Pregnancy journal

[okayest]

Another good but really busy day. I didn't get to eat until 2! I was definitely hungry at that point but not as ravenous I would have been had I not been so well fed yesterday.

Lunch: last of the loaded broc**** potato soup
Dinner: big spinach salad with feta, sundried tomatoes, chicken, balsamic, garlic, dijon and olive oil
Snack: oatmeal with peanut butter, cinnamon and a banana

I suddenly am over my cold cereal kick (maybe) and want hot cereals again. I need to find mix-ins that really make me happy. The pb was meh. Working in a ton of sugar would probably do the trick but I'm trying to avoid that.

[Glopop11]

Great journal! It sounds like you really listen to your body and adjust your exercise accordingly. I'm really looking forward to reading about the next two months!

[okayest]

Hi! Thanks for saying that. I've really been trying to listen and abide.


I finally had a great deal of free time to knock things off of my to-do list today. Upper body lifting and biking was on there. Wasn't feeling biking too much so I only did a bit over 5 miles in 20 minutes.

Behind the Neck Press 35# x 12 x 3
ssw/
Kneeling band Single arm Pulldown purple band x 15 x 3

TRX Row 12 x 3

Upright Row 21.5# x 13 x 3
ssw/
Bench Press 45# x 13 x 3

I really like both the TRX and band pulldowns for the same reason. They leave my grip and shoulders free to rotate and move on whatever planes naturally. I wish I could do the same and use dumbells for the presses but I don't have heavy enough ones.


Nutrition was great today. These last couple of days have shown how amazing making a point of eating more produce and less baked goods can be for improving micros.

Breakfast: lots of eggs with a leftover baked sweet potato, an apple
Lunch: huge spinach salad with chicken, gorgonzola, cranberries, walnuts, balsamic and olive oil
Snack: yogurt with all-bran, a banana with almond butter and a tortilla
Small dinner: venison tenderloin with an herb cream sauce, boiled potatoes and bacon green beans

My husband made dinner but I had just had my snack because I was already irritable and getting close to shaky levels of hunger so when his food got done I had a miniature serving of everything on a saucer. It was so beautiful and tasted great. I love being married to someone who is a better cook than me.

[okayest]

Yesterday was wonderful! The doctor thought everything looked so good that I don't need to come in more often than normal anymore. My fundal height is totally average. My amniotic fluid is up to totally average. His movement and practice breathing looks exactly as expected. It was such a great visit after 3 in a row of worrisome comments. We are relieved and elated.
I was also told that my drinking of 1.5 gallons a day was responsible for the increase in amniotic fluid. It improved my blood volume which meant more oxygen and nutrients getting through the placenta and him having plenty of fluid to circulate in there. It's not like I wasn't drinking lots of water before being told to increase but I just needed much more.

I didn't exercise yesterday but I was pretty go-go-go all day. I definitely don't think I'll be exercising today because during the night my SI pain has gotten so severe that I was almost immobilized and would cry out every time I tried to move. And I had to hold on to furniture, counters, door frames and knobs just to take some weight off of my SI joint just to get 10 feet to the bathroom. It was awful. It's lasted until this morning so I'm going to take it very easy today. I guess it's triggered just by daily activity? Too much walking and standing?

I worked on the nursery for a while. I made a side table that still needs some tweaking and then finishing. And I put 4 coats of primer on the dresser drawers so I'm ready to paint today. I feel so much love when I work on the nursery. I know that I'm growing him and taking care of him in that way but working on making him his own space with thought given to how he's going to discover it and what he will enjoy is an incredible feeling in a different way. Everything that goes into that room is going to be one of his main introductions to world. Shapes, colors and textures. And it's something that my husband is able to take part in and it fills him with the same emotions. Really one of the greatest parts of preparing for his birth.


Yesterday,

Snack: banana
Brunch: sweet potato fries topped with chili, queso and an egg
Snack: cookies
Dinner: huge spinach salad with chicken, gorgonzola, cranberries, balsamic and olive oil, plain chicken and cheese tortellini

After we got the good news at the doctor we went out to lunch. Then I got busy doing things and that's how grabbing cookies as an entire meal happened. Dinner also could have been wonderful because there are so many ingredients in the kitchen but I wanted food immediately so it was thrown together simply.
I asked the doctor if I should be concerned about my low blood sugar while pregnant because I have been getting more episodes of low sugar and their response was great. "Well then, eat". Very in the vein of "doctor, it hurts when I do this" "then stop doing it". I'm so terrible about getting distracted and procrastinating eating. I really do need to make a point during pregnancy and after to eat as often as I feel like I need to instead of ignoring it until it gets urgent.


Oh gosh. And I still haven't uploaded last weeks picture and with the pain today I didn't even want to take a picture so I need to do that tomorrow and get them both uploaded. Today is 31 weeks and almost the end of month 7. Month 8 is full of preparation events like the hospital tour (which thanks to last week I've already seen and experienced and we were both very pleased with it), hospital classes and the baby shower! And then it's month 9 which will hopefully be waiting, fully prepared with nothing else to do but relax.

[okayest]

So last night I ended up with more of the excruciating SI pain during the night. I ended up propping 3 pillows up and sleeping semi-reclined and that helped. I don't think the pain happens during the day. I think it's from laying on my right side. I guess I'll try strictly laying on my left and see what happens.


Yesterday's menu.

Breakfast: egg with egg whites, a croissant and a pear
Lunch: all-bran buds with pb dots and milk
Snack: banana with almond butter and a tortilla
Dinner: beefy tomato soup, broc**** tots and an apple

Dinner had me stuffed. It was the same soup from mantitlement again. This time around I realized that I put in 2x as much neufchatel as called for. A creamy improvement.

[okayest]

Last night I slept in a semi-reclined position all night except for the last two hours where I slept on my left side. It kind of helped. I still developed the pain but it wasn't as terrible. And not trying to turn from my right side to my left side meant I wasn't using the movement that triggers the pain. I should feel good enough to workout today.

Yesterday,

Breakfast: chicken breast on a croissant with mayo, a banana
Lunch: chicken saag with naan
Dinner: all-bran buds with granola and milk

I am in need of groceries again. Besides the saag I had while out yesterday not a vegetable was eaten. The saag was so good and I need to find a recipe to make it at home.

[okayest]

So I need to start planning my day better. After work I've been going straight to working on the nursery. Lots of sanding, painting, sanding, painting. I'm so excited about doing it and I know that everything that has to get done is going to take time so I'm prioritizing it. But I am prioritizing it too much to the point that I'm not taking care of other things. No exercise yesterday and none today. Maybe by setting aside a specific time tomorrow to exercise I'll do it and then start to work on the nursery afterward.


Yesterday's food and then today's.

Breakfast: leftover beefy tomato soup with garlic bread
Dinner: big salisbury steak with lots of potatoes and lots of broc****

Dinner was so big I could barely fit it on my plate. Breakfast was pretty big too. My husband took some soup and left me with a bit more than a serving. Two meals worked.

Breakfast: chicken tortellini with marinara and parmesan, 4 milk duds
Snack: fun sized snickers
Snack: fun sized 3 musketeers
Dinner: sausage deep dish pizza, maybe a reese's pb cup and a twix

Dinner is still baking. I don't know if I'll eat anymore candy after some pizza. The 3 servings I already had have hit my stomach hard. I'm not sure if my tolerance for crappy sugar has gone down as an adult or if it's my tolerance for eating myself sick that has gone down. I'm sure I felt ill Halloween night as a kid but didn't care.

[okayest]

Wow! Month 8 is just beginning!

Updates on the Baby

Month 7 was emotionally rough but ended well. Doctor's visit for the 3 weeks straight were a new concern each time. The first week (week 28) we had a sonogram and his growth was looking like it was falling behind and under the normal percentile. So then they had me come back every week instead of the normal every other week. The next week (week 29) was another sonogram and his amniotic fluid was measuring borderline under normal. The next week (week 30) was fetal heart rate monitoring and the results from the 30 mins at my clinic concerned my doctor enough to send me to the hospital for an entire afternoon of more heart rate monitoring and another biophysical sonogram. But everything found at the hospital was good news, his circumferences were a couple of days ahead of expected and only his length was a little behind. We are both short people so this wasn't a concern. His heart rate also showed normal and normal responses to movement. When my doctor coupled those results with a sonogram at my week 31 (where my amniotic fluid level was much higher and he was practice breathing immediately when the sonogram started) visit they cleared me of close monitoring and I am back to normal 2 week visits. It was a scary experience each time but I did manage to stay as positive as I could. And in the end everything turned out fine.

Some of the poor results we started seeing were likely related to low blood oxygen levels (anemia) and low fluid levels. So I had started on a super potent prescription iron supplement that I take with a vitamin C supplement hours away from any meal or caffeinated beverage. I also started drinking a lot of water from waking up to going to bed. Not just when I feel like drinking like I previously had been but making sure to drink before getting thirsty. I started tracking how many 28 oz cups I was drinking and the amount I end up drinking is 1.5 gallons. Another possible side effect from the increase in water is that my blood pressure this past week was back down to my normal pre-pregnancy level.

His movements have been great though. I started kick tracking with an app called Full Term. When he gets active he gets very active. Sometimes freakishly so like causing weird shapes to pop out of my belly or in the hospital he started making the monitor strapped to me jump when he was repeatedly kicking it. Strong little guy. He's also started to get active when I'm very lightly active. Previously he would only be active when I was sedentary.

He had been head down and facing back and slightly left for most of the month but in week 31 he's rotated to face right. As long as he stays head down I'm happy.

The highlight of this month is that when we were sent to the hospital and had the sonogram there the technician surprised us with 3D images! My eyes started watering immediately (my husband was also crying) and I couldn't get over how precious he is. We even were able to catch a glimpse of him smiling. I'm looking at that picture right now actually because it's already hanging in our home office. It was such a great surprise during a time of high stress.


Updates on my pregnancy experiences

I still have a belly button but barely so. I noticed my waistline from the front/back starting to go a little towards the end of this month. I also notice a very faint linea negra below my belly button. I'm fair skinned so I didn't think I'd get much of one anyway. My belly feels huge and I've honestly started stressing out about stretch marks maybe making an appearance soon. My stomach was always my favorite body part and getting loose skin and stretch marks has worried me a bit. I have carried around the clear memory of my terrible mother showing me her stomach when I was 4 and telling me that I ruined her body. So this worry I have is psychologically deep and something I've been scared of for 30 years. But other changes that have already happened like darkening nipples and (hopefully temporary) expanding ribcage haven't bothered me like I thought they would so the belly stuff might not either. Pregnancy is something that I've been enjoying physically and aesthetically more than I ever imagined and it definitely is one of the times that I've enjoyed my body the most.

Speaking of huge bellies, putting my socks and shoes on, putting on pants, bending from the hips to pick up something, reaching out for something while sitting down have all started to get very difficult. I can feel the size of my uterus and the baby limiting my movement.

My joint pain in my SI and hips is still present and getting worse. It's started happening even just by sleeping. I'm glad my joints are preparing for childbirth but I'm also going to be glad when the hormones go away and they're back to being pain free. This pain is the only real complaint that I have.

I had round ligament pain once this month and that was an experience. It felt like a side stitch from running by starting much lower on the torso. It lasted a couple of hours and I couldn't stand up straight and it was extremely painful to try. The pain while sitting down was much more manageable. I consider that experience good practice for relaxing and breathing through pain.

I have not had any Braxton-Hicks contractions. They say that they can start at week 20 and ramp up by week 32 so maybe I'll start to get them soon?


Updates on diet, exercise and weight

Well after month 6 I got chided by my doctor for putting on too much weight and I agreed with her. I was going a little overboard when my aversions finally went away. I slowed my weight gain back to where it should be this month. Just short of 4 pounds gained for month 7 and the rate had been slowing as the month went on. My net gain right now is 19 pounds. 25 pounds was the target I was given and I'm looking like I'll come in right around there.
*** edit*** I meant to add that I think between the increased fluid and the constipation from the iron supplement I probably gained 2 actual pounds.

I really don't know what my calorie average is this month. Low 2000s definitely but kind of scattered day to day.

I stopped doing Alexia Clark's subscription workouts I think the second week of this month because of the negative doctor visits. I didn't want to stress my body out. I kind of went back to biking and my own modified lifting for a few sessions but then stopped making time for it so not really.


Fun stuff

I bought cold weather maternity clothes. I don't understand my friends who see maternity clothes as a waste of money because I believe looking good is part of feeling good. Also wearing non-maternity clothes that still technically kind of fit but are super tight across the belly is as uncomfortable as it is unsightly. I also don't like the tent approach to draping yourself until any hint of shape disappears.
I don't know if these pictures will show up but I'll try.










I've also been working on the nursery a lot because this is the first month that we've had to set it up at all. We bought an unfinished dresser (tarva from ikea) that I've been finishing and I made a side table for next to the glider that I am also in the process of finishing. The side table was really cheap and easy. I followed this post http://www.4men1lady.com/diy-tripod-table/. I used an old ikea lazy susan (with the lazy susan hardware piece removed) as the table top and then used the legs and plates suggested on that blog. I was quite proud of myself when I cut the legs to the height I wanted because the cut lines were at an angle and I used the handheld jigsaw and finesse to cut them perfectly instead of setting up the miter.


I think this covers everything for month 7. Looking forward to month 8. It is going to be a full busy month of hospital tours, classes, the baby shower, hosting Thanksgiving, coming up with specifics for the birth plan, getting absolutely everything in the nursery completed. I want month 9 to be nothing but relaxing. Especially since he could come at any time.

[okayest]

I finally got around to getting these past two week belly photos uploaded.

[okayest]

Finally got a workout in. I decided to go back to the Alexia Clark workouts because I feel like for my state right now and with labor coming up, the cardio and muscular endurance exercises have more to offer over slow and heavy lifting and non-weight bearing steady state cardio. I plan on working backwards through the workouts that I previously purchased and restarting my subscription postpartum. So yesterday I did a Challenge that she calls LEX1000 which is 100 total reps each of 10 different exercises broken up however I want. I stuck mostly in the 20-25 rep range and it all felt very good.

Last night I got a terrible night's sleep. It wasn't pain this time, it was bad dreams and restlessness. Halloween night wasn't great either. I had woken up in the middle of the night thinking I was going to throw up. All dat candy. I was terrified of throwing up at this point in pregnancy too. My stomach is nowhere near where it normally should be located and ab contractions would have been awful.

Yesterday

Breakfast: egg and whites, big bowl of oat bran with a banana and almond butter
Lunch: big spinach salad with chicken, cranberries, gorgonzola, balsamic and olive oil
Dinner: bbq chuck ribs, lots of lightly dressed coleslaw, a cookie

I'm so used to cutting and going for extra lean ground beef that I rarely buy actual cuts of meat. It dawned on me a bit too late that with my higher calorie needs I should take advantage of the fattier cuts of meat. Chuck ribs are totally trimmed but have a little marbling and aren't truly rib meat. Half of their calories come from fat. Real ribs are something crazy like 80% of the calories coming from fat. So I'm still being somewhat conscious of the cuts I buy but I will be enjoying some good marbling in the months to come.

[okayest]

Super stressful and emotional work day. I'm glad I wasn't planning on working out because I wouldn't have had the time for it.

Breakfast: cold deep dish leftover from halloween, an apple
Lunch: all-bran buds with pb puffs and milk
Dinner: huge spinach salad with chicken, cranberries, gorgonzola, balsamic and olive oil, cookies

Nothing really worth writing about. I hope tomorrow is a better day.

[okayest]

It's still early but I can update because I know how the rest of the day will go.

I had a super early morning phone call for work with a timid incompetent person and a greasy sleezeball who's ineptitude is threatening the survival of a massive project and could potentially cost the company I work for a huge fortune that may or may not be recoverable. At 8 am I already had the idea that I would be comfort eating today. And that is exactly what happened. It was a bad choice and I made it.

Breakfast: pink salmon, mayo, mustard and relish with crackers
Lunch: double cheeseburger with fries, a really big cookie

No workout. I feel as heavy as a rock.

[okayest]

Yesterday was a bit crappy. I woke up to instantly getting round ligament pain for the second time. So for the first few hours of the day I sat around reading. My energy tanked completely and I started to get very hot after that. Looking back maybe it was dehydration again? I didn't get around to doing anything at all for the entire day and that made me unhappy. So tired, uncomfortable and sad all day.

I didn't feel at all like preparing food so nutrition was pretty bad. It was a wake up call to start making things to freeze and to find crockpot meals that can be prepped, frozen and dumped. If I don't do that I probably will be living off of cereal, bread and nut butter for weeks following birth. Gross.

Breakfast: yogurt with lots of all-bran and some chocolate chips
Lunch: french bread with chicken breast, lettuce and mayo
Dinner: apple with caramel sauce, banana with almond butter, oatmeal with cinnamon
Snack: pathetic microwaved nachos, chips and shredded cheese only, cookie


We also turned 32 weeks yesterday! It dawned on me that I'm only 5 weeks until officially full term!



I keep waking up on my left side so I keep having sheet and pajama marks in photos.

[okayest]

Good day yesterday. I was able to get out of mental/physical shutdown which I think was caused by the stress at work. I had a really good conversation with a friend and that pepped me up and suddenly I wasn't feeling like all I could do was lie in bed curled up. Perfect timing too because we had friends coming over for a bbq and I was dreading having to sit at a table for hours talking. I really was stuck in my head without realizing what effects it was having on my day to day energy. The dinner was really nice and this morning work seems to be going a little bit better so hopefully the funk from Thursday to Sunday is gone.

Yesterday

Breakfast: big spinach salad with chicken, nuts, cranberries, gorgonzola, balsamic and olive oil
Lunch: big bowl of ww pasta with peas and parmesan, an apple
Dinner: smoked pork, bread, guacamole, a brookie

Not dreadful but still not enough vegetables.

[okayest]

11.5 hour workday. And more emails are coming in. It's still going. I'm frustrated that I wasn't able to do anything I wanted today because I thought I saw the light at the end of the tunnel around 5. But hopefully it means less work tomorrow and time for both a workout and painting things in the nursery.

Breakfast: big spinach salad with chicken, cranberries, gorgonzola, balsamic and olive oil, french bread
Lunch: yogurt with all-bran and chocolate chips, a brookie
Dinner: lentil soup with carrots, onions, potato and leftover smoked pork, an apple
Snack: chips and another brookie

I am so thankful that my husband made a wonderful, healthy dinner that I was able to enjoy quickly. He saved the day.

[okayest]

But hopefully it means less work tomorrow and time for both a workout and painting things in the nursery.

Just quoting myself to emphasize my optimistic naivety. I worked until 1:30 am this morning. Had a doctor's appointment, grocery store and lunch so I didn't start until noon. Which makes it a 13.5 hour workday and not a stupid crazy 15-17 hour one. I sent off the hopefully final version now and really hoping to catch a break now. Obviously no workout was had and fast food and leftovers were had. I didn't even make it through a bowl of soup without work emails and calls. No relaxation had.

My doctor's visit was mostly unremarkable. Though they did mention I was staying in great shape! That was nice to hear. My husband told me that they had said because I was staying so hydrated I probably wouldn't get stretch marks but I don't know about that. If it were that simple everyone would do it. I did ask about a strain type of pain I've been feeling above and below my belly button for the past week. I suspected that it in addition to my waistline going means that I'm getting diastasis recti and the doctor confirmed that that is what's happening. It's a tiny bit bothersome because it's not a big, constant pain but it is tiny and frequent. It gets worse the more my abs get engaged so I'm trying to use my arms even more for rolling over and getting up. I don't know when it's common to start getting but hopefully 8 weeks of it will be slight enough that it can be reversed with proper treatment afterward.

My weight has officially also slowed to half a pound a week. It's crazy because I am eating a lot lately. All those cookies that keep popping up on my menus! I'm always stuffed to the point of being a little out of breath so I guess my stomach has been squished to the point that it takes less to fill me up.

The baby feels like he's getting cramped too. Lately it hasn't been kicks as much as it's pushes and wiggles and practice breathing. I am aware that I'm getting to the end so whenever he starts moving around I take the experience fully in. Like just now he started up! I can't wait to see his little jelly bean body wiggling around in his cute little onsies once he comes.

[okayest]

I finally got time to myself yesterday and am proud of how I chose to use it. I worked out, I made myself a dinner with a lot of vegetables, I read and I cuddled with my husband before we both crashed early. I got in my priorities once I was able to.

For the workout I did upper body. I had had maybe 10-11 hours of sleep the previous 2 nights and a full or lower body workout sounded terribly exhausting. It was another old Alexia Clark workout. The first three circuits were mostly focused on one body part per circuit so there was so much failure and fatigue. The last circuit was an EMOM with pushups for a set # of reps and the rest of the minute was lateral raises. Getting some exercise felt great.

Breakfast: chicken breast on ww bun with mayo and tomato, a cookie
Lunch: sweet potato with brown sugar, marshmallows, pecans and butter, a high fiber bagel with almond butter
Dinner: lots of broc****, ww pasta and alfredo sauce

I had planned on making burger patties with mushroom gravy and steamed broc**** for dinner but my mushrooms had gotten slimy. The gravy was on my Budget Bytes app so I searched for broc**** pasta dishes and the Broc**** Alfredo was the one that seemed fastest that I had everything for. I made 1/4 of the recipe for my serving but doubled the broc**** and I think that the proportions came out perfect. https://www.budgetbytes.com/2012/02/...ccine-alfredo/ I also used fresh broc**** and threw it in the boiling pasta for the last 5 minutes of cooking and it was cooked perfectly.

Oh and I had picked up these nature's grain bagels at the store and noticed the label said 20g of fiber per tiny bagel! So I bought them because after 5 or so months of eating all-bran a number of ways I want a change. The bagels are not good when compared to fresh baked bagels but for store bought they taste on par.

[okayest]

Had a little more time to myself today. A little. I got most of a lower body workout in and then it was time to get ready to go a baby care class. I did a big first circuit 5 times and then another circuit 3 times. I missed 2 other circuits though. It still was a good workout. I take virtually no rest between exercises since I'm going so light and more about staying active so my heart gets a nice workout during low body days too. I did discover that when doing squats I can hold a dumbbell behind me and rest it on my butt and it takes a lot of low back and ab strain away. It only works because I'm using such a light weight but it was still a great discovery because my SI and abs truly cannot handle much of anything these days.

Breakfast: the last of the lentil soup with smoked pork and a big swirl of bbq sauce, a banana with almond butter
Lunch: 1/2 pound lean burger on ww bun with tomato, pickles and mustard, potato chips, an apple
Dinner: sweet potato with butter
Snack: a doughnut hole and a doughnut
Snack 2: 2 ww buns

Dinner was whatever I could microwave and eat in less than 10 minutes before I had to leave for that class. Then there were doughnuts at the class but oh my they were sickeningly sweet. It took me 2 hours to get eat that little bit and I washed it down with so much water. I am pretty sure that was my first pregnancy doughnut. Not a fan, I'll stick to cookies. I'm still a bit hungry now but not sure what to eat. Maybe oatmeal, maybe eggs? EDIT: went with pure starch. needed a good palette cleanser.

[okayest]

Oh gosh. I haven't updated since Friday. I knew I was going to not workout Friday because I was tired and had pain in the front of my left hip from Thursday. Saturday I went out of town first thing and got back late that evening. Sunday I had the laziest day and it was great. Diet was normal Friday. Saturday was crazy. 3700 calories! About 2000 of them was for dinner and almost all carbs! Then Sunday was also a ton of carbs but at least a normal amount of food. Nothing but seed bread for brunch and nothing but 5 bananas with almond butter for dinner. I don't know what was up with the carb cravings. Maybe he was having a growth spurt? Maybe my blood sugar was going crazy?

I got my birth plan outlined this weekend. I know my OBGYN is in line with my approach and from what I know about the hospital they are too. It can be summed up as "only things that are medically necessary" and "I want to spend as much time as upright as possible". This morning I've also scheduled an appointment for next month to get the car seat base checked out by a county safety inspector. There is still so much to do! I will be setting up an appointment soon with a probate lawyer strictly for the case of me and my husband both dying. To me it's really important to choose the legal guardian we would want for our kid because his life would be totally different for each family member he possibly could live with. But asking around it seems like no one does this and that's crazy to me. Maybe I'm way too much of a planner and other people aren't keen into laying out what-ifs for terribly rare and depressing situations?

I also did manage to get in my 33 week belly photo. 33 weeks! That's a great milestone. If he came now he'd only need a level 2 NICU. In a couple of more weeks premature delivery wouldn't matter much. And in only 4 more weeks he's full term!!!

[okayest]

Full body workout! It was another old Alexia Clark routine. 4 circuits. I really need to stop attempting to do even light as hell Romanians. My SI was feeling it afterwards. And when I say light I mean 8 pounds for single leg RDLs. Plus the extra 20 of my belly. I have to remind myself that all my lower body exercises are technically weighted now.

Food was excellent because it wasn't a literal bunch of bananas today.

Breakfast: big lean burger on ww bun with bbq sauce and pickles, potato chips, an apple
Snack: pre-workout mincemeat cookies from my grandma
Lunch: Indian creamed spinach with chicken and brown rice
Snack: high fiber bagel, an apple with caramel dip

I made the Indian food from Budget Bytes and added chicken chunks to it. https://www.budgetbytes.com/2012/03/...eamed-spinach/ I adjusted to recipe to serve 6 and then split it into 3 servings. It is a great meal because it's both incredibly nutritious and delicious. This was a test run to see if this is something I want to cook and freeze for after the baby is born and it definitely is. It was spicy though. I cut the cayenne by a third and to me it was still spicy but to my husband it wasn't. It was so spicy that in addition to the 3 cups of food on my plate I had to down two 28oz cups of water. I was so stuffed that my husband had to tie my shoes for me! I keep telling him the day I switch to Uggs exclusively for the rest of the pregnancy is nearing.

[okayest]

I really wanted to get a leg workout in yesterday but it wasn't happening. Between SI pain and lots else with deadlines and schedules that had to get done I just couldn't.

I've also been losing a little sleep every night and last night was the worst yet. Less than 5 hours. I have dozens of things that need to be done and it's been running through my mind. I got up at 2 something since I couldn't sleep and figured I could knock out a little bit of what was stressing me out. It did help take a little stress off.

I'm also stressed about labor and delivery now. A couple of days ago I looked into my options at the hospital and it sucks even though it's the norm. Opioids or nothing are my options. I've been tough through lots of different pain and injuries without narcotics but I'm not confident about labor because it's described as such intense pain. But I also do not want morphine or ******** and I find it insane that those are my only options. I wasn't even aware that epidurals had opioids in them, I thought they were 100% anesthesia. My plan was a perineal/pundal block and nitrous but nitrous isn't offered. I need a dental appointment soon and joked I was going to drop in while in labor so I could get laughing gas. Or at least bring a case of Reddi Whip to the hospital with me. But seriously I'm stressed and feel trapped with no satisfying option. I'm glad I found this out over a month in advance so I can process it and prepare accordingly.


Nutrition yesterday was excellent. I really need to make a point to keep my fiber up extremely high because I've been letting it slip and it has had a negative effect. I think I'm 3 days overdue and 3-4 pounds up on the scale.

Breakfast: split chicken breast on ww bun, mayo, sriracha, pickles, dark chocolate
Lunch: leftover Indian spinach with chicken, french bread
Dinner: lots of all-bran with milk and cinnamon


I don't know how today is going to go. I'm exhausted, super irritable and have a head and face ache. I'm really feeling the lack of sleep. I really really want to get a good, hard workout in but I don't feel capable of it today.

[okayest]

Got in another full body workout yesterday. It was an Alexia Clark from September that I remember liking and kicking my butt cardiowise. It felt great! I even said aloud to myself when I got done showering afterward, "I feel great!" If I can get 3 days of workouts in a week I'm going to consider it a success. Between work being busier, doing things for the shower, getting the nursery ready by next week for friends and family to see at the shower, getting all the things that need to be done before delivery and all the normal daily chores done... life is really full and I don't have as much time as normal. Doing good enough with exercise will suffice for now.

Last night I was having more hip and SI pain than I have been. I think I'm still not handling some exercises well. I'll have to keep eliminating things and lightening loads.

Oh gosh, and I took my 34 week belly photo today and I still have my 33 week one that I haven't uploaded yet. I am getting huge! I'm excited about "dropping" whenever that happens. I think it should be in a couple of weeks.

And as I go to write yesterday's menu I realized that I didn't update for the day I was exhausted either. I definitely did not exercise that day. And my dad was in town on business so I took him out for dinner afterward.

Wednesday

Breakfast: split chicken breast on ww bun with mayo, sriracha and pickles, potato chips, an apple
Early dinner: shrimp spring rolls with peanut sauce, sriracha and hoison, Vietnamese bun (a noodle-salad dish) with montreal chicken and egg roll

Thursday

Breakfast: oat bran with speculoos butter
Lunch: 2 sweet potatoes with brown sugar, butter, marshmallows and pecans
Dinner: chips and salsa, fried avocado stuffed with chicken and cheese
Snack: the rice and beans and pico from dinner

My husband suggested date night Thursday and just by calling it date night instead of going out to dinner was nice. Extra effort getting dressed, more hand holding and smiling, and hotter sex. I also saved half my dinner for later because I knew good sex was coming and didn't want to ruin it by being full. What is the saying? Failure to plan...

Today

Breakfast: equal weight broc**** and ww pasta with pesto
Lunch: yogurt with all-bran, Blue Bell's Christmas Cookie ice cream
Dinner: small cheeseburger, fries

If you have Blue Bell in your grocery store you have to find the Christmas Cookie flavor. It is love at first bite. Chunks of snickerdoodle, chocolate chips, pieces of cinnamon hearts and swirls of frosting. Instantly takes me to all the memories of decorating christmas cookies as a kid. I told myself I'd hold off until December to buy it this year but I'm a liar.

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Did just cardio today. I wanted to keep it quick and also multitask with some reading. Did 8.5 miles in 30 minutes. So a good pace. It’s been annoying to bike on a spin bike while heavily pregnant. I have to sit upright on the slanted seat because my belly is in the way if I lean forward like you’re suppose to.

Breakfast: oat bran with speculoos butter, a banana
Lunch: big spinach salad with chicken, cranberries, Gorgonzola, olive oil and balsamic, yogurt with all-bran and chocolate chips
Dinner: thick lean burger on ww bun with bbq sauce and pickles, potato chips and an apple

I really need to start making grocery lists and prepping ready to go freezer meals for when the baby arrives. I have made a list of meals that I like, that are nutritious and that freeze well. At least one step is done.

The book I bought last night and started reading before bed is on the Bradley Method of unmedicated birth in a hospital. I don’t care for the way some of the book is written I am reading about some techniques that I am familiar with and others that sound good to work on.

And TMI but it’s 34 weeks now which means I’m going to start doing perineum massages daily for 5 minutes. Here’s to hopefully not tearing!

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Got around to uploading 33 and 34 weeks. So big and round. I feel like he's gone from the 13th percentile to the 93rd! I hope he's getting super chubby.






And for comparison. Where I was 20 weeks ago and 10 weeks ago.






I was reading more of the book last night and I've learned several things about how my body will be working that I have not read in any other place so far. Like how contractions and the orientation of the uterus's muscle fibers are what makes the cervix kind of "disappear" back into the uterus. I really was confused previously when reading about effacement and dialation, I couldn't figure out what was making the cervix go away and where it was going away to. And that contractions are not necessarily regular at any point in labor. The length and frequency of them can vary from one to the next.
So far it's a good book and it seems like the right approach for my personality. I'm a zoning inward on what is happening kind of person during physical activity. I use a lot of mental imagery of mechanics so I'm glad to find an approach that is more matter-of-fact. Everything else I have come across has been too conceptual or philosophical to really see myself using. I'm not a mantra, affirmation or zoning out on images kind of person.

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Not much of an update. I've been working my butt off these past 2 days trying to get a lot of things finished. Putting in 10-12 hour days and accomplishing a lot! I'm sad I am missing workouts and I am very sad I haven't seen my friends for going on weeks now but after this weekend I should get a break. Still have a lot to do but not as much in as little time. Um hopefully?

I'm eating lots of the same things because it's on hand. Lean burgers, split chicken breasts, ww buns, frozen potatoes, spinach, apples, bananas, oat bran, ice cream. Today will be no different.

This is as much of an update as I can get in. But everything is going great except for the lack of exercise but I'll do what I can when I can. Maybe 30 minutes on the bike can be fit in easier than over an hour of weights.

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Waking up this morning felt amazing! Realizing that I have no real deadlines and not much to do for the following weeks is such a relief! The nursery is 99% finished, hosting Thanksgiving was a big success, and the baby shower turned out beautifully and was one of the best parties that I've ever thrown. Now relaxation and time for myself. Oh it feels so good.

I can't wait to get some exercise in. I picked up where I left off in Poloquin Principles and it's getting me excited to return to strength training postpartum. It wasn't a book I wanted to keep reading while pregnant because it only would have served to make me sad I couldn't lift heavy. Same goes for the past few weeks with exercise. I have been scrolling by Alexia's instagram posts because I know watching her circuits would have made me want to workout when I didn't have the time.

And speaking of the time. The past 4 days were rough and required focusing on the task at hand and not everything that had to be done or couldn't be done, otherwise I would have gotten overwhelmed and gone crazy. I was getting 5-6 hours of sleep and putting in 12-16 hour days with a ton of that on my feet. My body has been in pain. My neck, my low back, my feet. Especially my feet! For the first time in pregnancy my feet are swollen. I don't think it's as much pregnancy related as standing so much while pregnant.

I'm now 35 weeks along and month 8 is about to end. We are getting bigger so fast. Every few days even my husband notices the belly size changing. Little man is getting ready. I was thinking he would be late because he's been a bit small and would need more time but maybe he'll end up ready to come early?

Oh and we started the perineum "massaging" it really should be called perineum stretching because that is what it is and what it feels like. I can already feel why preparing it this way helps it deal with birth less severely. And per the Bradley Method's suggestion I started doing 12x10 sec kegels 3x/day. Hey, writing that down makes me realize it is exercise with volume and frequency

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I'm sick. My nephew was at Thanksgiving and the baby shower and was really sick and I might have picked up what he has. Hopefully not as badly as he had it (high fever and vomiting). Right now I've had an itchy throat that has turned into a hoarse throat, and I'm slightly warm to the touch and I'm very tired. I fell asleep 3 hours early last night and slept an hour later than usual. I almost took a nap yesterday which is something I only do when I'm sick or have only gotten a couple of hours of sleep. But I pushed through instead of falling asleep because I had things to do.

Yesterday I was able to bike a little 15 minutes. It was very slow and I quit because it felt way too hard for how easy it should have been. I obviously was not up for any kind of physical activity.

Breakfast: stuffing and jordan almonds
Lunch: chips and queso, ice cream

How many vegetables were eaten? 0. How much fruit was eaten? 0. But all the yummy, junky Thanksgiving and shower leftovers are finally gone! And we have fresh groceries!

Today my goal is to just eat super nutritiously. I really need to rest and get over this instead of push myself and prolong it. Getting a high fever right now runs the risk of being a big problem for the baby.

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So I always open the previous week's photos when cropping my photo for consistency and going back and forth between the windows was shocking! I grew so much more than I even thought I did!



Maybe some of that is post-Thanksgiving bloat but wow at the difference between week 34 and week 35.

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Well another week down with basically zero exercise. I'm not proud of it at all. Last week was understandable but this week there were several opportunities where I could but I didn't. Eating has been fine though. I finally bounced back to high vegetable and protein eating from the Thanksgiving/Baby Shower food and leftovers. Initially was a 5 pound jump but it settled to 2 pounds. Such carbs many salt very fats.

I started to come up with a list of exercises to make 2 different workouts with. Focusing on them being heart pumping light weight circuit style. Today after this update and the 8th month summary I'll hammer out the details and possibly start this afternoon or at least tomorrow.

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Month 8 was a whirlwind. About 3 weeks of stressful work and some very long hours, lots of work finishing up the nursery, lots of work preparing to host Thanksgiving and then hosting the baby shower 2 days later. It really tested my mental endurance and stress management. But I passed with flying colors!

Pregnancy stuff

The belly is getting very big. Moving around is getting exhausting and difficult. Going up the stairs will get me out of breath. Once this month after getting full of water and saag I had to have my husband tie my shoes because I literally could not bend forward enough to reach them. Also got my first, "You're about to pop!" comment.

Belly button is still an innie. No stretch marks. Some diastasis recti.

Sleeping is getting very hard because side sleeping is not kind to my shoulders, neck and hips normally and especially not kind while my joints are being affected by pregnancy hormones. Lots of achiness. One day this week I woke up at 3 am. Most days I'm getting a couple hours of sleep less than normal. Very recently I've been falling asleep earlier than normal. Sleep is simply messed up in all sorts of ways now. Being so busy and having so much on my mind this month probably helped screw things up too.

I had round ligament pain for the second time. Still not too bad as long as I stayed seated until it passed after a couple of hours.

My feet have also slightly swelled. It started after I was on my feet way longer than usual but it hasn't gone away since so I think it's here to stay.

Nothing too interesting at doctors this month. Completely uneventful and normal.

Still not feeling any Braxton-Hicks contractions.

I wrote up my birth plan this month and it was actually very simple. After visiting the hospital and talking to my doctor I realized that I lucked out on choosing like-minded medical services and feel like my wishes are supported. I really don't want unmedicated or medicated labor but those are the choices. I'm going with unmedicated as my primary choice because there way less potential complications from it and if I decide to switch to option B of medicated then I can. Can't really go from medicated to not.

Started to do kegels exercises (10 secs x 12 "sets" 3 times a day) and perineal massage (5 mins a day). Also choose to go with Bradley Method laboring techniques.

Honestly looking into labor really freaked me out. There are a lot of variables and zero way of predicted even vaguely how it will go. I'm glad I started really researching it deeply in month 8 because I needed the time to freak out and then accept what's coming my way. I have been educating myself on labor since the beginning but not in the way of truly preparing the details. It was a mental trip. But I have calmed down and will continue to as the delivery day approaches.


Diet and exercise

Diet was okay. My vegetable intake has really dwindled throughout pregnancy. But as of this past week I've consciously been getting it back up. Also averaging around 2400 calories. I had gained 2 pounds this month until Thanksgiving and the Baby Shower. Added another 2 pounds in 4 days. 2 pounds of specifically pie, stuffing, potato salad and brownies. That means 4 pounds this month for a net pregnancy gain of 23 pounds. Still very on track for my doctor's target.

Exercise this month was pitiful. I was getting it in at the beginning of the month but when I started to get swamped with things to do I simply had no time for it. And the last week of the month I did have time for it but struggled to actually get back at it. NEAT was really high during the swamped weeks which was nice. I didn't feel like a motionless blob.





Now it's onto month 9. It's kind of a waiting game. There isn't too much left to do. Mentally I'm already preparing for postpartum life. Getting ready for life to switch to the new normal. I'm already on top of getting the house as organized as possible so there will be very little clutter and odds and ends chores, appointments and errands to do. Will need to start this upcoming week for preparing frozen foods for at least a month. I kind of take offense to the term "nesting". Anyone with any sense would knock out as many to-dos as possible before knowing they are about to be all-consumed for the upcoming months.