The Girl With The Pink Sneakers

Hello there! Wow! Two posts in one week from me…amazing!

I don’t often write about work on this blog, mainly I only mention it when I’ve been busy and not had time to write. To be honest I originally started writing this blog as kind of a get away from my church job choosing to focus on fitness and food, something different that what I do at the church. A the church I am the coordinator of Youth Ministry working with the teenagers in our church and  I also hold the title of Associate Campus Minister. Our church is a Newman Center meaning that we are the Catholic Church connected with the public University in our town so I also get to work with college students. I can hardly believe that this is my sixth year working at the Church. A lot of people often comment on how great it must me to have my job. Today I can confidently say that I LOVE my job but the last six years have not been without challenges and doubts. It took me awhile to get into a groove and discover how I can use my talents and skills to best do my job. Of course I know that there will always be challenges and kids who don’t like coming to church but I love working with teens and college students and helping them to grow in their faith.

One of the most cool things that I have gotten to experience while pregnant is sharing this journey with the young people I work with as well as other members of our parish. Some of the first people that I told I was pregnant were the kids that I took on the mission trip last summer. I debated telling them since it was so early but I just wanted them to know why I wasn’t doing certain things or if I should happen to not feel well why.  I’m glad I did  because they have essentially been with me since the beginning. Some of the kids I work with are super excited and always ask me tons of questions about the baby. They also have been an AWESOME group to work with this year causing virtually no challenges to me this year. My college kids are also excited and have been such a great help to me in working with the teens. That’s why this last shower was really special to me.

My co-worker Kathy did a lot of the planning as well as a few parents of the teens I work with. I literally had no idea who was invited or what would happen. I just knew the date and time. Earlier this month, at one of our youth gatherings the teens excitedly told me that they got my shower invite. They were so excited! I honestly had no expectations for this shower. I didn’t expect any gifts, I was thinking families would offer services like bringing us food or babysitting and that would have been just fine with me!

I was truly surprised with how many teens, college students, and families came to my shower to help me celebrate our baby.

Here are my “kids”!

Some of my college students ( a few arrived late as they were traveling back from home).

I could not believe all the beautiful and thoughtful gifts everyone brought. The invite didn’t tell them where I was registered so all the gifts were picked out by my kids or their parents. I got a TON of adorable clothes, soft fuzzy blankets, cute stuffed animals, and really fun toys!

Brian was also invited and helped was a great help with the gift opening!

But probably the best part and also the most touching part was when my priest offered a blessing over Brian, myself and the baby.

I feel so blessed that I have gotten to share my pregnancy with the people of my parish. I can’t wait for my little guy to grow up in this community, he is already so loved!

Well, we made it! I am now officially FULL TERM! This means that if I were to go into labor today the midwives wouldn’t try to stop it and the little guy would be fine and healthy if he made  his entrance into the world!

Just when I thought my belly couldn’t get any bigger!

Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly slow down any more and just when I thought I sailed through pregnancy without any “problems” last week happened.

I started having some pretty bad pain on the left side of my lower back into my butt and down my leg. Now I’ve had back and leg injuries before from running and over exercising but nothing like this. Probably the worst part was NOTHING I did helped! Not yoga, not swimming, not resting, nothing! It hurt to even walk. I consulted “Dr. Google” and was pretty sure it had something to do with my sciatica. When I went to the midwife yesterday I told her about it and she agreed that that was probably what it was. She also told me the reason I was having the sciatic pain was because of the baby’s position. Remember a few weeks ago when I said the baby was in the perfect position for delivery? Well, now, not so much. He is still head down but he is in the posterior position Which means his back is towards my back.

(Source)

A lot of babies are in the posterior position at the time of labor and then they turn to the more favorable anterior position. Having a baby in the posterior position can cause women to have longer and more painful labor. The midwife also said it was most definitely the cause of my pain. She told me that I needed to try and get him to flip and that I should spend 10 minutes twice a day on my hands and knees. I also Googled other ways to get the baby to flip and reread Gina’s posts on techniques she used to get her baby to flip. For some reason I can mentally handle the idea that if the baby doesn’t flip I might have a difficult labor and delivery but what I couldn’t handle mentally was the thought that I was going to be in pain for the next three (or more!) weeks and would have difficulty walking from that pain. So, I REALLY want this baby to flip. So here is what I am doing to try and get him to flip.

• Spending time on hands and knees twice a day for 10 minutes
• Sitting on my exercise ball even at work
• Just hanging out draped over the ball so that my stomach hangs down (gravity is suppose to get him to flip)
• Only sleeping on my left side (I usually flip to my right a couple times a night)
• NOT reclining which is something I’ve been doing all along since we have a couch that reclines
• Talking to the baby asking him to turn in the right position
• Visualizing him in the anterior position

I have only been doing this for one day but this morning when I woke up my pain was a lot less. I don’t know if I flipped him but he definitely moved so my pain isn’t quite as bad. I have a massage scheduled for later this week and I might try swimming. I swam last Tuesday but my back/leg/butt pain was really bad afterwards. If I don’t get him to flip I might even try seeing a chiropractor something which I have NEVER done.

Other than the pain in my leg I have been feeling pretty good. I got most things situated in the nursery (pictures to come) things are ready a work if I should deliver “any day.” It has just been frustrating to be in so much pain. I have energy and desire to do things but it has just been too painful. For example, it normally takes me about an hour and 45 minutes to clean our whole house but this weekend I had to break it up into two days of cleaning. So frustrating for someone who likes to go go go but I am learning that this little guy will be the one in charge even in utero!

I also had a beautiful shower at the church I work at and plan on doing a full post on that soon!

Tonight Brian and I went out to eat and as we were walking into the restaurant he said, “You know, this could be the last time we go out to eat without a kid.” Whoa! I guess I didn’t think about it that way! Wow we are SO close it is getting more and more real by the day!

Almost there! By the end of this week I will be considered FULL TERM and in theory could go into labor at ANY time OR I could still be pregnant 6 weeks from now…that does not sound like fun!

Today, at 36 weeks I feel GINORMOUS!

Without the sweater!

I wore this same outfit about 7 weeks ago. My how things have changed!

Me at 29 weeks pregnant.

I am very grateful that I bought some extra large shirts. They felt big and billowy at first but now fit just right! Plus some of my size large shirts are definitely getting too small!

This week the baby weighs almost 6 pounds and is 18.5 inches long.

I am feeling more and more uncomfortable these days. Not only does it feel like there just isn’t possibly any more room left inside me for my baby to grow I feel uncomfortable just doing every day things. I finally got over my cold but now seem to have another nagging problem, a terrible pain in my left glute/lower back. It feels like an injury I would normally suffer due to over exercise but I’m pretty sure I just turned the wrong way in bed or got up funny and pulled something. When my “normal” back problem flairs up I am usually in pain from sitting too much. This pain however hurts when I move around. This has made it very hard to get ANYTHING done around my house! I didn’t even do my “normal” cleaning chores this week. I went to yoga yesterday and that didn’t seem to hurt it. However, I tried swimming this morning which usually helps my back, I felt fine while swimming but after wards not so much! Right now, after sitting all day at work, I actually feel ok. I guess it’s time to REALLY start slowing down!

In addition to my belly growing I also feel like my face has gotten A LOT fuller and rounder. I didn’t notice it until I looked at pictures from my shower last weekend. Another thing that has changed is my appetite.  I really don’t feel like eating anything, not even “bad for me” things like cereal or ice cream. I mainly eat because know I should. I don’t even really feel hungry half the time.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how AWESOME it will be to finally meet this little guy. I just can’t wait to see what he looks like and hold him and kiss him!

Despite how uncomfortable I am right now and how much I am anticipating holding my son for the first time I am still trying to enjoy these last few weeks of pregnancy and stay in the present moment. Every day I  feel very thankful that I got to experience being pregnant, especially when a year ago I didn’t even know  if it would happen. Sometimes I am almost moved to tears because I feel so blessed to be able to have this experience. I certainly will not take it for granted!

Hello friends and family! Hope you had a good Monday. I know most of Wisconsin (including my husband) was recovering from the Packer loss yesterday! I had a lovely relaxing weekend including my second baby shower hosted by my wonderful sister-in-laws.

From the first year I dated Brian (over 10 years ago!) Brian’s family welcomed me with open arms and treated me just like family! I immediately inherited these to lovely ladies Caren (on my left) Brian’s brother’s wife and Julie (Brian’s sister) as my own sisters. They have provided me with a wealth of knowledge as I prepare for my first baby. Plus they threw me this beautiful shower at the Country Club where we invited women from Brian’s side of the family, friends of my mother-in-law and the mom’s of Brian’s very good friends who might as well be family!

My adorable nieces!

The Ehle girls!

The Callan clan!

The moms! From left to right: Christy, Brian’s friend Bob’s mom, Ceil, Joe’s mom, Beth, Brian’s mom, and Pam, Trent’s mom!

A collection of Beth’s friends and neighbors.

My ADORABLE cake made by my sister-in-law Caren.

And my mom who took all these pictures! Thanks mom!

Today I went through all the beautiful gifts I received and I can’t even express how blessed I feel that so many people came to my shower and want to help bring this little guy into the world a little easier for me and Brian by giving us such generous gifts. Really there are only a few things I feel that I NEED in order to take care of this baby. Most of the toys/clothes/books/baby care items etc. have all been give to me as gifts.  I really just can’t get over how wonderful and generous everyone has been! I definitely have a better appreciation for new mom’s and will remember this generosity when other women I know have their first baby. I just feel so loved!!

Hi there! I know I say this every week but I just can’t believe it is week 35! It seems like we are really getting close now! Last night I asked Brian if he thought we were ready for this baby and he said yes. I would have to agree. There are still a few things I think we should have for our baby but if a baby would come to our house today we would have a car seat (installed yesterday, still going to get it checked by a pro), a bed for him to sleep in, and plenty of clothes and diapers to wear,  plus so much more. So yes I think we are pretty much ready! I would still like this little guy to bake a few more weeks though! Heather announced on her blog that instead of a 37 Week update she got a little surprise as her little guy came early! Congratulations to her!

This week the baby is a little over 18inches long and 5.25lbs! I wore this exact same outfit when I was 17 weeks pregnant and commented on how much room there was grow.

17 Weeks Pregnant

I’m glad there was room to grow!

35 Weeks Pregnant

It’s really hard for me to believe that he is going to get bigger but according to my sources from here on out my baby is pretty much completely developed and will now continue to gain weight at approximately 1/2 a pound a week. He still likes to hang out on my right side and I kind of feel like I have  a pole stuck inside of me. It is increasingly difficult to bend over to pick stuff up!

Despite our awesome weekend away, this last week was probably the worst week of my pregnancy and that was simply because I had a terrible cold and there was really nothing I could take to combat the symptoms. I was just so uncomfortable! I never realized how much I medicate myself when I am sick! For being this far along in my pregnancy I was actually sleeping pretty well up until this point usually only getting up once  a night to use the bathroom. But with this cold I really struggled to get a good night’s sleep simply because I could not breathe! I had a midwife appointment yesterday and she said I could take Tylenol PM to help me sleep. I also found that Breathe Right strips helped. Today was the first time in a week I actually felt better, not 100% but definitely better.

As I mentioned I had another midwife appointment yesterday where I met a new to me midwife who I really liked. Everything looked good. I will see another midwife in two weeks and after that every week until my baby is born. I actually scheduled the rest of my appointments through the end of my pregnancy. Like I said, hard to believe we are this far along!

In other news I am super excited for the baby shower my sister-in-law’s are throwing for me this weekend. It should be a good time! A few gifts have been coming in from some of the guests who can’t make it.

My aunt and cousin came to town after Christmas and brought some gifts as well as some hand me downs from my cousin’s little guys.

Shannon gave me some gift last weekend.

One of Brian’s cousins also sent some adorable clothes!

I feel so blessed that there are so many people who already care about our little guy!

That’s all for this week! I’ll be back with a recap of the shower!

When my mom and dad sometimes talk about great trips or vacations before my brother and I came along the refer to that time as B.C. (before children). Well, I wanted to have one last adventure out of town with Brian before our little guy comes along. We contacted our good friends Shannon and Brian Gardner to see if they were available  this weekend and if we could come to the Twin Cities to see them. Of course they said, “Sure!” so we took off Friday after work with no real agenda in mind.

One of my requests was going out for some REALLY GOOD Italian food! Well Gardner came through by taking us to a family owned place called Yarusso’s

How can you not have  good time with these two?

It was also good to spend some quality time with Brian.

I had the Florentine Ravioli which was stuffed with spinach and cheese. It had the most amazing red sauce I have ever tasted! I cannot put my finger on what made it so good but it was truly unique  I will dreaming about that sauce for a long time!

After dinner we headed back to the Gardner’s house where a traditional girls against boys game of Euchre ensued.

The next morning Shannon prepared an AMAZING egg strata which I can not believe I didn’t take picture of! After breakfast we headed over to the Summit Brewery for a little tour and some beer sampling.

Brian perusing the variety of beer on tap!

Baby’s first brewery tour.

My sample of beer, H2O

After the tour and sampling we headed over to a St. Paul Fire Station to visit Brian’s friend Todd who is and EMT and Firefighter. Here’s Todd in his “office” the ambulance.

Brian also got to hop in the fire truck!

We headed across the street to an Irish Bar for some appetizers (forgot to take pictures) we wanted to eat light because we were saving room for a planned BIG feast for dinner.

We headed back to the Gardner’s. I was still feeling pretty under the weather with my cold so I took a nap and also spent some time on the couch reading. While I was resting the rest of the crew was working hard to prepare our dinner feast!

The Brian’s put together bacon wrapped duck and venison for the grill

Shannon made a pecan pie just for my Brian!

She also made some amazing carrots and red cabbage

Gardner also made some FABULOOUS English muffin bread.

My plate!

So good!

This morning we headed over to our favorite breakfast spots The Capital View Café. I planned on having their cinnamon swirl French toast but when the waitress told us the special was caramel apple French toast I had to go with that!

So good!

After breakfast we packed up and headed home! It was such a fun and relaxing weekend with some very good friends! Exactly what I was hoping for on our pseudo “babymoon.”  We know that life will be different with a baby in our lives but we hope we can continue to have new adventures with the Gardner’s with baby in tow. Thanks Brian and Shannon for a great weekend!

To read more about some of our previous adventure with the Gardner’s checkout!

Live Action Blogging

More Adventures!

Our Adventure Continues!

The City Mouse and the Country Mouse

And It Ended With A Blast!

Three Musts!

Hey there! Happy Thursday to you! Almost the weekend right? We are having an unseasonable warm winter around these parts! The high today so far was 50*! I keep saying to myself that this would have been the perfect year to run a half marathon in January. Last year I was running in single digit numbers through at LEAST a foot of snow!

Speaking of running a half marathons, exactly one year a go on this date, I was all packed and ready to go to Florida to run the Walt Disney Half Marathon. That was such a great race and a great trip with some of my very best friends. Little did we know that for two us this would be our last big vacation without babies!

My friend Becky (2nd in the back) had a little girl at the end of August. She was actually VERY NEWLY pregnant while on this trip and didn’t even know it yet. And here we are going to have a baby next month.

I have a somewhat similar photo to the one I shared with you last year for today!

Brian and I are headed out of town  for one last hurrah before the baby comes! We are headed up to the Twin Cities to visit the Gardners who we always have a good time with! I don’t plan on bringing my laptop and just unplugging for the weekend and enjoying are mini vacation. I’ll be back with full fun recap!

By the way, when we come back I plan on repacking that suitcase and using it as my hospital bag! Hard to believe we are getting that close!

Hello! I know that I promised a post reviewing Christmas but I took a look at the pictures and they weren’t that good. Let’s just say it was a great holiday spent with family and I got lots of attention for being pregnant! Can’t wait until next year when we have a little one to celebrate with! I did however update the Baby Sneaker Page so if you’ve missed anything check it out!

Here we are at week 34! A little known fact, I was actually born at 34 weeks and weighed in at just 4lbs! The nurse I talked with at my first appointment said I was probably born early and small because my birth mother smoked while she was pregnant. I also read today that if a baby is born between 34 and 37 weeks they will have little to no health problems and I guess I’m proof of that! Still, I’d like our little guy to continue baking for AT LEAST 3 more weeks (if not more!) so I can reach full term!

Hopefully my healthy baby is measuring in at the average 4 and 3/4 lbs. and is almost 18 inches long! The info I read compared his weight to a cantaloupe but I don’t really think those are in season right now!

I wore this exact same outfit 4 weeks ago. Let’s see just how much that belly has grown!

Week 30                            Week 34

I think it looks lower don’t you?

I am feeling baby move all day long it seems. Sometimes there are some pretty strong kicks but mostly I feel a lot of pushing, poking, and stretching. I just love watching my belly roll and rubbing his little back, or at least what I imagine is his back!

I seem to have caught a pretty annoying cold. I thought I was doing pretty good keeping the germs at bay but I still managed to catch something. Worst part is I can’t really take any medicine to relieve the symptoms so as of right now I am trying to get a lot of rest, drinking tons of liquids, and using some saline nasal spray and cough drops. Hopefully it won’t last too long.

One little thought on how pregnancy has totally changed my body imagine. Now don’t get me wrong I LOVE my baby belly as I have expressed before. But early today I was looking at some old pictures I posted on Facebook awhile ago, and at a time when I was didn’t think I was “thin enough” and I can’t believe how different I look compared to now! In my mind I look TINY in those pictures! I am ashamed that I ever thought that I didn’t look good enough just because the scale didn’t show a certain number. I am not expecting that losing the pregnancy weight will be easy, as losing weight for me never is but I will definitely have a better appreciation for all my body can do and hopefully won’t get too caught up in the numbers!

Other than the cold nothing really new to report. Still feeling tired and a little uncomfortable but other than that pretty good! Can’t believe my due date is 6 weeks away and I’ll be full term in 3 weeks!

Hi there! Happy New Year! I hope you rang in 2012 just the way you wanted! I wasn’t able to stay awake until midnight but I still spent a nice evening with my family. I plan on sharing some highlights from our Christmas celebrations soon!

As most people do at the beginning of a New Year I’ve been reflecting upon the past year and looking to the new year with hope and anticipation of what is to come. Last year at this time I couldn’t have even imagined that I would be pregnant let alone anticipating the birth of my child in almost six weeks. In fact I was totally focused on preparing for the 2011 Walt Disney World Half Marathon and the fabulous trip I was going to take with my husband and friends. I remember that shortly after I returned from my trip I was already scheming and planning the next race I would train for or the next fitness goal I would achieve. But, I had a revelation one day in a yoga class of all places that their was another very important goal that I had wanted to achieve but had been putting off. That goal was, becoming a mother. We had had some trouble reaching that goal and had put it off until we were ready to deal with it. I realized, after the fact, that training for triathlons and half marathons and more was my way of avoiding a very challenging situation. It was a challenging thing to face, I mean there was the definite possibility that I would fail. I knew that I had to prepare myself mentally for dealing with the challenges that infertility brings and if I continued to focus my energy towards training I would continue putting off dealing with this challenge and  I might never achieve my goal of becoming a mother weather it be physically or through adoption.  So, I made a decision that I would not train for marathon in 2011. I never really made it a goal to get pregnant in 2011, I knew that mentally that would not be the best idea. I guess it was more of goal to figure out just exactly how we could become parents. I never prayed that I would get pregnant I just prayed that God would show me how it was that I was suppose to become a mother. As I’ve mentioned before I had mentally prepared myself that I might never be pregnant but I knew in my heart that some how I would become a mother.

The day I found out I was pregnant was definitely the best day of 2011 for me and a day I will never forget. I feel so blessed that God has allowed me to experience the joy of being pregnant. Much of my blog this past year has been about my pregnancy and I am so glad that I have this type of venue to share my thoughts, memories, and experiences. I am sure that 2012 will be filled with my adventures into motherhood as well as getting back into shape after having a baby. Today at Church our priest talked about how the month January is named after the god Janus who was the god of transitions and new beginnings. I know that this new year will be just that as I venture into a whole new world of being a mom. For now I am not setting any resolutions for 2012. I do have a few goals/plans as far as getting back to running after baby is born but I plan to share those in another post. For now I am basking in the joy that 2011 brought and the adventures 2012 has to offer.

Thanks for reading my blog! It is so great that so many of my family, friends, and even people who I haven’t met have taken an interested in my little corner of the blog world. Thanks for being there and I hope you continue to enjoy the journey with me!

Hi there! How are you on this last Thursday of the year? I am doing pretty well. I am about to start Christmas part 2 as Brian’s family is coming into town today so we get to celebrate Christmas all over again!

Today is my last day of teaching fitness classes at the YMCA until after the baby is born and I have fully recovered. To be honest, I’m not too sad about it! As my size has increased over the past 33 weeks it has gotten increasingly more difficult to teach classes. Since the second trimester I haven’t been able to do much core work when I taught group strength and sitting on the cycling bike has gotten REALLY uncomfortable! There have even when a few times when I’ve gotten dizzy while teaching which is always a little scary. I also have been feeling pretty exhausted after teaching. It’s a little more demanding then when you are just working out on your own, both mentally and physically. However, I feel really good about the fact that I have been able to teach up to 33 weeks and plan on continuing to exercise until I go into labor or until I physically can’t. I do plan on making some changes to my routine for the rest of my pregnancy. I’ll get back to those in bit.

A few weeks ago Heather wrote about some of the reactions she has received  exercising while pregnant as well as debunking some myths about pregnancy and exercise.  I have received nothing but positive responses to exercising while pregnant. People even go out of their way to to tell me how awesome it is that I am exercising telling me how good it is for me in regards to labor, delivery and recovery. One guy even said I was his inspiration because twice in one day he saw me at the Y (once lifting weights and once at yoga). I honestly feel like I am anomaly and I don’t really get why. I mean, I too don’t see other pregnant women working out at the Y. I don’t know if there just aren’t that many pregnant women out there or if pregnant women just don’t work out. I don’t understand why either. I mean everything I’ve read recommends that women exercise while pregnant and I know I certainly I feel better after I’ve gotten some exercise. I knew, even before I got pregnant, that I wanted to continue to exercise. In fact I had hoped to continue running and doing Zumba but learned pretty quickly to listen to my body and know when to cut back. This has probably been the most important thing I’ve learned while exercising. Learning how strong my body is but also learning to listen to my body.

As for the next six weeks of my pregnancy I still plan to exercise but to lessen the intensity of my workouts. Here is my plan for now

Monday:Yoga

Tuesday: Swim

Wednesday Yoga

Thursday: Strength train and/or light cardio (either walking or elliptical)

Friday: Swim

Saturday: Strength train and/or light cardio or rest

Sunday: Rest, maybe yoga

Of course this will change based on how I am feeling on any given day.

So how about you? Did you exercise while pregnant? If you’ve never been pregnant do you ever see pregnant women exercising? What do you think about exercising while pregnant?