13 Weeks Today!

Today we are 13 weeks pregnant and baby is the size of a peach! We are almost out of the 1st trimester, YAY! I can't complain about the 1st trimester too much because I've felt pretty good. It wasn't until these last few weeks that I started feeling a bit of morning sickness all day long. No throwing up, just nauseous throughout the day. Aside from that I have had a lot of back pain. It started with my sciatica which was also affecting my right leg and now it’s my tailbone that hurts the most. The back pain interferes with my sleeping quite a bit. It’s so hard to get comfortable at night when my back hurts no matter how I’m laying.



I’m still not showing much yet. I just look bloated and it makes me feel uncomfortable in my clothes. I really need to go shopping and get some bigger shirts, dresses, leggings and a belly band! When I wake up in the morning my stomach looks flat and then as the day goes on and I eat more I start looking bloated. By the end of the night I feel like I ate way too much and it looks like I have somewhat of a belly. I give it a few more weeks before that belly becomes permanent. As for now I feel the weight gain most in my butt and hips. I tend to carry any weight I gain on my hips aka love handles, not cute!



We are finding out the gender in a few short weeks and get to share the moment with our whole family! It’s crazy how early they can find out what you’re having now! We are so so excited. I literally do not want to look at any baby stuff until I know what we are having, so once we find out I can start shopping : ) We already have names picked out for both a boy and girl but don’t want to say any names until we know the sex!



Aside from all this exciting baby stuff we are also getting ready to sell our house and buy a bigger one for this growing family. We are having an open house next weekend so we have to be away from our house both Saturday and Sunday so that they can show it, which is exciting, but stressful at the same time! Hopefully everything falls into place and we find our dream home soon!



Now a few questions for all the moms/moms to be out there: Do any of you have a pregnancy blog I can follow or have any recommendations of a few blogs I should follow? Did/do any of you have back pain this early on is there anything that helps? Any clothing recommendations as I continue to grow without having to buy ugly maternity clothes? Is the belly band a must have? Would love feedback from you all

: )



Stephani

Working Out While Pregnant

For those who have asked what my workouts consist of since being pregnant, they haven’t changed much. The only thing I have really adjusted is my speed on the treadmill and I’ve decreased my weight a bit when lifting. I listen to my body and take rest days when needed (sometimes that’s once a week, sometimes it’s two or three times a week). I’ve been very fortunate thus far in my pregnancy and haven’t had a whole lot of morning sickness. Aside from having some days where I am so tired I can hardly stay awake at work and the back pain I’ve had from my sciatica, I have felt pretty good every day and have been able to work out and continue with daily activities without any problems. It’s important to listen to your body, workout when you can, workout with caution and remember this is not a time to try and lose weight or gain muscle, it’s a time to be as healthy as possible for both you and the baby. Anyhow, here is an example of last week’s workout schedule: I’ll post my shoulder workout as an example of the weight I’m lifting. (You can Google any of the workouts I have listed for an example of how to do them or go on Bodybuilding.com)


Monday – Cardio on treadmill for 30 minutes (Jogging at 7.3 as opposed to 8.5 before pregnancy)

Weights for about 30/40 minutes– Shoulders/Biceps:

Arnold Dumbbell Press (3 sets of 15 – 15 lb dumbbells)

Superset with

Front Plate Raises (3 sets of 15 – 25 lb plate)



Side Lateral Raises (3 sets of 15 –10 lb dumbbells)

Superset with

Bent Over Reverse Flys (3 sets of 15 – 10 lb dumbbells)



Front incline dumbbell raises (3 sets of 12 – 10 lb dumbbells)

Superset with

Barbell shoulder press behind neck (3 sets of 12 –20 lbs)



Bent Over Low-Pulley Side Lateral (3 sets of 12 – 20 lbs on cable machine)



3 sets of 21’s with barbell (20 lbs)

Incline dumbbell curls (both arms at the same time 3 sets of 15 - 12.5 dumbbells)



Tuesday – Chest, triceps and abs for 45 minutes.

Wednesday – 30 minutes of cardio (uphill, inclined at 10.0 run at 6.0 for 30 seconds, walk for at 3.0 for 30 seconds, repeat for 20 minutes) followed by 30 minutes of back and biceps.

Thursday – day off

Friday – Cardio (40 minutes of running steady at 7.5)

Saturday – 30 minutes of cardio (treadmill running at a steady 7.5) followed by 20 minutes of arms (biceps and triceps).

Sunday – 20 minutes of cardio (uphill, inclined at 10.0 run at 6.0 for 30 seconds, walk for at 3.0 for 30 seconds, repeat for 20 minutes) followed by a light 30 minute leg day. I’ve decreased my weight for leg day the most since being pregnant just because I feel it’s not sage to lift that heavy.

Most weeks I only run 5 days a week and only one day I run longer than 30 minutes (the day I’m not lifting). I switch up my workouts often by adding supersets, performing them in a circuit, etc… I’m trying to continue to eat as clean as possible (I always keep breakfast and lunch clean but have splurged with a few snacks and dinners – dang pregnancy cravings). Luckily most of my cravings are for salads, fruit, veggies, smoothies, basically anything cold, refreshing and fresh. I am also addicted to cheez-it’s right now and soup too! I’m grossed out on Chinese food, Mexican food (except salsa and chips) and anything greasy. I have become a very picky eater when it comes to dinner and sometimes can’t even stand the thought of food (I’m sure I drive my husband nuts lol). There has been a few times within this past month where I have had dinners all planned out for the week and then couldn’t stand the thought of any of it when dinner time comes around and my poor husband has to run to go get me a salad or soup from somewhere nearby LOL.

Well that’s all for now. Hope this helps with some of the questions I’ve gotten re: working out while pregnant.

Stephani

Shot celebration for the new daddy to be with our family on Easter.  I took the picture.  I sure miss my champagne lol : )

Excited brother and sisters to be below : )

Why I have been MIA these past few months....

I wanted to further explain to everyone why I have been MIA. Warning, this is long. By the way, welcome to my personal blog…

It all began on Friday, January 4, 2013. I woke up around 12:00 a.m. in major pain. I had been having a little bit of abdominal pain that whole week and had a doctor's appointment scheduled for Monday, January 7, 2013 (it was the soonest they could get me in). I spent hours trying to diagnosis myself the day I made my doctor’s appointment by searching for every symptom I had on Google (typical, I know lol). At first I thought maybe I had a hernia from lifting weights, but hernias don't cause cramping and I was cramping bad. Then I stating thinking it was something horrible like ovarian cancer (I pretty much freaked myself out, thanks Google). Anyhow, the cramping started out light (it felt like I was on my period but I wasn't) and then the cramping intensified but only at night when I was dead asleep. Anyhow, that night I woke cramping so bad that I could hardly make it to the bathroom. Once I made it to the bathroom I just sat on the floor in pain, holding my legs close to my chest hoping the pain would stop, but it didn't. I started sweating really bad but my entire body was cold, my heart started racing, I was light headed, I couldn't hear anything but a loud ringing noise in my ear and I felt like I was going to puke. I felt like my body was shutting down. Somehow I managed to pick myself off the floor, go into the kitchen, grab a bottle of water and sit on the kitchen floor. I downed as much water as I could, it was the only thing I could think to do. Water helped the light headed feeling go away, but the cramps were still there and they were intense. I had lost all my color, I looked like a ghost. I finally made my way into our bedroom, woke up my husband and told him I needed to go to the ER, something was not right.



We got to the ER around 12:30 a.m. that night and I was starting to feel better. I told my husband never mind, I wanted to go home, I didn't want to sit in the hospital for hours and that I thought I would be ok. Josh refused to listen to me and we checked in moments later. We were there until 7 a.m. and neither of us had more than 2 hours of sleep so we were both drained. After 2 ultrasounds, blood work and a pelvic exam we were told I had a large cyst on my ovaries (almost 6 cm). Bad thoughts immediately took over my mind. I started thinking "Will this prevent us from having kids?" "Is the cyst cancerous?” “Will I need surgery?” As we sat there waiting for the doctor to come in and further explain neither of us could say much, we were so drained. Finally the doctor comes in and for what felt like the millionth time asked "Are you pregnant?" and for the millionth time I said "No, not that I know of, I took a home pregnancy test about a week ago and it came up negative". Well, apparently the home pregnancy test was not accurate. The doctor said I was pregnant and had a large cyst on my ovaries. I started tearing up right away thinking the cyst may cause me to miscarry or not have a normal pregnancy. I started asking as many questions as I could. The doctor further explained that cysts are completely normal when pregnant and the reason I am in so much pain is because the cyst is pretty large and it’s pressing against my ovaries. She also explained that it could be getting ready to rupture. If the cyst didn’t rupture she said the swelling would just go down as I got further along in my pregnancy. This completely eased my mind….until she said that my hCG levels were at 135. Based on my last period she said those numbers were pretty low and that I needed to be checked for an Ectopic pregnancy aka tubular pregnancy (for those of you who are not familiar: An ectopic pregnancy is a pregnancy where the fertilized egg settles and grows outside the inner lining of the uterus (not in the uterus). The uterus is the womb. Most ectopic pregnancies occur in the Fallopian tube - known as a tubular pregnancy - but they can also occur in the cervix (neck of the womb), abdominal cavity and ovary.) The doctor said I wasn't far along enough for them to know if this was an ectopic pregnancy or not and that I was to follow up with my doctor in the next two days for more blood work and another ultrasound. They released me from the hospital with a bunch of paper work and pain meds.



My husband and I didn't know how to feel, what to say, to be excited, to be scared....this is not how we expected to find we were pregnant and this was not our picture perfect moment at all. We got off birth control in October 2012 and got pregnant in December 2012. Never did we expect to get pregnant that fast, we thought for sure it would take months.





Monday, January 7, 2013 I went to my doctor to get a referral to an OB/GYN. That night around 10:00 p.m. the cyst on my ovaries ruptured. I have never been in such awful pain in my life! I sat up in our bed with my knees to my chest for nearly 15 minutes before I felt like I was going to puke. I spent another 20 minutes hanging over the toilet. My husband brought me water, gave me my pain meds and asked if we should go to the ER again but I just didn’t want to sit there for hours to be told the same thing. Eventually I started the bath and sat in a hot bath for about 45 minutes while my husband rubbed my back. The pain gradually ceased. I went back to bed and didn’t sleep much that night. My lower abdomen had cramping for another 2 days but it was nothing compared to the cramping I had experienced when the cyst ruptured. By Friday I was pain free, thank god!



Thursday, January 10, 2013 I saw my OB/GYN. I was nervous, but glad Josh took the day off work to go with me. She said based on my last period I was about 6 weeks pregnant, she did a PAP and I had blood drawn. She scheduled me for another appointment Monday, January 14, 2013 to have more blood work done. They needed to compare my hCG levels to rule out an ectopic pregnancy. Blood work took a few days and the anticipation of my doctor calling with results was killing me. All I could do in the meantime was pray this was a healthy pregnancy. All Josh and I wanted were answers so we could finally be excited about our future.



I received a call back from my doctor on January 16, 2013 and her exact words were “your hCG levels have increased, so the pregnancy is still there, we need to continue to monitor you”. My hCG levels were now in the 1,000’s when they should have been far over that. We scheduled another appointment for Monday, January 21, 2013 so I could talk further to my doctor about what this meant. Friday, January 18, 2013 I started having light bleeding and cramping. The blood was brown so I thought it was maybe just implantation bleeding (I was hoping that’s what it was). By Saturday the bleeding became heavier and the cramping increased. Sunday I felt drained, the bleeding turned into small clots and I was cramping pretty bad. I refused to sit in the ER for 6 hours again when I had a doctor appointment the next day, so I waited until Monday to see my doctor. Monday, January 21, 2012 I went to work in the morning, the cramping in my back and stomach became unbearable and I sat at my desk in tears until it was time for my 11 a.m. doctor appointment. By the time I made it to my doctor the blood clots were huge and I couldn’t even walk without hunching over because I was in so much pain. She did a pelvic examine and confirmed I was having a miscarriage : (. I was so upset and so disappointed. I had to go in hours later for a D&C. The surgery didn’t take too long, they put me under and I was awake an hour or so later. However, it was something I never want to go through again, it was painful on my heart and my mind.



My body healed incredibly fast after the miscarriage. I was back to work a day later and the bleeding stopped the day after my surgery. The doctor told me I needed to allow my body two weeks to heal, no baths, no intercourse, light activity as far as working out, etc. Two weeks later I had a checkup and she said I was healed and everything looked great. She reminded me that God has a reason for everything and not to be sad. It was hard, the whole thing was hard emotionally and physically.



Two weeks later my husband took me on a surprise trip to Napa for my birthday. We needed this trip after everything we had just gone through. It was one of the best trips we have ever had, so much fun! Two weeks after returning home we found we were pregnant!! I made an appointment with my doctor right away. She could hardly believe it was true. We started blood work and this time my hCG levels were already around 60,000 and two days later they had more than doubled! Now here we are 12 weeks pregnant and baby is doing sooo good! We had an ultrasound done and saw the little heart fluttering like crazy and yesterday we got to hear the heartbeat for the first time! Such a bittersweet moment! Doctor says everything looks great, this made me so happy!



Anyhow, I just wanted to let you all know what’s been going on with me and I also wanted to introduce you guys to personal blog that I will be using during this pregnancy. I’ll be back with more pregnancy updates soon!



Stephani – Fit Life Happy Wife