Month: August 2018

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Pregnancy: Week 16

This was a totally mediocre week. Which I’m fine with. I was sort of moody and dissatisfied all week, but went to the beach yesterday which was so wonderful for my mental health.

Pregnancy wise, I had a lot of anxiety. I heard three stories, from three totally different sources, about moms who lost their babies in month 4-5. It’s not something I am generally worried about, but boy was I worried about it this week. I remember when I found out I was pregnant, I sort of instantly had this anxiety around having a miscarriage. My period is always on time, so I knew right from week four, and also knew that miscarriage rates at that point are about 25%. And I realized that was sort of the first worry I would have about this fetus/baby/child but just the first one of a litany of worries that would continue as long as we were both alive.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to deal with it mindfully, knowing that I can’t directly control what’s happening in my body and I can just be compassionate towards myself and my emotions.

I am also thinking about finally scaling back my lifts…I’m at 190 for those pesky deadlifts and really, really want to hit 200 but am also getting increasingly tired and needing more time to recover post-workout. So I’ll play it by ear, but close to moving to lighter weight/higher reps.

Physically, beyond my insanely big boobs, I feel and look almost exactly the same. I can’t feel the hard spot that is my uterus peeking over the pelvic bone, I don’t have a visible baby bump, and I can’t feel any sort of movement. But somehow, tons of my clothes don’t fit. I broke the bullet and ordered some maternity basics (mostly leggings and tank tops), because I know it’s the sort of task I would put off until I have literally nothing left to wear.

Reading about pregnancy in more scientific ways has been cool. I have been digging Mindful Birth which is a mindfulness-based approach to childbirth and pain with a lot of practical exercises and The Science of Pregnancy which is really, really interesting — all about how babies are actually made and sustained, and what is happening in the woman’s body.

 

 

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A Sort of Blah Day

When I was younger, even just a few years ago, I loved summer. Like loooooved summer. I almost never felt too hot and just loved the feeling of sun soaking into my skin. In winter, I was moody and physically uncomfortable and lonely, and summer was the opposite.

Summer has gotten increasingly hard. I don’t know if it’s aging, or that summers are actually hotter, or living in NYC which becomes a heat hell all of its own and where, unless you are a bazillionaire, you most certainly do not have central AC.

It’s very hot today. It was very hot yesterday. It will be very hot tomorrow. Our office only has one bathroom so I have to wait in line for it giving me a constant UTI-like feeling, I don’t have a lot of meetings and am having difficulty focusing on work, I feel very plumpy but without a noticeable baby bump. My apartment elevator is shut down, my subway station is shut down, and the new subway station has you wait in direct sunlight which is not fun when it’s over 100 degrees every day.

I am just very cranky. Here is what I would like:

  • swimming in cool water a la a pool or a beach;
  • cooler weather;
  • time away from the internet and phones;
  • time away from other people except those select people who I want to be around;
  • time away from NYC;
  • raw oysters;

Thankfully, I’m going to Maine this weekend so can hit a lot of things on my list. Until then, I might start disconnecting more from the internet (especially during work hours) and being compassionate towards myself.

p.s. a new TV show idea — Lady Baba. A show about a woman who has a true connection with God and can perform small miracles, but no one believes she can be a true baba because she’s a lady.

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Pregnancy: Week 15

I felt like I was crushing it this past week. Had a ton of energy, my digestion was a lot better. I honestly feel almost 90% not-pregnant (which is, itself, sort of stressful and worrying in some ways). But all of my tests have come up normal, I have a doctor’s appointment in two weeks, so I’m just enjoying it while it lasts. And, I have to say, I have been crushing it at the gym with a set of deadlifts at 185 this week. I have been chasing a set of 200 pound deadlifts for many months and am so close, I can feel it.

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Pregnancy: Week 14

I finally spilled the beans at work. It was a relief. I had somehow thought people would be upset, but everyone was super happy and it doesn’t seem like there will be an issue with taking all of my entitled leave. Which, because of a fluke this year in carry-over policy, seems like I can roll over a lot of this year’s vacation time into next. I started the year with 30 days (6 weeks) to which I was able to add 10 days (2 weeks) of unused 2017 time.

This year, I’m on track to use about 20 days which means I could carry 20 days (4 weeks into next year) plus will get an additional 30 days at the beginning of the year.

I get 20 weeks (100 days) of paid/semi-paid leave plus 10 weeks (50 days) of my PTO time. Which equals means I could roll into 6 months of leave and then have still have some time to use for emergencies, vacation, etc. Or I can overlap some semi-paid leave and PTO and make my leave shorter, but fully paid.

Then R gets four fully paid months so we could roll out to 10 months or so without needing to figure out childcare. Which also makes me feel better in terms of both of us will have a substantial amount of time to become primary parents and we won’t have to leave a tiny, helpless infant in childcare and get right back to work.

Physically, I feel fat but have been crushing it at the gym. I have been thinking about trying to watch my diet a little more than I have been just because I look very wide (but not via a pregnancy bump — like literally just insanely wide hips).

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TV Review: Girls

****

In a move very unlike my usual self, I just finished watching Girls. All six seasons. It was my tired enough to lay on the couch, but not quite tired enough to sleep entertainment over the few months. I had heard pretty brutal reviews of the show but actually loved how accurate it was at portraying a very specific post-college experience, one that many close to me had. There is very little redemption in the show in the truest sense of the word but there is growth, and growth in the same difficult, plodding way that most of us experienced in our 20s where we didn’t yet have any wisdom to not make dumb mistakes and still had to constantly learn from experience.

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Pregnancy: Week 13

On to the second trimester! I had a check-up with our doc which was very low-key. Sort of reassuring for me that pregnancy doesn’t necessarily have to be a serious medical deal, at least not for me at this moment. This week I’ve been honestly feeling great. Got a great deadlift work out in and my lifts went up for the third week in a row (back up to 175 which is close to my pre-pregnancy lifts), without my real weight going up. I had some social activities, I finally got back to meditating, and I just feel generally good and have better energy.

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Book Review: A Gentleman in Moscow

Book Review #25: A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles)

*****

An amazing book. Really the type of book you want to devour while drinking coffee on the Orient Express, but equally absorbing during the dog days of summer. Cozy, creative, feel-good, it takes a light view on Russian history from the Communist revolution to the 1970s or so as seen by a Count sentenced to house arrest within the premier hotel of Moscow. It’s such a creative premise for a book and while you would think the plot would become stilted due to the lack of movement, it absolutely does not. A++

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Monthly Review: July

Here is my monthly review for July. If you want to read June’s, check it out here.

1. What went well this month?

  • Recreating routines. My office re-opened so I started commuting to work again (which was annoying but also helped make sure I woke up early and packed lunches), I re-started my workout routine and haven’t missed a day since, and I’ve just generally had a little more structure and normality to my life. 
  • Intuitive eating. After almost instantly gaining some weight in weeks 5-8 of pregnancy, I became worried about my trajectory. This month, I ate almost exactly what I wanted but focused on the healthiest options and walking a lot and thankfully haven’t gained any more weight. Intuitive eating has always been a bit of a challenge for me, but I feel really tapped into it right now.

2. What didn’t go so well this month?

  • Yoga.  I have had this strange resistance to stretching and yoga recently. I don’t know if it is related to pregnancy but my body feels very tight and achy and I’m not doing anything to relieve it. All I really want to do is get massages or lay in a bath.  

3. What did I work on last month and how did it go?

  • Better structure and routine. This went great!

4. What am I working toward?

  • More intentional time usage. I have had large windows of time where I can’t figure out what to do and end up on my phone or just not enjoying myself. I want to be more intention here — what would be nice to do with the 2 hours between dinner and bedtime? What would be nice to do on summer friday? What would a nice weekend day look like?
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Pregnancy Week 12

This week went by in a blur. On Friday, we went to our 12-week ultrasound which was insane. The baby was super active — flipping around, kicking its legs, etc. Everything looked good and healthy which made me realize, a little bit more, that this is really happening. Cue some anxiety and angst, especially when we went to Target to try to acclimate ourselves to baby gear and left disgusted by consumerism.

Physically, I have started to feel better. I have been more active and napping less, and was happy that I didn’t gain any weight in the last month because I was ravenous a lot of the time. But summer has helped with focusing on eating fruits and veggies. My mind feels a little settled too, like I am almost ready to go back to my daily stretching and meditation practices.