Not quite my usual running form

As promised... a video from last night.

Before you get too impressed with the fact that I was actually running at 33 weeks into my pregnancy I'm going to be honest and tell you it only lasted about 5 min.

For those of you who might question my logic too my doctor, chiropractor, massage therapist, or anyone else, "I declare my right to run when trying to escape from the wrath of the paparazzi." Clearly I am being chased by someone who wants to video tape the pregnant lady and see what it looks like when the baby falls out due to the impact of running while pregnant. Too bad I'm saving that type of craziness for Rich and Kelly's wedding, they're getting married 2 days before my due date. Rich is convinced it'll be a top hit on YouTube if there's a baby born during the ceremony, I don't think Kelly agrees.

Michael said the most humorous part of this run was watching the people stare in the 'dog off leash' area. I wonder if they could tell I was pregnant or were actually staring at Michael as he ran through with a huge Camelpak on his back.

Some of you may notice the forward tilt in my form. My pelvis has shifted due to Baby G's location, a mass sticking out the front of me. This has lead to quite an unusual feeling while running and becomes a bit uncomfortable after a few minutes. Therefore, I've spent a lot of time water jogging and have made a few 5 min runs in the middle of my walks.

I'd been running on the road and trail for the first 7 months but halted my ground travels after a troublesome run / walk last month. Although I noticed a decrease in top end pace overnight, I did manage to maintain a fairly 'normal' aerobic pace for those 7 months. The big difference was my increased bathroom use and general discomfort. I have a mental imagine of how I should look while running and that was no longer easy to maintain.

Keep in mind, this is me, not everyone. Some people stop running a few months into their pregnancy and some continue to run until the day they give birth. Some slow down a lot and others don't slow as much.

For me the question becomes, "Will I be faster and stronger afterward?"

My new friend: the UPS guy

We've lived in our house for 9 1/2 years and I think I've only seen our UPS delivery man a handful of times. So far this week, I have seen him every day. Michael's family has been busy sending us some of the key items for Baby G. One of the bigger items is the rocking chair from his dad. When he visited a few weeks ago he insisted that we NEED a rocking chair and we NEED to be sure it has good cushions.

Behold the glider...


I felt the need to take the picture with my first book gift. When Trisha joined me for our Tues morning water jog she presenting a copy of Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots? I've never seen this book but thought it was quite fitting.

One of yesterday's activities included packing the bag for the hospital. I guess the theory is, if you pack it early your baby will be full term before you go into labor. I packed a pile of items into one of my nine blue MG bags (yes, we have a lot of matching bags) and tossed it in the car.

As I was packing the bag I realized a few flaws in the Mayo Clinic packing list

1) Lip Balm - although needed it will be a nasty mess if I put it in the car with our current temperatures.

2) Phone number list - not really needed any more, our cell phones have a long list of phone numbers in them. Plus, with facebook, Twitter, and my blog I'm pretty sure Michael will find faster ways to notify hundreds of people when Baby G arrives.

3) Clothes - aside from my confusion of what a "mid-maternity outfit to wear home" means, I also note the lack of mention of clothing for your SO. They mention clothes for you and the baby and seem to forget that my husband might want to some clean clothes too. Of course, he'll get to leave earlier... to go home and download more video and pictures.

Which brings me to mentioning another new item of the week... the video camera. We've been holding off on getting this, to be sure we get the coolest and newest one on the market. Michael decided it was due time to get one, especially since he wanted to have it before heading up to Leadville next weekend. Stay tuned, useless videos will appear on this site shortly.

Another belly shot (33 weeks)....

Mommy Poll

Today is 7 weeks before my due date. Although I am seemingly close to becoming a mom I was quite surprised when a lady at the gym said, "You look like you're expecting very soon." This comment is quite the opposite of what I usually hear, "Where is baby G?"

Anyways... Michael and I gave up are initial plan of waiting until Baby G arrives to get presents for her. Over the past few weeks we've started to collect a number of items and have been preparing her room. It's been pretty exciting :)

I've realized I don't know what I need. When people ask what I still need I am never quite sure what to say. In the early stages of pregnancy I was warned about all the advice I'd receive from other moms, friends and complete strangers. Funny thing is, I actually haven't noticed that too much. Believe me, I'm not upset about the lack of belly touching or advice from strangers but I thought it might be useful to ask a few questions.

Also, over the past few years the cord blood banking has been a hot topic. We haven't quite figured out what to do about this and it seems like most other parents felt the same way when they were deciding.

So, I've decided it's time to ask a few questions of the mothers out there and see what they have to say. I thought it might be useful to myself and my other friends who are pregnant for the first time or will be in the future...

1) Did you bank your child's cord blood? (do you have an insightful reason why or why not)
2) What was the most useful item you had as a new parent?
3) What was the least useful / dangerous item you had as a new parent?
4) How long did you wait to work out again after giving birth? (what did you do first)
5) What was the most useful information you received from another mother?
6) What was the best thing your S.O. did for you before / during / after labor?

Thanks for the feedback!

Birthing Class

Michael is on the phone to a friend right now. Here's what he replied when the person on the other end asked how birthing class was:

"If a girl who has not been pregnant yet attending a birthing class I'm pretty sure she'd never get pregnant. There were a few times during class when I was thinking glad that's not me."

Wonderful... thanks Michael, that's very supportive! ;)

We'll just refer to birthing class as the 'scare the pregnant lady when it's already too late' class.

A few examples...

The discussion about tearing. Let's be honest, there's no way you can possibly sugar coat this. My brother informed me of the tearing the day I told him I was pregnant, he'd waited until then to scare me. The nurse yesterday did a much better job painting a horror picture but I'll just let the others hear about that on their own terms and hope it isn't 4th degree tearing for me.

Then there's the result of the tearing... 6-8 weeks of bleeding. Holy $@&%!!! that is a long time! Trouble is, I also found out I'm not allowed to be swimming, water jogging, etc during that time. I knew I was not supposed to run for that long and assumed the idea of a bike saddle wouldn't be to inviting but I had not considered the risk of bacterial infection to the wound. Officially, I am not supposed to do any exercise until I am cleared at my 6 week OB visit. I'll find out a little more about this in a couple weeks, maybe yoga and walking will be fine.

Another memorable part of the day was the tour of the hospital and the trip past the nursery. As all the parents were looking in on the two babies currently in the nursery a collective, "Look at how small they are," came from their mouths. I turned to Michael in disbelief, "They look huge, how am I going to fit something that big out of me." Seriously people, those babies did not look small!

I know there are millions mothers who have given birth over centuries but that does not make it any less terrifying. After all, how many times have people said child birth is the hardest thing you will ever endure. Not knowing is a little daunting. I have an estimated 50 days too freak out about this ;)

Our veggie box was stollen twice

This season Michael & I are part of a CSA for a local farm: http://www.hairstoncreekfarm.com/. We get to pick up a big box of veggies every other Wednesday night, which is great. The bad part is that we're always the last ones to get out of work and pick up our box. Therefore our veggies sit outside in the summer heat the longest and sweat up the refrigerator drawer pretty quickly.

But... yesterday we had some other bad luck.

After lunch Michael called me to tell me someone had stolen his veggie box. At first I thought he'd already picked up our veggie box and it had somehow been stolen. Thankfully, that was not the case. He'd brought a co-worker to grab lunch and left the empty veggie box on the grass for 10 min. When he returned someone had stolen his empty cardboard box. Although they are nice cardboard boxes it seemed humorous that someone would actually take it after a mere 10 min on the lawn. No biggy, we're still allowed to get new veggies even if we're irresponsible and don't return our old box.

Unfortunately, we seemed to have a string of bad luck with our veggie box yesterday. Michael was again the last person to arrive for his box. But the last lonely box was nowhere to be found. Seems that someone had picked up a box when they weren't supposed to. So now my veggie drawer sits almost empty, a lone bag of carrots and a few onions are the only veggies which remain. No worries, we get to pick up a box at the Saturday pick-up, right before heading off to our 6 hour baby class (I'm sure I'll have something interesting to write about after that).

For now, I guess I'll just have to use this as an excuse to head over to Whole Foods to get myself some more vegetables and / or a nice big grasshopper (why favorite veggie drink).

My mom might be tiny but I'm perfect

We had our 32 week check up today. following yet another encounter with a pregnant lady who told me I'm small.

After eating a lot of food and drinking a bunch of water I managed to tip the scales at 0.8 lb more than 2 weeks ago. Trouble is, this was a 1 pm appointment and the one in 2 weeks is at 7:45 am. Therefore, it might be difficult for me to actually gain weight for that one but I'm not going to worry too much, I'm starting to feel a bit better about my small stomach.

Actually, for the record, the OB told me I was, "measuring tiny." Thank goodness today was the ultrasound because it verified Baby G is not measuring tiny. Her head circumference, the amniotic fluid, and her torso are all looking good. To our surprise, her estimated weight is 4.5 lb, putting her at the 42 percentile. But... that's 4.5 lb +/- .5 lb which sounds like quite a large margin of error to us. Personally, I believe this whole your child is in such-and-such a percentile is a load of crap. Is it really going to matter if my daughter has a bigger noggin than the girl next door? Not unless it's so abnormally large that other kids make fun of it.

Our overall conclusion: Baby G is doing well and likes to sleep after her mom's workouts.

Here are a few pics from the ultrasound:

First, "I'm definitely a girl" pic...

Second, "My nose is smaller than my dad's" pic...

Keep growing Baby G, we'll see you in a couple of months :)

Don't swallow watermelon seeds

Here are a few pictures from this morning for those of you who are interesting in watching the progress of my growing belly.

First is the usual picture:



Michael then wanted to get a picture of me in front of his masterpiece:


Since my co-workers keep telling me I don't look pregnant from the back I had to get this shot to see what I think:


As for other parental type activity... we just got back from our baby CPR class.

Before leaving for class I changed from a t-shirt and shorts into a maternity shirt and skirt.

"Are you trying to look more pregnant?" Michael joked.

"Don't make fun of me. So what if I am?!" I answered.

Yes, we learned some useful things for infant and child CPR. For me, the biggest thing I took back from the class was the same old message; seems that I don't look as pregnant as some others. My feeble attempt to look more pregnant was useless. Of course, it is possible all the other ladies are 9 months pregnant with twins and triplets, I don't know for sure.

Earlier today I was talking with one of my pregnant neighbors. Her reaction to hearing when I'm due, "You're so small." To put this into perspective, this message was coming from a skinny Asian girl, who's 12 weeks behind me.

That's it, I give in, I'm waving my white flag. I am no longer going to bother telling people I'm pregnant. Instead I am just going to advice them not to swallow watermelon seeds because it obviously makes you look quite bloated. Maybe people will reply, "Holy cow, that was from swallowing a watermelon seed? You almost look pregnant."

Tomorrow is our next OB visit, we get our 32 week ultrasound. Stayed tuned, that means actual pictures of BIG Baby G instead of these boring belly shots.