2013: A Year In Review

This past year has been an interesting one to say the least. My aunt says that the calendar should take a hint from hotels and omit the 13th year. It just doesn't always go right. At least my 2013 is ending on a high note!

My year began with the common, I MUST LOSE WEIGHT, mantra that all new years for most women contain. I worked with my doctor on a natural but very reduced caloric diet intake while taking medicine to help aid in the weight loss. I did lose the weight but SURPRISE, we got pregnant in March, found out April 1. Then all heck broke loose. Things weren't going well. Not even from the start. Matt was out of town the whole time I was pregnant. I had to go to the doc every couple of days for blood work and check-ups. Stress upon stress built! As did my waist line as I had many celebration and sympathy ice cream outings. All the weight I had lost at the beginning of the year was back, and it put me back at my weight from the 1st time I really lost a ton of weight back in 2010-2011.

May rolls around along with my miscarriage and the next day the arrival of Mother's Day and my husband who was hauling butt driving cross country to be with me, after his military training was done. I was in the dumps. I had low self confidence. My faith in Heavenly Father was altered. I thought for sure that it was our miracle. But nope miscarriage #2 in a row. And I had gained 15 lbs quickly and felt bad in that arena. I talked with some friends who told us about a great gym that provides day care, 2.5 hours worth a day. Membership was steeper than we like but the day care provided was the sweet note! So I enrolled in THE BIGGEST GYM I have ever been in. It has everything. Classes, track, weights, cardio, spa the works! I love it.

And I wanted/needed to get back into running. So I signed up for my first 5k. No more excuses. That was my new mantra! I put running races off for years. I thought I was too fat. Too slow. I don't have the running body type. But I have learned, it doesn't matter what you look like, or how slow you go. It is that you finish! Every time I cross that finish line, I cry because I am doing something I never thought I could do. And I don't care if I am the last one to cross. I am honored to cross that line!

I trained with amazing ladies for the women's 4 miler race! Made new friends, kept old ones from prior races. Fell in love with running again. Then BAM! SURPRISE, really, really surprise, cause we weren't "trying". PREGNANT AGAIN! But this time it sticks. My mantra, no excuses stuck in my mind. If the pregnancy is meant to be than I can still run. No excuse to stop running just cause I am pregnant. So run I did, and have! I have run in 5 races this year. 2 5k's, 1 4 miler, 1 10k, and 1 8k. I feel great about myself!

So now the end of the year, I am 20 weeks pregnant, almost 21 weeks. Still running. Still taking care of myself. And so happy with where this year has brought me. I am glad the year is over though, cause it was a rocky first half of the year but hey I survived. Now on to 2014 Where we will meet our new child, I will run more races and learn to run faster and better! I am so happy!

Prepping for Labor

This one goes out to the expecting momma's out there! Lately I have had ladies asking me how do I prepare for a medication free labor. I already talked about hypnobirthing, and that is one way, but seriously. How to prepare for labor??? It is hard to be completely prepared for it. And every labor is different. Women who find out that I birthed Mason without meds look at me like I am crazy or are in awe.

Some women want to try medication free. Some women know they want an epidural. Some women know they want to or have to have a c-secion. But if you are on the fence about wanting to try medication free first, good for you! Why not try experiencing the most painful experience in your entire life. We as women are blessed with the honor of experiencing child birth and all the pleasant and unpleasant aspects of it. One way or another that child is coming out, right? I often tell women if you want to try medication free, do it. Try it. But! You need to mentally prepare yourself for the what-if's.

I wanted med free birth. That was my plan. But I accepted that if I couldn't handle it and I needed help or sleep than yes, I would have gotten an epidural. A 17 hour labor is a long time without rest or sleep. Sometimes an epidural is just what is needed to let you sleep and BAM you are ready to have a baby. I also accepted the fact that if I had to have intervention then that is what needed to be done. I hoped I didn't need intervention or a c-section and glad that I didn't but I was ok if I needed it.

~Think about the kind of birth you want. Hearing or watching birth stories can get overwhelming. I watched TLC's A Baby story all the time while pregnant with Mace, and at about 30 weeks I couldn't handle it anymore. It freaked me out. I started to have doubts if I could actually do a med free birth.

~Prepare for the worst. I won't give birth at home. I will give birth in a hospital. For the Just in case! I am thankful for the medical advances we have available to us today. I know plenty of women that, without medical advancements to help with their labors they would have not made it through.

~Educate yourself on how labors go, what interventions can be used. Know what they are before so that if you have to have them you won't be scared, too much. Take a birthing class. Meet with professionals about it. Educate yourself on all the various drugs they can give you, pitocin, cydotec or anything else.

~Know your limits. Know at what point you are willing to say, GIVE ME THE DRUGS! I had a line in my mind and I never got close to it. I was weird per my doula. Usually during transition the mother starts saying, "I can't do this." or a variation similar to that. That is one sign that they are close to being near the pushing phase. Transition is hard, and fast. I never asked for anything. Never questioned my ability to keep going without meds. Merrie said that was weird. I am sure if it got a ton worse than I would have been asking and I knew my line. Just never crossed it.

~Make a birth plan. Come prepared to the hospital. If you are ready to go on things and everything is in your own wording you will feel better about it. Oh and talk to your doc before labor about what you want. Make sure they are on the same board as you and how they respond to different situations. My doc, totally open to unmedicated births, but not open about alternate birthing positions, (squating, all 4 or kneeling I will be having a talk with him about that when I get closer BTW!)

~Second time is not the same as the first. I have heard and read this. It will be faster or it will go completely different that the first. I am scared for that fact and still trying to prepare myself. Even though I have done an unmedicated birth for my son, I am still preparing these same ways for this next one because who knows what might happen. Just cause I did it once doesn't automatically guarantee that I can do it again!

QOTD: Do you read birthing stories or watch birth shows to help you prepare? Have they freaked you out too?

Merry And Bright!

Sorry about yesterday folks! It has been hard few days around here. Kid was/is sick, now I'm sick oh and Daddy is sick too, but I still sent him to work. It is so hard having a 2 year old be sick. He doesn't understand what is going on with him or why I have to give him medicine or why we have to hold an inhaler to his mouth. We ended up going to the Doc office on Monday for Mason. He has a pretty serious cold. He was wheezing all weekend and took him in and he had to do this steam medicine for 10 minutes. WORST 10 MINUTES! I had to hold him down and just deal with the screaming, bitting, scratching, and kicking.

Now I have been knocked down with this thing he has and I can't take a darn thing for it. Having a bad cold and no remedy really stinks! So yesterday I was dealing with him while I was sick. What I don't understand is that when I was pregnant with Mace, I never got sick. Not once. This kid the entire month of December I have been sick. ARGH!

Anyhew, on to Christmas. Matt and I were asked by Santa's elves to finish assembling a wonderful gift for the goomer! We spend 2 nights putting it together and Christmas Eve we finished super gluing all the pieces down. You will see in a bit what it is!

We started with these yummy cinnamon rolls for the morning breakfast, but it ended up being more midmorning before we ate them because they took a little longer than I thought they would. I used Paula Deen's recipe and they were really good. I ended up giving most away to the neighbors for Christmas! It was my first time making homemade cinnamon rolls, ever. So I think I did pretty well!

Mason took a little bit to wake up and not freak out about the gifts under the tree. He didn't want anything to do with opening the gifts until about 10 or so. Some were even later so we just listened to what he wanted. But it definitely wasn't the picture perfect Christmas morning we all think about with children. He cried when he woke up, cried coming down the stairs, threw a wrapped gift we were trying to get him to open and just cried. Like I said around 10 though he started to calm down enough and unwrap some gifts, including some cars which he loved.

The big surprise was in the basement though and once he opened up that sucker he was hooked! HE LOVES his new Cars Land table. We glued the track down completely so that it stayed a track. We know our son and it would have been destroyed in 5 seconds had we not. BEST DECISION EVER! If the super glue ever fails, then we will screw down the pieces but we wanted to start simple with the glue and it seems to be working after 2 full days of playing on it. The rest of the day we just hung out and played, watched TV. Let Mason rest, I rested. Oh I did make my mom's beef stroganoff for lunch and IT HIT THE SPOT! It was so yummy. My husband doesn't like it, and continued to eat the tamales we got for our Christmas Eve dinner. But after the drama of gifts were done we just hung out as a family watching Christmas movies and playing with Mason's new table!

 ~Daddy and Mason working on mommy's fav Christmas Drink.~

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas day today! We had fun here, there was plenty of screaming, sniffling and coughing going on in the house. But we survived and by the end of the day, with the help of medication to the kid, we were all happy and cuddly. I will post more tomorrow about our adventurous day today!

December-Week 3 Workout Re-Cap

Last week was a great week for me in the working out department! I really did well and am super proud of myself. I pushed myself but not too hard. I listened to my body (until Sat.) and I think we both did more than we thought. (My body and me)

Mon: 2 mile walk-17 min mile- super slow to get back into moving
Tues: 3 mile run/jog - 14:42 pace
Wed: Pilates stretching 20 min DVD
Thurs: 2 mile run- Interval walk @ 3.7 with 5.0 run on treadmill (2:30 sec)-15:09 pace
1 hour prenatal yoga class
Friday: 1 mile run/jog- Interval walk 3.8 with 5.0 run (2:1)-14:00 pace
Saturday: 5.5 mile run/walk-15:06 pace (first time I got hip pain going uphill.)

13.5 miles!

Spoke to my running coach for the training program I am in and he gave me a schedule to follow to help me get ready for the 1/2. My long runs are just getting longer from here on out.

I am doing much better today and yesterday after downing a ton of water. I have learned my lesson. More water! I now carry around a 32 ounce bottle with me and my daily goal is 4+ of them. It is a ton of water! I will also be running with my water bottle and a camelback on my long runs and when I get home, gatorade and more water, even if I don't feel like drinking anything.