Working out

There are consequences to every decision, right? Well, my consequence to gaining too much pregnancy weight is working out. I'm not the most athletic person, I actually don't like to work out at all unless its something fun, but most of my workouts right now are NO FUN! I run around our neighborhood a couple times a week but running is not my favorite, at all! I do understand that I have to do it, I need to be healthier, more fit Mommy and Wifey.

I also have a little bit of a financial motivation behind this. J's former coworker is doing a 'Biggest Loser' challenge. Each participant puts in $20 and at the end of 2 months, the person who loses the most gets the cash (there are also small prizes for 2nd and 3rd). When I stepped on the scale to weigh myself at her house I weighed the most that I've ever weighed (with an empty womb)...I know that I have to work out, eat better, and live healthier...and hopefully win some cash in the end!

So I've been running, doing some working out at the house (on cold days), I went to hot yoga yesterday and boy was I out of my element. It was my first time doing yoga, and although the class was for all stages of yoga practice (from beginner to expert....and boy was I a beginner!) There were people doing head stands, and all kinds of crazy poses, it was a huge challenge, but it was fun. I think I'd go back, just probably to a beginner's course this time. But yoga did intimidate me, so I'm glad I went! And I am super sore at this moment, so something worked!

Now, I'm on my way to cross fit! Yeah, I'm keeping a variety of workouts! Wish me luck and keep me in mind, I hope to win that $$!

Decisions, Decisions

When I was pregnant with Myles, J and I had a lot of decisions to make, some small (what to eat for dinner), some huge (where to have him), and everywhere in between. I was just thinking about some of those decisions, and thought that I'd share some.

What kind of birth we wanted: We liked the idea of a natural birth. I knew that I wanted to look into all our possible options, J was not comfortable at all with a home birth. He didn't feel like it was secure even though some of our friends had successful home births in the past. We looked into the birth center, and liked it...we got our natural birth, we were next door to the hospital, and we had the more secure feeling that we wanted.

Diapering: We kicked around the idea of cloth vs. disposable for a while. We both were cloth diapered at some point, and liked the idea of saving long term money, something easy on the baby's skin, and something good for the environment. I did a lot of research and we bought a bunch of different styles of cloth. We also were given some disposables (which were amazing to use in the first few weeks). We still diaper using both. Sometimes Myles's skin will appear to need a break from cloth and I'll put him in a disposable or vice versa (or I may just need to wash the diapers!). But, all in all, cloth has worked out well for us and its something we want to continue to help him learn better to potty train in the future (another added bonus!)

Name: We really didn't discuss a name, we just knew that this would be Myles. We talked about the spelling a bit, and kicked around a few middle names (we decided on Philip, J's parents' last name). We decided that all of our children will have family names as middle names and original first names. (the next one will have a middle name from my family).

Those are just a few, but it was on my mind, I thought that I'd share.

The first post: Myles's birth story

I started this blog a while ago when I was pregnant with Myles. Due to lack of time, pregnancy, and general laziness in the moment. But now, things have changed and I'm now a stay at home Mommy, which is amazing, but not without its own challenges. But I just thought that a good place to re-start the blog would be with Myles's birth story, so here ya go, enjoy! This one will be a bit long...

I had a good pregnancy, I gained more weight that recommended, and had a lot of swelling, but for the most part, I can't complain! I actually enjoyed aspects of being pregnant (but could have done without the stretch marks). I think that Myles enjoyed my pregnancy as well, because on his due date of October 3, he was making no signs or signals and truly no progress at exiting the womb. I was a bit upset a few days after when we were at the same place in pregnancy, no progress, still huge and overly pregnant. My wonderful m

idwives that the birth center kept reassuring me that this was perfectly normal, that we assign dates, but we should really just look at a range of dates to determine when the baby may come. I then thought that 10/10/10 would be an awesome birthdate, of course he didn't come on the 3rd, so I'll take the 10th. At this point I was doing everything short of standing on my head to get the baby to come, walking the neighborhood, walking stairs, eating spicy food, and a few other things that were suggested. But the 10th came, and went, no baby. I went to the midwife again on the 11th, frustrated, fed up, and pretty much convinced that I was going to be pregnant the rest of my life. They did some things to get labor started (since I was like 41 weeks and 3 days pregnant), and it worked! That evening I started to feel some discomfort, but was able to sleep until about 3am.

At 3:00 I woke up Mr. J and he started timing contractions (did you know that there's an app for that?). I called the birth center call line when the contractions were 3 minutes apart (around 5:30am), they told me to wait a little longer since the contractions up to that point had been a bit irregular. The midwife then called me back and told me to go ahead and come in, as they didn't want me getting stuck in morn

ing traffic. We got there a little before the midwives so I walked around the parking lot contracting and squeezing my hubby. The midwives set up the room that we were birthing in and monitored us for a while. When they got some readings and saw that me and baby were good, we were left alone to labor like we wanted. I have no idea how long things took from here on out, but I was in a lot of pain, nothing helped, I walked, sat, laid, squatted, nothing would bring relief. I wanted an epidural, I wanted help, shoot, I wanted to fly away on a unicorn to another world at that point. I ended up in the shower with the warm water flowing over my back and J rubbing my lower back with every contraction. Finally they checked me, and told me they would start to fill the birthing tub (YAY!), but the tub is gigantic and it to FOOORRREEEVER to fill it. I laid in the bed moaning until it was full.

When I got in the tub things went into warp speed, I was floating and J was trying to keep me in one place, but I didn't have the mental energy to spend trying to keep myself under the water in the tub. Very soon, it was time to push. I remember a few times feeling defeated, but the midwives kept telling me

that I was doing it! I remember asking them to just get the baby out, pull him out somehow, but I had to push him, guess thats how those things go. I remember pushing him out and looking at the clock, 11:30am! The only thing I can remember is JOY, pure JOY.

I kinda laughed/cried and held Myles, J was crying too! Myles looked really angry, but he wasn't crying too much. He was making faces with his eyebrows that J says I make. J cut the cord and I kept telling Myles 'Happy Birthday'. The midwives took one look at him and commented on how he was much bigger than they expected, and that they would weigh him soon. (When they did he was 8lbs 12ozs)

We spent the nex

t few hours together as a family. I was on this high, I was so happy! I was calling people and texting and laughing. God must have planted all that energy in me, because I should have been tired! My mom arrived and loved on Myles. We tried to rest and sleep, but we couldn't. (should have, but couldn't). I remember telling J that I felt like I'd been through a battle. He said that he felt like he was watching me be beat up and there was nothing we could do about it. We went home around 4pm that day with our little guy in tow.

This is Myles after getting weighed, and Daddy dressing him.

We spent the rest of that day in bed. My awesome Mom was there, cooking, cleaning, and being amazing. She was there, but we didn't know it.

I must say that having a natural birth was a challenge, to say the least. It took much more than I anticipated, but it was an awesome experience! I think that there would be some things I'd do differently when I do it again, but this was Myles's birth, his special story.

So this is the first blog of many Myles stories. He is now 3 months, and a beautiful little boy!