I am almost at the mid point. In about 12 more days I will have reached the exact middle of my pregnancy. Now it seems like it has gone fast, but at the same time I keep feeling that I have been pregnant for ever; but I have enjoyed it especially this past weeks that I feel and look more pregnant.
I think I can feel the baby move. It is very confusing because what I feel is something like bubbles or butterflies on my stomach but not really kicks or punches yet. I believe that comes later when the baby runs out of space. In my case I bet she might still have plenty of space.
This week also came with a not to welcome of a visitor, a cold! http://pregnancy.families.com/blog/treating-colds-during-pregnancy
I have never done good with colds and usually feel pretty bad when I get them and of course this time was no difference. I was pretty bummed since this week I started my exercise program and swimming class again; but I had to cut it short because of the cold. I got a pretty bad sore throat and stuffy nose but thanks God I didn't get any fever; so besides the common discomforts of a cold I was pretty much fine. I still have some stuffy nose and a cough but I feel completely fine so I hope I will get rid of these symptoms soon.
Of course I didn't want to take any medicine, not even Tylenol, so I treated my cold with Ginger tea with lemon and honey, lots of orange juice and some additional nutritional supplements recommended by my mother in law. (Coriolus and Olive leaf). I am going to start doing some steam treatments just to get rid of the cough faster.
I thought that my high dose of immune boosting prenatal vitamins was going to keep me clear of any colds; but I guess that with the weather changes here in the winter (one day is 80 the next 50), and the normal suppressed immunity of pregnancy my body just had to give up and let the virus in. The good news is that supposedly this helps the baby develop antibodies to this type of viruses; so if it makes my baby stronger I will deal with it.
I also started my prenatal yoga classes this week and I really enjoyed them. I found a place with other pregnant women that have my same wishes and concerns regarding natural birthing, no medication, laboring at home, alternative positions, danger of vaccines, etc. I think the classes are going to be of great help to prepare me for a successful natural delivery; plus I found out that one of my Drs. (the main one) is pretty open about natural birthing options. I also started my birth plan, I have a first draft that I need to review it both with Dave, my yoga instructor who happens to be a Doula and my Dr. I found out that for example it is a standard procedure to put antibiotic eye drops and/or ointment to newborns; and honestly I find that to be pretty scary; I wouldn't like my baby to be exposed to antibiotics so early in life.
So I keep growing and counting, and looking forward to feel Corina kicking and punching stronger every day.
I am so excited I am 18 W 4 days now. I think I was miss-calculating and was actually almost a week behind so it was pretty exciting to find out I am a few days closer to the day when I will meet my little Peanut. Although most of the ultrasounds showed a baby slightly bigger than her gestational age, I thought it was a product of my healthy diet and multiple prenatal vitamins. As some of you know I am what many will say kind of "Granola" and a big fan of natural - non invasive medicine; so although due to medical costs and insurance stuff I will be having my baby on a hospital (attempting a complete natural birth though) and I am seeing a traditional OB/GYN; I was allowed to follow my naturopath's guidelines for pregnancy supplements. These supplements contain mainly the same nutrients found on all prenatal vitamins but they all come from natural sources which are easier and better absorbed by the body than synthetic vitamins, and definitely of much better quality; the only drawback is that they don't have one single pill with all these wonderful ingredients, so I have to take on average 15 to 25 pills a day. Still little Peanut shows perfect measures for her age and I do credit my diet, exercise and multiple supplements for that!!
Some things I stopped, kept and started doing
Well as soon as I realized I could be pregnant, and even from before, I stopped drinking alcohol. I have never been a big drinker (except for college time), especially during the past 6 years that I have been doing triathlons; but I did enjoy an occasional beer or glass of wine; however, when you make the decision of creating a new life it didn't took much effort to put a complete stop to alcohol. It was very scare to read about non conclusive studies about the safety of alcohol during pregnancy; they say that no alcohol amount has been proven safe for pregnant women and that FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome - http://www.nofas.org/family/facts.aspx) can occur even with an occasional drink; therefore pregnant women should completely avoid alcohol.
I also quit caffeine. I have never been much of a coffee drinker; for me coffee has always been like a treat; something good for dessert with a lot of sugar and cream; so for obvious reasons I kept away from it; except for an occasional drink.
I did enjoy tea, especially green tea and southern sweet tea. Giving up green tea was not too tough; but southern sweet tea, especially during Thanksgiving was a challenge, since it is the only time of the year when I drink it; so with my mother in law's blessing (who happens to be a wonderful Dr), I did have a couple glasses of delicious southern sweet tea. They say caffeine is safe to drink on moderate amounts; however it does cross the placenta and gets to the baby and babies do not have the ability that adults have to metabolize it and some studies link it to an increased risk of miscarriage. http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/01/21/hfh.caffeine.miscarriage
I didn't quit exercising during the first 12 weeks. My Dr. was very happy to hear I was a triathlete and he said I could keep exercising. He did recommend to take it easier; so I quit biking because of the risk of falling down and I reduced my running mileage to 3 to 5 miles, 2 to 3 times a week. I was getting slightly more tired and my heart rate was pretty high so I definitely had to slow down. I did keep my swimming as before the pregnancy; since that is one of the sports that is highly beneficial and I can keep pretty much doing the same as before; except of course for diving in the pool. At week 13 they found my placenta was slightly low lying so I had to stop exercising for 5 weeks; but thankfully after 5 weeks of taking it slow my uterus grew enough to pull up the placenta and I am back in the clear. Today was my first day back in the pool and it felt great in spite of being a bit slower than 5 weeks ago. For the next 4 months I am not striving for speed but just to keep my fitness level; I am sure that will help me a lot on my natural delivery birth plan. I am going to take it easy on my runs, maybe trying the elliptical trainer to reduce the impact and easing out into 2 and 3 mile runs. I am also going to start a prenatal yoga class; so I am excited about my new exercise routine, just enjoying every activity and getting ready for the biggest race of my athletic and personal life.
That is the update for the week. I will keep updating this blog on Peanut's progress. I have my parents in town visiting now so I am truly enjoying their company and hanging out with the family.
It is a Girl!! at least for now and the U/S technician seems to be pretty sure about it. Apparently the baby cooperated and showed us exactly what she was; although I can't yet figure it out myself on the U/S pictures. We are going to name her Corina (or Corinna, still deciding on the spelling) after my baby sister who became an angel when she was 10 months old. She was a blessing to our family and although she physically stayed with us for a short period time she lighted our life with her golden smile; and that had lasted for a life time.
We are both really excited for our little Corina and for knowing that all the anatomical measurements are perfect as Mr. Ultrasound said. He even recommended to keep doing what ever I was doing because everything looked good. It is such a relieving feeling to get the assurance that everything is perfect as it should be. We need to go back in 4 weeks for a 3rd ultrasound because the baby didn't want to show much of her heart and they couldn't get those anatomical measurements; but we expect everything to be perfect as well. We have heard her heart and every time it sounds beautiful; a strong beat with a regular fashion.
It is hard to understand that when we were born there were no ultrasound technology available and the Dr. relied only on some type of instrument they used to hear the baby's heart beat; I think I would have gone crazy. In spite of knowing that the human body is perfect and does perfect things, pregnancy can be a bit stressful and it is sometimes hard to just let it go and put everything in God's hands. He does perfect things so I have nothing to worry; but as a perfect human I do want answers to everything about my baby and I have learned that I just need to let it go.
We also the good news that my placenta is now in normal position, it is not low any more and I can start exercising and doing some other normal things again. I am starting to show and to gain some weight so I do need my exercise routine; although I did enjoy a month of relaxing and taking nice walks. I am also thinking on joining a prenatal yoga class; they are focused on strengthening the body for labor and are big advocates a medication free labor which I am a big fan of, so I am excited of learning everything about it to be able to guide my Dr. when the time comes. Some might think I don't know what I am talking about but I do want a completely natural birth with no anesthesia; I am hoping to inherit my mom's ability to delivery babies in no time!!
I am including a video taken at almost 12 weeks on Dec 6th. As you can see quite an acrobat. She is already training for the next race!!
This blog was supposed to be started a few weeks ago. First I thought of it as a good way to keep friends and family updated on the development of Peanut (how we have decided to call our baby until he/she is born or until we know if it is a boy or a girl - which if Peanut cooperates we should find out tomorrow). Then I decided to play it safe and wait until the so desired 12th week when risks for major problems drop dramatically; and then between the holidays, traveling to visit my family in Ecuador and getting back to work I couldn't make time until today to start Peanut's blog; almost halfway through his or her time inside my womb.
So far I have had a pretty good pregnancy. The first 3 months were slightly uncomfortable dealing with a sort of dry nausea through out the morning, but I was able to keep my lifestyle exercising and working normally in spite of the morning sickness. I tried everything I could get a hold of to get rid of the yucky feeling but honestly nothing really worked; you take crackers and a few crackers later you can't stomach another cracker for the rest of your life; and so happens with every recipe for success. I was very lucky however to get rid of the nausea by the end of the 12th week; but week 13th came up with some other issues.
At the beginning of the 13th week when you think your are off the hook and you can tell the world about your pregnancy; (which I did at week 7), I had some light spotting that freaked me out. Thanks God after 7 hours at the ER the Dr. told us that everything was OK with the baby and that this sort of unexplained spotting tends to happen on a lot of women; I was however diagnosed with a slightly low placenta but it doesn't seem to be a worry to the Dr. since most of the time it gravitates up when the uterus grows.
The next few weeks I have been taking it easy and I was recommended by the Dr. to stop exercising until my placenta moves up which I hope happens soon.
Tomorrow I start my 17th week and I am finally staring to show a bit; I haven't gained any weight yet but the Dr. doesn't seem too worried about it because Peanut is at the right size, weight and measurements. Tomorrow we also have the 17th week detailed ultrasound where they are going to take a lot of measurements on Peanut to make sure everything is OK; tomorrow we should also find out his/hers gender if he/she wants to show us. I will keep all updated on the progress and the gender identity of our little one; we are pretty excited and can't wait to start feeling little Peanut kicking and moving around.
