Check in - Day one

Today was a super crazy stressful, emotional day. Just normal life stuff + financial issues +anxiety disorder + hormones. I made it through but can't say a couple things didn't fall by the wayside. Also I have had a terrible intense headache all day, which I am currently managing thanks to tylenol, but when it wears off it HURTS. Anyway, here is how I did: Eating: I did well overall, I ate around 2100 calories. Felt ok but I always get voraciously hungry at about 10am and 4pm, gotta find something to satiate me at those times. Walk: Sigh...nope, didn't happen. The headache was the main culprit. Supplements: Double sigh. I forgot to take all of my supplements except for my two mugs of herbal red raspberry leaf tea which I enjoy and therefore never forget. It's now too late in the day and I already have heartburn so it's not happening. OFP techniques (spinningbabies stuff. OFP = optimal fetal positioning): Check. I did my inversion and some pelvic rocks and am tailor sitting as I type. Didn't call the chiropractor today but I simply MUST. I think my headache is due to my neck being out of alignment and my pelvis is ever worsening. Tomorrow I will call. I'm feeling ok right now. Like I said, rough day and I'm heading to bed much later than I should so who knows how I will feel tomorrow but as of this particular moment in time, I'm feeling almost optimistic...almost.

The route

I had originally hoped not to gain so much weight this time around, as I gained 65+lbs with both prior pregnancies. At 26 weeks, I have gained 45 lbs so it's not going swimmingly. I'd like to stop gaining so much, and just keep it to a minimum from this point forward. If I gain .5 lb a week starting now, I will still be at 52lbs gained, which is still quite high for any pregnancy, much less one for someone like me who started off significantly (about 50lbs) overweight. I've been eating pretty healthy overall, but my portions are too large and the whole first 4.5 months of my pregnancy were spent eating large amounts of white carbs (which I don't even normally like or eat) and soda because they were the only thing that did not make me overwhelmingly nauseous. And I ate them constantly because going without eating something for an hour also made the nausea stronger. It was very demoralizing and I just kind of stopped caring. I've been dealing with a sort of depression and that has not helped my motivation. My babies are gigantic. My son was 9lbs 11oz and my daughter (who looked tiny to me) was 8lbs 13oz. It would be nice for this baby to be smaller. As much as I really don't put stock in the fact that a "big" baby is a problem per se (as in, impossible to deliver vaginally or something), maybe juuuust maybe, it would be easier. Another issue with my previous labor was that I truly believe she was slightly misaligned. I think maybe proper positioning might help it go faster/easier this time around. So I started this blog for a few reasons. 1) to help me just kind of sort out and organize my thoughts 2) to have a place to track what I'm doing. My plan right now is to eat healthily and loosely base my diet on similar principles to what you would eat if you were diabetic. I do not choose to take the Glucose Tolerance Test as I don't feel it is supported by research, but I do think that eating in a way that keeps blood sugar stable is good for ANYONE. I am trying to keep calories under 2200 per day. I am watching my carb/protein/fat balance and tracking my food on babyfit.com most days. I'm also trying to increase my water intake, but it's quite difficult as water still makes me kind of sick and gives me heartburn. I'm staying away from sugar for the most part but if I do have a treat, it will only be .5 C of lowfat ice cream (and this only very occasionally) or a couple dark chocolate covered almonds. The only exception to these rules are Sunday dinners. My mom cooks something special for the family on Sundays. I will eat what she makes but will keep my portions reasonable....which will be hard enough! I have made an appointment with a Registered Dietitian this week, so I will be updating this plan after we talk. I'm also considering monitoring my blood sugar with a glucometer just to be sure, since I feel that is more accurate than the GTT. I will weigh myself weekly at least. I will walk daily. THIS is the hardest thing for me by far. I'm just tired and busy, but I have to learn to make it a priority somehow. I will do the techniques on spinningbabies.com as much as possible. I've been doing inversions and pelvic rocks daily and will continue that. There are a couple of other things under "the daily do" that I plan to incorporate as well. I am considering getting an exercise ball for my office instead of a chair. I'm also going to buy a pelvic support belt as soon as possible which I hope will help with my severe pelvic pain as well as possibly fetal positioning. I will take a prenatal vitamin in addition to a calcium supplement and magnesium asporotate. I also will drink red raspberry leaf tea daily. I am also planning on taking a formula called "Gentle Birth" which contains various herbs and claims to shorten labors and make them easier...I figure it's worth a try! I would like to take an omega-3 supplement but they are sooo expensive. I'm gonna try to get it but money is really tight so we will see. I'm also planning on getting acupuncture and chiropractic care as much as possible in this last trimester. I have an acupuncturist lined up that takes my insurance, my first appointment is next week and I'm scheduled for 4 weeks so far. I found a chiropractor that takes my insurance but have not been able to get set up for an appointment yet. In a perfect world I would also get prenatal massage but I won't have money for another month or two. I might be able to get it in my last month or so. Blog regularly and post how I did. Be consistent for once in my life. Here I go...

The reason

I am currently 24 weeks pregnant with my third and final child, a baby boy that we are naming Jude. I've yet to have a baby come easy. I'm not one of the lucky ones who sail through pregnancy with just a touch of morning sickness and maybe a little back pain but still look fabulous and glowy...I'm the kind of pregnant woman who gains 80lbs and looks frumpy and miserable, sweaty and smelly. I always get more than my fair share of "morning" sickness and turn into a raging, waddling bitch by about 5 months. I am fortunate to have had healthy full term pregnancies every single time and so I know enough to count my blessings, don't get me wrong. I've had two previous cesareans, my first (my now 9 year old son) was at 40weeks due to who knows what. According to the doctor at the time, I just wasn't going to have him vaginally due to his size so I was given the option of being induced and being in labor for days and then having the cesarean, or just going ahead with the surgery right then. I let myself just kind of get railroaded into it despite the fact that up to that point I had been seeing a practice of midwives at a freestanding birth center and the cesarean was kind of the opposite direction...oh well. That ended up with a really difficult cesarean birth that was hard for me to deal with for various reasons. Maybe I will write a whole post about it someday, but at any rate; I decided to have my next child (who came along about 7 years later) at home. My daughter was born Oct 2, 2010 after about 33 hours of labor at home. I saw an awesome midwife during my pregnancy and planned a homebirth. After the long labor, I chose to transport to the hospital and told myself I would be able to avoid a c-section and have an epidural, get some sleep and then have my VBAC. No such luck...a bunch of things happened at the hospital but in the end, suffice to say that I chose a repeat cesarean. Now I find myself pregnant with my third and final child. I'd like to avoid another cesarean. If I end up needing one, I am ok with it. It is what it is. But both of my children have had to go to the NICU for about a day for testing/oxygen because they both had "wet lungs" which is common with cesarean babies, but mimics the symptoms of pneumonia apparently and therefore has to be watched/tested/treated with antibiotics"just in case". I really really really want to hold my baby after it's born. I would love that. It seems so basic, something you just kind of assume will happen, but for me it hasn't. Not yet. I've always been resentful that after all that work of labor and/or surgery, and the whole 10 months of being pregnant and feeling like the only one who really "knew" my baby, they are always held and handled by a bunch of other people before I get to them. I'm always one of the last to hold them by the time the nurses do their thing and all the other family members get their chance first because I can't see them in the NICU until I can walk recently sliced self to a wheelchair to go there. So yeah, my ultimate goal is to be healthy, feel somewhat healthy despite being pregnant, and to have this baby via the ole baby spout aka vagina, at home.