18 WEEKS!!!

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.