37 week bumpdate

I am not the biggest fan of my "fat face" right now.

It's pretty amazing how fast this pregnancy went by and how now.....well it feels as if I am at a complete HALT. These weeks are dragging! I knew that they would as this is my third baby and the anticipation of holding my child gets worse. I am also having a little girl and I want to know that she is still in fact a she and to see what my little girls look like ha ha. Everything is going well and this pregnancy has been the BEST blessing ever and I am not sure if I am ready for it to be over or if I am willing to hang on until she is ready to come out if that makes sense.

I have been seriously blessed these past 37 weeks. I remember when my husband told me that he was on board to have our little baby and how we started trying right away. I remember being worried about our baby being ok during our anatomy scan because we had to go back because they missed a few things. I remember crying and being in disbelief that we actually made a little girl! I mean WE DID IT! God made my dream come true! (I must remember that when we go through our trials when she gets older). I stayed in control with my eating habits and exercised MOST of the pregnancy. It has been blissful. Yes, I am uncomfortable, YES I am tried of looking at my bathroom walls because it seems I am there more than anywhere else at this moment. This is what pregnancy is though. I am giving myself to my child while she grows and gets nourished by me. I would LOVE to run for miles again and see my skinny legs and muscular arms but I want my baby more. I want her to be healthy and have a wonderful start to this wonderful, crazy, fun thing called life. I choose to focus on the positives of this pregnancy before all else. :)

I used to be the one that hated being pregnant always wondering what the heck is all this that people talk about loving?!?! HA HA! I wasn't "doing it right" I didn't nurture myself I destructed myself and my body responded but still gave me beautifully healthy and wonderful babies! Thank you God for my wonderful blessings! So, enough of my babbling! Let's get on to the bumpdate.

I had my 38 week appointment today. Nothing great happened. LOL I refused to have my cervix checked because really what is it going to do? I am either going to be really excited and then bummed because no baby has come lol or really bummed that my body isn't "doing" what it is supposed to when in reality it is. It's keeping my baby safe and sound in the womb until she is ready :) SO I refused it. Next week though we will be getting it checked as it becomes protocol.

How Far Along: 37 weeks and 5 days.

Total Weight Gain/Loss: I am at 39 pounds depending on the day. I am pretty much at my max pregnancy weight that I wanted to hit. I have been really watching what I have been eating so I think that really helped out a lot.

Food Aversions (and "no nos"): I have been slowly transitioning to Paleo that has been a challenge because I want to eat junk but 2 out of my 3 meals are Paleo and it's been pretty nice. I have been cheating already though as I know that in 2 weeks it will be strict nutrient dense diet to lose those pesky pounds.

Cravings: Sweet things.

How I Feel: Overall I felt pretty great in week 37. I only worked out 3 times this week so far so I can attribute that to the nesting I have been doing and the fact that once this week I had the dreaded pregnancy insomnia SO I was tired but actively cleaning and straightening things up around here. My husband and I pretty much arranged the whole house and we are liking the house more than we did when we moved in which is a blessing because we are stuck in our home for 2 more years. It's a great home but a split floor plan is NOT for us. All I can say is never again! 

I have also been in more pain in the pelvic area and have to rest more often when I do move. Things are SLOW for me right now and it's a tad bit frustrating.

Maternity Clothes: Yup. I am pretty much wearing the same three outfits so laundry has increased to twice a week now so I can have something clean.

Movement: She likes to ninja kick my sides because that is where her legs are, I am not sure which is more painful the rib kicks my little one gave me or these side kicks she is giving me. She takes my breath away and my husband always thinks I am going into labor LOL. Maybe I shouldn't giggle so much about it because that's how it may happen one day!

Sleep: I am sleeping but feeling more tired and lazy as the days go by.

What I Miss: Running. Lifting weights and just being a strong individual that doesn't need help for everything that I do. It's really a pain to be so dependent on my husband and SO tired all the time. I want to have the energy to play with my son at the park and not have to just sit there. It's really frustrating for me.

What I'm Looking Forward To: Seeing what this baby looks like. In the short term though we have a special trip planned for our little to go on a 2 hour train ride! I am SO excited it has taken EVERYTHING to keep my mouth shut about it! 

Favorite Moment of the Week: Ummm Friday coming soon?? Seriously nothing too notable happened this week. I am thankful for the uneventful week but there is nothing that sticks out to be like WEEEEE it was a great week 

Little bits of my mind

Over the course of these past 9 months 10 months 36 and change weeks LOL whatever you want to call it I have had time to not only think about the new dynamic of my life but about me and where I want to be in my life. I wrote recently about being so busy as a matter of fact to busy that I have since humbled myself and have fallen into this mother nurturer role and I like it.

I feel so relaxed and at peace knowing that I don't have to do anything but come home, cook for my family, and spend time with them and catch a show here or there or sit back, relax, and ENJOY reading a book. I am learning to love my little world, the very one that I wished for and the very one that came to fruition for me. I am at a good place in my job, we are comfortable financially, and there is lots of love to go around. I can sleep better and simply I am not thinking about the next thing that I have to do but I can just.........breathe. It's a wonderful feeling to come to a place like this in life and just ENJOY it. Isn't that what we all work for? I am grateful for this period and pregnancy in my life at this specific time.

Lately, I have been obsessed with pregnancy and baby and the expansion of our family which doesn't really lend to much to talk about in the health and fitness realm of my life because truly......I am not living in daily and I am not really at a point in my pregnancy where I can push limits rather....I should be resting and enjoying; which is exactly what I have been doing.

My nutrition has been that of a pregnant woman ha ha ha! I have gained weight gracefully, and I have indulged but it has been a struggle NOT to eat 7 bowls of cereal a day or to get all my vegetables in ha ha. I have been exercising 5-6 days a week still but the workouts have been slower and without that much impact at all. It's been mostly the Slim and Toned DVD and walking on the elliptical or around the neighborhood since it's nice out now. This pregnancy has been by far the BEST one I have had physically and mentally and I hope the postpartum feeling is the same!

My thoughts these days are more centered about getting back into shape after the baby and how my body is going to bounce back. I wonder what my child will look like, how much hair she will have, and what her temperament will be once she gets out into the real world with us. Part of me wants to deliver her NOW and parts of me are really scared about labor! I don't want to do it but it is consuming my daily life. Baby talk is really all a pregnant woman as pregnant as I am can think about other than being frustrated with how many times a person can seriously go to the bathroom! LOL

I have plans for the blog and I am sure that it will be centered around me getting back into shape with lots of family memories added in there that can hopefully inspire others! I can't wait to share more about my life and what I have been up, so that I can keep a memory of my life with my children and my journey through health and fitness.

Changing the way I eat

I have been thinking a lot about how I am going to eat through this whole postpartum journey. Actually all I can vainly think about is starting my workout and what I am going to eat and how I am going to approach the whole thing. Now that I am starting to slow down I mean REALLY slow down it is consuming my mind even more. I know that I should be resting more and I am but it's really hard when the past few years of your life have been active and healthy. 

So, I have been thinking about what approach helped me the best in my weight loss journey and truly it was eating good clean all natural foods. When I had the MOST success is when I went grain free for 21 days and my bloating and indigestion problems went away. Since I have gotten pregnant I let that lifestyle go because I wanted to enjoy pregnancy and give myself permission to indulge and to be honest I had not been following the grain free lifestyle for that long to have actually created a habit with it. 

I have slowly started to pick it back up again by making my breakfasts, most snacks, and lunches grain free and dinner sort of be a free for all a few times a week. It has been helping me put the focus back on the eating. With changing my diet this way over the past 2 weeks my weight gain has been steady or non-exsistent. I am over the 35 pound recommended gain so not gaining anything is ok as long as I am not losing weight I am ok with it. 

I started digging through my Paleo books and cooking up some of the recipes and I can tell you that some of the best recipes I have found have been from Against All Grain! Everything I have tried has been so tasty that you really don't miss the grains. 

Her website and cookbook have been the best resource for me. I love to cook with flavor and as long as flavor is there I am good to go. Hopefully, by the end of this pregnancy I will be able to make the full switch to a grain free diet. I don't think I will give up rice because as for now it doesn't effect my body in the way that certain vegetables and bread actually make me feel.

I plan on updating as time goes by and I gather some pictures of my meals if I really remember to keep everyone updated on what I am eating and some of my favorite resources that are out there. 

I still feel great being as pregnant as I am, even more so by eating the way that I am. I am not as lethargic or tired feeling and I have the energy to do more around the house that I thought before which helps me with the confidence in the way that I am eating and that makes me happy.

Just wanted to pop in on a little update on me :)

35 Week Bumpdate!

 

How Far Along: 35 Weeks

Total Weight Gain/Loss: I am at 39 pounds depending on the day. I am pretty much at my max pregnancy weight that I wanted to hit. I didn't want to go over 40 but I am getting close so we shall see what happens. With the heat came more swelling so lets hope that is where it came from LOL

Food Aversions (and "no nos"): Anything healthy even though I am eating it. I am finding myself eating more like a 5th grader than the healthy person I know I can be.

Cravings: Cake and bread

How I Feel: I feel good but starting to get the tired feeling again now that I am nearing 36 weeks. Braxton Hicks have been a pain in the ASS! I mean seriously a pain.They start feeling like labor and it freaks me out because I am totally not ready for her to be here yet. She still has some baking to do and I am selfishly enjoying uninterrupted sleep. Ok I lie I do get up to pee 3 times a night but it's only for 3 minutes compared to 20 LOL. I am not ready for labor either I am still scared of it so I am not at the GET THIS BABY OUT OF HERE phase yet. I am sure it will come but for now all I want to do is sleep and want the Braxton Hicks contractions to chill the heck out! 

Maternity Clothes: Yup. I am pretty much over them! 

Movement: We are into the rolling stages of the movement with an occasional jab here and there but over all she is pretty zen in there because she has no room ha ha ha. 

Sleep: I am sleeping but feeling more tired and lazy as the days go by.

 

What I Miss: Running. I see people running all the time and I envy their speed and I envy their ability to move faster than 2 miles per hour HA HA HA! I also miss my strong body. I have so many aches and pains and I am so lethargic that I almost have forgotten the strength I once had.

 

What I'm Looking Forward To: Seeing what this baby looks like. In the short term though we have a special trip planned for our little to go on a 2 hour train ride! I am SO excited it has taken EVERYTHING to keep my mouth shut about it! 

Favorite Moment of the Week: Getting my servicewide test score for the next rank at work. I got a good score and I proud of that since I didn't really study for the exam! I don't know if it is enough to compete for the next rank but I know that it was enough for me to feel proud of and I am super happy with how well I did :)

You just have to listen

**This is a spiritual post**

I was writing the other day about how pregnancy has changed me and it certainly has. After I wrote that post I started connecting some dots that had to do with my life and what God was doing in it. I need to preface this with some background so you can understand where all this is coming from.

After my divorce I was probably at the lowest point in my life, I had to share custody of my child but really it wasn't shared his father has full custody. I was called very many derogatory things. I was called a bad mother, someone who was promiscuous, a whore, slut all things that I didn't really deserve to be called because the way I had conducted myself as a mother to my child and as a wife was none of those things. Anger and divorce can make you say and be just terrible. Granted, I am no saint and I had a few choice words for my ex as well. ANYWAY I digress.......I felt that because of all of these negative thoughts and viewpoints of me and the way that I had felt about myself (a failure, bad person, tainted) I made it a point to give myself the best life that I could because I was going to prove all of those crappy people see that I AM GOOD. I AM NOT WHO YOU SAY I AM. SO, I cleaned up my act and in the matter of 3 years I got 2 college degrees, got promoted at work, married the man of my dreams, and gave birth to my second child. I was fueled by anger and resentment. It wasn't until 2011 that I received God into my life and I started learning more about Him and I learned first about forgiveness. Once I was able to forgive I was able to see WHY the things that happened to me happened and accepted them as blessings even though they still hurt. 

I had succeeded. I was gifted everything that I had wanted in my life and God gave that to me before I had even accepted Him into my life but I was blinded. Long story short I kept doing and doing and doing and was SO focused on DOING and proving them wrong that I lost sight. I had committed to too many things and was just doing things for the sake of doing them. I have to admit that social media has also played a part in my recent do more mentality and I wanted to do things because they worked for other people. 

It wasn't until I started to sit down and think and when I posted about what this pregnancy has done for me that everything actually clicked. It was God showing me that I wasn't trusting Him with everything that I was doing and I was trying desperately to get a square to fit in a darn circle. The way that I feel that He speaks to me is through seeing things and showing me things that I read or talk about. Things that when I resonate over my day I know that it was Him that was talking to me. I needed to let all of the other things go and trust that he was going to take care of me. Life wasn't for me to figure out it was for Him to do for me. I didn't have to have two part time jobs, my full time job, and be a mother and wife to be content in this life because life is about pleasing Him and I had no time to nuture my family AND please Him and do what was/is right by HIm. SO, slowly I started letting things go to the side and I feel.........RELIEF. Relief that I have the time that I was seeking and relief that I don't have to have so many obligations in life and that it truly can be simple without having to add MORE to it. I can just be and be happy where I am.

Over the past few weeks I have been reading Bible passages about trusting God. My Joyce Meyer magazine was about trusting God and being bold. Sermon podcasts that I listen to in my car were subsequently about God and MY DEVOTIONAL is now speaking really loud to TRUST God. See all the signs are there I just have to listen. I have to pay attention because it's not like he is just going to jump out and show his face to me like he does in the Bible although, that would be pretty awesome and rather scary actually ha ha. 

I don't really know what it is to TRUST God. I mean I know that everything will be ok and that he will take care of me and give me things that he knows that I can handle. I guess maybe that is all that it is. But, does the worry stop? Does the thinking about the future stop or do we just make non-commital plans in life and see what happens? I suppose that my studies will take me further but I am hearing His message loud and clear. 

If you have any thing that you could add please do because I sure would love to know exactly what it is that I am supposed to be doing LOL. 

33 week Bumpdate

How Far Along: 33 Weeks

Total Weight Gain/Loss: I am at 32-33 pounds depending on the day. I am almost to the point where I want to say EFF it! But I also feel like this is where it all matters so I don't want to blow it! 

Food Aversions (and "no nos"): Vegetables, I wouldn't really say it's an aversion but I have to make a conscious decision to eat them or I won't. I am back to loving carbs and heavy foods which isn't awesome!

Cravings: Hmmm Crackers, chips, cake, donuts

How I Feel: I came down with a cold last weekend which really put me OUT. I felt totally drained of any energy that I had which the exhaustion that I feel now that it is over well lets just say that I am not complaining about being tired ha ha. My pelvis is starting to ache more and my workouts have been suffering from them meaning I am not working out as much but that was also due to the fact that I didn't pack my lunch at ALL this week. FAIL! You can tell just in my step counts for the week on my fitbit that exercise was kind of the last thing on my mind. 

Maternity Clothes: Yup. I am pretty much over them! 

Movement: She is moving and shaking in there and it hurts but we are almost done baking her so I can deal for a little while longer. I am SO thankful that she isn't a rib kicker, she is a side stretcher. 

Sleep: I am getting it and i am so happy. I get up 4-6 times to go to the bathroom a night but go right back to sleep with no issues. I am glad that I don't have the insomnia that I did with my second kiddo which is really awesome and I hope that it doesn't start LOL

 

What I Miss: Hugging my husband. We do this awkward side hug, not a fan. I want to hug my kiddo too and bend over! I tried to hold the seat for him yesterday while he was practicing riding his bike on two wheels and um yeah it was almost a fail too ha ha. 

 

What I'm Looking Forward To: Seeing what this baby looks like. In the short term though we have a special trip planned for our little to go on a 2 hour train ride! I am SO excited it has taken EVERYTHING to keep my mouth shut about it! 

Favorite Moment of the Week: Buying the rest of the things that I needed for Little Ms.