assessing my fitness throughout pregnancy based upon my ease for climbing the stairs to her office. I must admit, today I had to take a deep breath at the top of the stairs. Trouble is, this test is flawed since I am currently congested and can not breath well to begin with.

The slightly negative results of today's test are counterbalanced by the fact that I beat another lady who took the elevator to the fifth floor. This (non-pregnant) lady boarded the elevator at the ground floor when I entered the stairwell. I'd already begun signing in at the office when she entered.

Therefore, I have concluded; I am still rating highly on my stair climbing test. If I could just find someone to give me a VO2 max test a month after pregnancy I'd actually have some numbers to analyze.

For those of you who doubted my ability to actually do a pull up on my own, I have no comment on the matter. Instead, I've added a couple pictures taken yesterday morning.



I have no clue why the publishers over at Fit Pregnancy haven't called me for my photo shoot...

Fund Raising

Michael and I always joke, "I saw a lot of fund raising on MoPac today." Whenever we see cops pulling people over every couple of miles we joke about it. Today, I saw a lot of fund raising while driving to Whole Foods. Luckily, I've grown so uncomfortable in the car that I've started to drive more like my brother (Miss Daisy) than my mother (Mario).

Funny thing about this discomfort in the car... I feel as if Baby G is quite cramped when I sit so she's constantly trying to push my ribs out of the way. Every so often I set my hand on the top of my bulge and try to gently rub away the discomfort. It's so strange to be poking at yourself and not actually feel like you are poking yourself. If I poke my leg I feel it, if I poke my arm I feel it, but if I poke my belly I might not feel anything. Or... well... I feel Baby G's bum but I don't feel my poke.

I can't reach

I bought my blue IKEA step stool during orientation week at CMU, 13 yrs ago. It's been on many adventures and has been quite useful to it's mildly short owner.

Over the past few weeks I've encountered a new limitation, my belly has gotten in the way of my ability to bend and reach. I feel as if I'm 6 again, I can no longer reach the bottom of the washing machine or reach the glasses on the 2nd shelf of the cabinet (forget the third shelf, those have always been too high). When I was younger I would merely climb onto the dryer and reach down in the washer or climb onto the counter to reach a glass. For some reason I seem to be a bit less agile right now. The stool is getting a little more use these days, glad I've been holding onto the $3 item for so long.

The stool was quite useful today as I was reaching for small clothes at the bottom of the washer. Yesterday Michael and I picked up a car load of goodies from some people moving to CO. Among the pile were a lot of 2T & 3T clothes. It's funny, right now we have a lot of 0-6 month and 2T-3T. In between are a few items but not nearly the collection of hand-me-downs for the other sizes.

As I was sorting clothes into piles I remarked to Michael, "Darn, this pair of pants already has holes in both knees."

"No problem," Michael smiled, "she'll need clothes like that when she's working on the airplane."

The Mammas and the Pappas

Last night Raul and his Run-far crew put on the Zilker Relays. Once we found out Todd and Beth were expecting their second child I decided it was absolutely necessary to create a Jack and Adams maternity team for the Relay.

They were a bit hesitant at first, "Michelle, it might take us all night for 4 x 2.5 mi."

"Good news, there's a walking division, 4 x 1 mi."

We were all set to go; 4 pregnant mammas to walk, 4 proud pappas to run, and an entire crowd of onlookers to worry that their team might get chicked by some pregnant girls.

The shots above were from before the race started, before the wind and the impending doom of the oncoming storm system.

I'd write more about our evening but I've got a new pile of handed down baby / kid items to go through... time for some more "nesting."

Max Capacity < 1 NB

Last week I joined Michael and his co-workers for lunch. One of them was mentioning his theory on pregnancy, "Women become so uncomfortable the last month that they'll do anything to push that baby out."

It seemed like a relatively humorous comment at the time but it has now become a reality for me. Almost like clockwork, 1 month before my due date I started to become very uncomfortable. It's as if I've completely run out of space for Baby G and she's left with no choice but to push on everything she can find. Who knows, maybe she thinks my ribs will eventually break or my pelvis will just move out of the way.

I guess this is why some people don't have any stretch marks until the very end of pregnancy. She's got a few weeks more to grow at a rate of .5lb/wk. That does not sound very promising for any thoughts of getting more comfortable before she arrives.

On the bright side of all this, it seems like I have a strong, determined little girl.