The past two weeks have been pretty brutal. My cold went from bad to terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-AWFUL where I was up every hour of the night coughing up who knows what, could barely speak during the daytime and was overall exhausted. Mr. D still has a lingering cough (we all got sick roughly around the same time at the end of January), and poor little d is finally on his last doses of pink medication for his bronchitis. Fingers crossed the worst is over and we can go back to normalcy, instead of my daytime pajama-wear, not necessarily showering daily, and general disregard for anything and everything of importance. Lack of sleep and structure (working out at the gym) will do that to me. Not to mention being hit with a storm of false labor contractions as a result of all the intense coughing.
Between the mucus buildup in my body, and the growing fetus inside of my body, most nights during the multiple times I woke up I felt completely suffocated. While waking up EVERY SINGLE hour one night, and feeling completely exhausted and generally crappy the next day (not to mention unmotivated to do anything), I got to thinking, "Why me? Why now?" and it struck me... the 31 weeks prior in my pregnancy, I had been nonstop go-go-go and while I was getting bigger, I was still able to do 99.9% of what I was doing before I got pregnant. Picking up a toddler? No problem. Hauling 20 bags of groceries in one shot? No big deal. This cold was (in my opinion), the only way that I was possibly going to slow down a bit. Not that it prevented me from doing a little crazy nesting, but overall it was a good taste of what life was going to be like in two months.
Fast forward to today. All the coughing and contracting has my ribcage hurting in a way only a waaaay too-tight bra can compare (again, a suffocating feeling), and I am pretty sure that I pulled a muscle right below my left ribcage during my prenatal valentine massage, which still makes lifting certain things a little painful. I can't carry little d every time he requests it... most days I can't manage to carry him at all. And of course the latter bothers me the most of all because that is what I was hoping to prolong by working out so much. I wanted to be able to do everything for my toddler so that he wouldn't notice a difference, but the fact is, I AM changing and our family will be changing very soon and I need to let him grow up a little. As much as I love holding him or snuggling him on my lap, I am running out of space in my frontside/lap! Kisses, hugs, and bellyrubs will have to do for now.
Now about those great expectations.
I had a few ladies at the gym tell me how they are "sooooo excited" to see me post-baby because they just "know" how quickly I will be back to my normal self. Um that's when it's a good thing that I moved to a new ward, neighborhood and gym when 5 months pregnant, I suppose... because they don't know what the "before" is supposed to look like. I, however, do, and unfortunately also happen to be my own biggest critic (aren't we all?). So here's how it went down the last go-around.
I had a c-section. Came home after a week in the hospital weighing just as much as when I went in, super bloated and uncomfortable. Two weeks later I finally manned up enough to weigh myself and was delighted to see a 20 pound weight loss, especially after not doing anything for the last three weeks. Week 4 hit and I was getting antsy, but realizing I needed two more weeks to fully recover I waited to hit the gym until week 6, per doctor's orders. Coming back into the gym and onto the treadmill was worse than I expected. Like, 20 minute miles and I was exhausted. Thankfully with a little prodding from some family members, I "ran" a 6k at about 10 weeks post partum and felt pretty awesome about the fact that I (1) didn't die, and (2) didn't stop moving till I crossed the finish line. I dropped all the baby weight right around 8 months postpartum, which coincided with when I stopped pumping, and as a result of continuing to eat like I was nursing, I gained 5-10 pounds that stuck with my until after the marathon at just shy of 2 years postpartum, when I got my nutrition back on track and was finally back to my pre-pregnancy weight again...for a few weeks until I started gaining weight due to pregnancy #2. I could say that I was working full time during the first year and that was why I didn't lose the weight faster, but the fact is that I planned out working out (and was pretty diligent at it at least 4 days a week at 5 am!) and didn't plan out the nutrition properly.
This time around, I feel a little bit more knowledgeable in the nutrition sector, if for no other reason than I have a toddler who I am trying to be a good example for (and whatever I eat, typically he ends up eating). Which will hopefully come in handy since my brother in law has decided to get married just barely six weeks after Little A is due. Umm.... kind of a big deal. I know these pictures will turn into Christmas card fodder and the fact that I will most likely have to be in them is a bit of a challenge. Thankfully, I will have a six week old I will be proudly toting (and nobody had better take her away from me) in front of my sure-to-be-still-bulging belly, so for now that is my main strategy for not looking like a big white whale next to my tanned, waif-like, soon-to-be-sister-in-law. As much as I want to just "bounce back" to the gym, I know that just like going from no children to one, the one to two adjustment will be just as hard, if not harder because I have two littles to take up my time and energy.
So to answer the question I am sure you are dying to ask, yes I have big expectations for myself. I would like to lose all the weight I have gained before I turn 28 in November, not to mention to tone up and start training for a marathon to run in early 2014. But I am not a celebrity and do not have a personal chef and nanny and trainer so these things may take a big longer than I am anticipating. But what I am going to focus on is soaking up every moment of those first six weeks where instead of workouts and weight loss I will be enjoying all my time with my children and making sure they become the best of friends, with me and their dad as well as each other. Not being employed outside the home and having my inlaws nearby will hopefully allow me time to count my blessings, and maybe even get a shower in every other day. Springtime is all about rebirth, which is something that I found terribly appealing in having an April baby.
While there is still so much I worry about, like will she.... (be allergic to Kevs, cry a lot, have reflux, not weigh enough, not nurse well, not take a bottle at all, always want to be held, etc).... at least I know one thing for certain is to expect the unexpected. And to celebrate the little victories. Which is why I will be (much to my astonishment, I am sure) photographing myself in the same bikini I used to document my pre-baby weight, right after birth, and then every 7 weeks after that. I regretted not doing something similar last time (even just for myself) because even though people around me saw changes, I did not... I couldn't enjoy my post-partum progress because I was too wrapped up in comparing myself to the person I was before I got pregnant. So this time around I will be celebrating the little victories, regardless of how long it takes to get to my ultimate goal. Maybe I will share the pictures, and maybe I won't, but either way I know I can use it as a measuring stick for myself, and hopefully inspire others to take pregnancy and post-partum-dom as a challenge instead of an excuse. Because what fun is life if we don't challenge ourselves every once in awhile?
The above swimsuit pic was when I was 7 weeks along, and on the right with 7 weeks remaining.
+27 this week... I cannot begin to imagine how uncomfortable that +40 was at this time back in 2010. Yeesh.
