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36 weeks pregnant – and our baby shower!

So I’m at week 36 of my pregnancy.

How’s it all been going? Well I’ve been really very lucky. My pregnancy, so far (touch wood!), has been fairly easy going. The first trimester was a terrible slog of nausea and exhaustion, but that lasted maybe 5 or 6 weeks? So in the grand scheme of things, I’ve been very fortunate.

I haven’t had any major back or hip pain as of yet. And my energy levels have been very good – despite some terrible night’s sleeps. In terms of symptoms currently, I still get very congested in the evenings. I get heartburn if I eat too late or too much (two things I’m quite bad at). And I have nights where I wake up at 3 or 4am and just lay there wide awake, but I tend to read and wait until my body wants to go back to sleep – and weirdly I don’t feel too bad during the day (maybe training my body to get by with less sleep…). And just generally getting up off the sofa and rolling over in bed are hard work. But other than that, I feel fantastic.

From a running perspective, things were going really well until for whatever reason my right calf started playing up at the end of week 32. Perhaps it was a combination of my new trainers and my changing body (weight gain, pelvic position, relaxin hormone loosening everything, etc.), who knows. But basically it started bugging me on a long run – just a bit of tightness, nothing major. Then when I went for another run a few days later it definitely got worse and I found I was limping slightly afterwards and it had started to bug my hamstring and a little bit in my back.

So I did the very sensible thing of taking some time off (18 days). It made sense with going to Newquay to take the time off anyway. Then when I attempted to run again it still bugged me so I had a couple of acupuncture appointments to ease the tension. It definitely helped. I then tried a 5k run which, while not perfect, was far better than before.

I’ve since seen a chiropractor too which, regardless of my injury, I wanted to have to keep me in optimal condition before the birth. Lots of people had recommend that it can help align you and make things a bit easier later.

The appointment was fantastic. She said my pelvis was slightly twisted and my ankle was locked up, which was probably contributing to my running issues. So she “re-aligned” me and I’ve got a second follow-up appointment next week. What I loved about the appointment was that she had a giant pillow with a bump shaped hole in so I could lie on my front without squashing the baby. It felt amazing!

Since then I’ve just been sticking to 5ks. The discomfort is still there but not nearly as bad and it doesn’t get worse during or after so I’ll take that! I’m just so grateful to still be able to run in some capacity so far along in my pregnancy. Of course I know I’ll need to give it up when I give birth and recover sensibly (I don’t want to do any long term damage to myself and let’s be honest, I’m going to be shattered!). For now I’d just love to continue running while I still can. While I have no major responsibilities like keeping a baby alive basically, haha!

And in more exciting news, at the weekend Kyle and I had our baby shower! I was so excited about it and it didn’t disappoint. Kyle’s sisters, Laura and Lucy, were incredible and arranged the whole thing.

The glam-mas to be

I knew the date but nothing else. It was honestly so so lovely. I had so many of my friends and family there. Luckily we had EXACTLY 30 people and it was in my parent’s garden so we didn’t break  any COVID rules either. Though I would have loved to have invited some of my friend’s partners, but we just didn’t have the numbers sadly. I’m a big believer in baby showers not being just a female thing.

We had a few games, lots of food, cake and, after a bit of a cloudy start, sunshine!

I had such a good day. We also asked if people wanted to buy us gifts to buy us reusable nappies as this is the route we’re taking with our little man. I just hate the idea of all those disposable nappies on landfill for 500+ years.

We got some lovely gifts in the end (some nappies and some other items – I don’t think people entirely got our memo haha). Regardless it was just so lovely to receive so many lovely gifts and to spend time with all my favourite people in one afternoon (tho sadly a few people couldn’t make it – tho this helped with keeping COVID compliant).

So all in all, I’m feeling very loved, very comfortable and very happy!

Did you have a baby shower if you’ve got children?

Have you ever seen a chiropractor?

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31 weeks pregnant

And I’m 31 weeks pregnant!

Things are ticking along nicely. Something I didn’t mention in my last pregnancy update post was that at my 28 weeks midwife appointment, my midwife measured my bump. She found that it was smaller than it “should” be at this point. She knows I’m a very active person so she was almost certain it was because I haven’t gained a huge amount of surplus fat on my bump so effectively my bump is “all baby”, which can affect the results. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong or that the baby itself is too small or not growing right – though it could. So she scheduled me for an extra scan with the hospital to check.

Well, I had the scan and the baby was smack bang average size and perfectly healthy. Nothing to worry about!

And actually I had my next midwife appointment at 31 weeks and she measured my bump and found it to be bigger. She said that it’s  likely my “strong” stomach muscles were holding in everything and now they’ve relaxed a bit, as they should, so my bump is a bit more out there now. Anyway everything is looking good for my health and the baby so happy days!

My running continues. I’m averaging 25-27 miles a week which translates to two 7 milers in the week (I love these early morning runs so much) and then a longer run (10-13 miles) on the Saturday. Between that I’m strength training on my own twice a week, seeing my PT for pre-natal sessions once a week and walking. It sounds a lot but I feel no ill effects and I enjoy being active and keeping myself strong. Lots of glutes and leg exercises are my focus, which helps my running and hopefully will help the birth.

However last Saturday’s 11 miler did prove somewhat challenging. I started the run with Kyle and immediately felt such a pressure and need for a wee. Our loo stop was 4 miles away and it took all my power to focus on getting there without issue. Kyle, bless him, chatted away to me trying to keep my mind occupied but jeeze it was tough.

I made it safely and it was such a relief. It was a very warm day with minimal wind and I got hot and thirsty which didn’t make for such a comfortable run. Then a bit later on I found I was having on and off cramps in my lower abdomen. Like period cramps basically. It was highly frustrating.

I assured Kyle there wasn’t any actual sharp pains – just mild discomfort coming and going every so often. I went to the loo again and then headed home – quite a mental challenge to finish the run through these sporadic aches. When I got home the aches didn’t really disappear until I had a nice hot shower – which I prioritised (with a big glass of water) before anything else.

I Googled it and found it was probably Braxton hicks. Apparently these can be brought on by being quite active and being dehydrated. Both of which I clearly ticked that day.

It did give me The Fear for labour as I realised real contractions would be so much worse – and these cramps were uncomfortable enough! I felt fine for the rest of the day and the days following. I was worried for my next run but actually both the 7 milers I’ve done since and have felt great.

I reckon I was overly dehydrated. My midwife wasn’t worried and is happy for me to continue running but if the Braxton Hicks continue and for a lengthy period of time to cut back my mileage per run (though overall mileage in the week can remain the same – just do more frequent runs is what she advised).

My plan for Saturday’s run is to play it by ear. Kyle is going to carry a hydration pack (I think it’ll be more comfortable for him to wear than me with my bump) so I can sip lots of water on the run. If any BH appear we’ll stop and walk home and then I’ll know it’s time to cut the individual runs down.

So a bit of a test! I really hope it goes well as I do so enjoy my longer runs but of course the baby and my health is way more important. And to be honest, I don’t want to feel those sorts of cramps during a run again! It wasn’t fun.

Other than running, my general day to day has been fine. I’m still congested in the evening and need a nasal spray to get to sleep otherwise I can’t breathe. I’ll occasionally wake up anywhere from 3-5am wide awake and lay there for ages, but this is more like once a week so not too bad. And a bit of heartburn now and again (probably not helped by being greedy and eating chocolate in the evening!).

But generally things are quite good. I know I am very lucky on this front!

Have you ever experience Braxton Hicks?

How far have you been running lately?

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What I’m loving lately – January

Even during Lockdown 3.0 I’m trying to keep positive and find things to make me smile, though it can definitely be quite trying at times.

Being pregnant is all well and good and there’s definitely a constant low level of excitement and anticipation, but it’s quite a long time away before I actually give birth (July-ish) and I’m actually more often feeling impending doom and waves of fear. Fear of being a parent, fear of Big Life Change, fear of lack of sleep, to name a few. All the things basically.

But anyway I DO have things that I’ve been enjoying lately so thought I’d share.

First thing’s first, having Kyle come downstairs to inform me proudly he’s learnt how to swaddle a baby is pretty damn cute.

Especially considering the “baby” in question was none other than our baby Yoda cuddly toy.

It’s fair to say that both Kyle and I are entirely clueless with anything baby related so even these titbits of knowledge are gold dust for us. I feel very overwhelmed when I try and think about all the things I don’t know (let’s not even consider the “unknown unknowns”!). I know I need to be reading books, blogs and building a solid base of knowledge but at the moment I just feel it’s too much.

I also know that there are certain strong opinions on different subjects and if I read one book am I residing myself to that opinion? Or do I read everything?? Like best ways to feed your baby, getting them to sleep, routines… argh so much! So I bit of light relief from Kyle was lovely.

And speaking of baby stuff… I was recently sent an amazing piece of art from the lovely Mary (her blog http://www.ahealthiermoo.com/).

She’s started a business creating gorgeous pieces of running art (check it out here https://www.instagram.com/runnerprints/) which she was kind enough to send me one. I love it! Definitely be going up in the nursery (currently Kyle’s study). Thank you, Mary! Perfect gift idea for a runner 🙂

Something else I’ve recently been sent was a collection of bars from Human Food.

They’re basically an organic plant-based snack bar that contains no nasties, refined sugar, artificial ingredients and (which I love) their packaging is very environmentally friendly. They don’t use plastics and it’s all recyclable and biodegradable. Not only this but throughout their organisation, they pride themselves on fair treatment and fair wage of staff. Good stuff indeed!

So what were they like? I’m not a big fan of cereal or protein bars, but these were dense chewy, relatively sweet bars that I quite enjoyed.

They advise you can just eat them as a bar (very nice, I enjoyed it with a cuppa in the afternoon), or you can even break it up and add it to smoothies or even your porridge. Love this!

The ingredients are super healthy as well so you know you’re getting a powerhouse health snack (and as pregnant woman, this was so handy when I was suffering from nausea and really need to ramp up my nutrition in easy ways when I found so many other fruits and veg unpalatable). Each bar contains things like maca, ginseng, cacao and hemp seeds, along with other goodies like turmeric, spirulina, nuts and a whole host of vitamins and minerals. So a solid, quality snack that leaves a good taste in your mouth in more ways than one.

On a slight less healthy note… we’ve also been enjoying doughnuts from the a local Southsea small business (find on Instagram @southseadonutco). For £9 they delivered three homemade vegan doughnuts to us.

They were incredible. Unfortunately due to a confusion during ordering (probably my fault to be fair) we got the wrong order. But they were more than happy to deliver us our correct order the next day to make up for it – which is incredible!

So in the end we had four salted caramel doughnuts, a Biscoff one and a cinnamon sugar one. They were SO good. I especially loved the cinnamon and Biscoff ones. If you’re local, I heartily recommend these guys. We will definitely be ordering again. Soft, melt in the mouth and vegan!

We’ve also been seriously enjoying the influx of Easter chocolate that is now in the shops. Especially the Mini Eggs Bar that has just been released. This is such a moreish and delicious chocolate bar. We have literally been buying all our local shop’s stock. One of my favourite snacks in the evening is a few rows (*cough* few being subjective) of the chocolate with a decaf black coffee. It hits the spot I tell you.

We also managed to find the Easter Egg version of it so we have that ready to go for Easter (if we can avoid the temptation of scoffing it before that is). So it’s a thick egg with Mini Eggs in it with a bag of Mini Eggs (my favourite, so so dangerous though). This Easter we’re definitely not holding back – we need good stuff like this to keep us going with all things considered.

What has been so difficult (and I know pretty much everyone feels ecavtly the same right now) is not seeing our family that often. It’s so hard. Especially being pregnant, I want to be doing all the things with them like going shopping for baby items and just not having limits to seeing them. But it is what it is and we just have to live with that right now.

But I was lucky enough to see my mum for a walk down Southsea on Sunday – no hugging, no touching, but just walking and chatting. It was lovely but also so sad. My mum works in a hospital and she knows first-hand how bad it is right now and how we just have to keep going with being safe and sensible. But it doesn’t make it easier.

We got a takeaway coffee and she enjoyed one of the salted caramel doughnuts I brought for her, which she very much enjoyed.

Next weekend I hope to do the same, but with my dad. Tag teaming the family basically! It’s all we can do right now, and it’ll just have to be enough.

How are you coping in Lockdown 3.0?

Are there any new snacks you’ve been enjoying?

** Full Disclaimer: I was sent the Human Food for free in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own honest ones**

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Our trying to conceive journey

I actually feel a bit of a fraud saying our trying to conceive “journey” because it happened so quickly. I can’t stress enough that we know how lucky we are.

After we’d decided to crack on with getting pregnant, we decided to tell friends and family we’d begin trying next year so there was no pressure. And because I wanted to ask questions without arousing suspicion. Most of my friends have had babies (most more than one) so suddenly they were a fountain of information I’d never really paid attention to before. I guess selfishly I’d never asked detailed questions about how their “trying to conceive” journey (called TTC – got the lingo down). So between my friends, family and the Internet I had A LOT of information about the best ways in improving your chance to conceive.

I mean, I pretty much went from 0 to 100% in a short number of weeks. We were taking all the right supplements. I was using the app I’d previously used to track my period as my guide to ovulation. I had my copper coil removed (I can’t recommend this form of contraception enough by the way – no hormones, no remembering anything and no issues). And I even purchased 30 One Step ovulation tests (FYI very cheap on Amazon – they also come with cheap pregnancy tests too). We were good to go.

So I would say around September/October we officially began trying. Handily just after the Goodwood Marathon. I could take my foot off the pedal a bit in running. I would still run, but I now didn’t have any races or goals (*cough* until my friend Emma tempted me to run a marathon with her at the end of October!).

So when my period was expected and it didn’t come I got very excited very quickly. But a false pregnancy test quickly scuppered our hopes. Now my periods in general have been somewhat irregular in that I tend to have longer than usual cycles and when I have a stressful month or push my body too hard it can delay things. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I lost my period for a time (I wrote about it HERE and HERE) and since then my body is quite sensitive. The past few years though everything has been more or less fine. I’m healthy, things were regular (long cycles and sometimes irregular depending on things happening but mostly fine).

So now I was worried. Had I broken myself again? Had running Goodwood and then the marathon in all that rain and cold stressed me out too much? Work had been very stressful too and the pandemic didn’t help. I was getting ill more often than I had before as well. I was angry at myself. Had I taken my eye off the ball and not looked after myself? My weight hadn’t changed but I did feel stressed. And everyone said stress is the WORST for trying to conceive.

Another week went by and I took another test… nope. Kyle was lovely and supportive and kept trying to chill me out. I ran the marathon with Emma and enjoyed having something else to think about. We decided the Friday after that we’d go out to a pub, get a bit tipsy, eat a giant burger and get an Uber home and just forget about it all for a weekend. Perfect! Then Lockdown 2.0 happened and so our pub visit instead became a plan of G&T’s and Budweiser’s at home.

In myself though I didn’t feel right. I felt like I was about to start my period. I kept saying to Kyle, it LITERALLY feels like it’s going to happen any day. I had lots of my usual symptoms (spots, boobs a bit bigger and uncomfortable, general moodiness). My running had taken a nose dive. Every run felt hard and I was tired. I swapped my morning workouts to lunchtime so I could sleep more. I just felt pretty rubbish. I started taken iron supplements as I was convinced it was that. I said to Kyle how I wish I could just feel normal again.

Friday morning I woke up ridiculously early and laid there. My heart was thumping. Usually my resting HR is around 49-53. Lying in bed doing nothing it was almost 70! I checked back in my Garmin app and could see my resting HR had been slowly creeping up that week. Weird. Anyway I went to the loo and decided the most responsible thing to do was to take a pregnancy test because while I was 99% it would be negative I didn’t want to drink that evening without being certain.

I took the test, put it on the side and carried on washing my hands and all that jazz. Before heading back to bed I glanced at the test, not thinking I’d see anything, and was shocked to see a little second line had appeared. WHAT.

I stared at it in complete and utter disbelief. I started Googling the brand of test and false positives. Nope. False positives don’t happen.

I went back into the bedroom and gently woke Kyle up. It was 6.30am (well over an hour before we had to wake up) so he was a bit confused and groggy. I asked him to take a look at something and tell me what he saw. Well, that quickly woke him up! The rest of that day was a blur of happiness, excitement, fear, disbelief and three more pregnancy tests – all of which came up positive.

We were just absolutely gobsmacked. How did this happen?! I mean obviously I know how but it just seemed crazy. What I think happened is that the stress I was feeling pushed back my ovulation and we just happened to catch it without realising (I only took one ovulation test the night before the pregnancy test just out of interest – the irony). It suddenly made so much sense why I felt so rubbish. When we took the test I was 4 weeks and 4 days pregnant. Side note: technically I ran a marathon when I was over 3 week’s pregnant – I know this is a cheat as it’s such early days but I will take it haha!

We decided to wait until the next day to tell our parents… we also wanted to take one more test first thing just to be certain. The next day happened and another positive pregnancy result. I went from thinking I was broken to suddenly being miraculously pregnant! I went from thinking I was going to cut out running and anything stressful to being PREGNANT.

The next day we went to my parents to surprise them with the news and then to Kyle’s mum’s straight after – neither families having any idea.

Needless to say both sets were over the moon (I mean my mum literally screamed and jumped about the room!).

And we Facetimed Kyles dad too.

We decided to tell all our family straight away because I knew that if something sad were to happen I wouldn’t mind them knowing and would want their support regardless. So Kyle’s and my parents, our siblings, my grandparents… they all knew and were super excited for us. We were terrified but surrounded by so much love that I know everything will be OK whatever happens.

So thats that! Its been so hard not telling close friends but we eventually cracked at about eight weeks. I’m now 12 weeks and just glad to be heading out of the dreaded first trimester (more about that and how my running has been in a later post).

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We’ve been keeping a secret…

Well, this is not a post I thought I’d be writing this year but here we go.

I’m pregnant! Wow even typing it feels weird. I’m actually writing this long before I posted because I wanted to accurately reflect on and document my experiences. I didn’t want to actually post it early days because of all the reasons, of course.

So where do I begin?

Firstly, this was planned. Weirdly not hugely far in advance though. Kyle and I moved in together in June (during the first lockdown) and enjoyed setting up our home, buying furniture and getting used to the eb and flow of life with each other and our new surroundings. Luckily being locked down together and both working from home – literally being around each other 24/7 – wasn’t hard (whew).

We began chatting about the future more and more. I’ve never been a maternal person and many times I’ve considered not having children. It’s not been a “goal” of mine or something that has greatly excited me. But being with Kyle… something changed. I didn’t have a maternal switch suddenly go on, but I felt more safe and comfortable with the idea of having a family with Kyle.

So we started talking more about it, like when we were thinking about having a family, fun baby names and how we’d tell our parents when we did get pregnant. Initially we’d agreed later next year to start trying but we were just talking about it so much and getting excited that Kyle turned to me and said “do you want a baby sooner?”.

Turns out we both did! I’m 32 (Kyle is 26) so there is somewhat of a ticking clock for me and while having a baby still seems terrifying and I have fears of my freedom and lifestyle being dramatically, well, locked down… The thought of having a baby with Kyle didn’t feel that scary or like our life as we knew it would be over. I’ve never felt maternal and I never envied my friends having children all around me. But Kyle made me feel very safe, happy and like it would be something amazing. Something we would do TOGETHER as a team.

Having a baby in my eyes has always seemed like it would change everything about my life in a bad way and my identity would change to be being “just a mother” without anything else interesting about me. While I do realise having a baby will change our whole world, I became to realise that I could still be myself as well. We could still enjoy our lives as we were (yes with sacrifices and compromises) and that a baby would add to us rather than take away from us. This shift in thinking was largely due to Kyle’s reassurances and seeing how close friends had babies that slotted into their lives rather than becoming the centre of their universe.

It’s funny because I’ve never had a rose-tinted view of having a baby. It’s mostly been all the negatives and focusing on all the hard bits. The sleepless nights, no time to yourself, the finances involved, living a less selfish life, my body changing completely outside of my control. But I never considered all the good stuff. This baby would part of us, we would be making so many amazing memories, and we would have a lot of help from family and friends. We wouldn’t be alone. Yes it’ll be hard, but hard for good reasons. Good reasons I had never considered before.

Holidays and races… two big things I love in my life which I knew would take a backseat if we did decided to have a baby. But if 2020 has taught me anything it’s that I don’t need these things to make me happy. And actually I’d achieved what I wanted to achieve for the moment in terms of running. Yes of course I want to run more marathons, especially all over the world, but having a baby doesn’t mean this will end forever. I realise it won’t be happening for a while (COVID aside) but I can still run marathons later in my life if I want to. It’s a shame that COVID has meant we couldn’t do what we wanted this year in terms of marathons and holidays and we probably can’t squeeze many holidays abroad (if at all) before the arrival of the baby in July but it just means our focus will be elsewhere for the time being. And we can still have little holidays and day trips for the time being, which I adore doing.

So we decided to start trying. Amazingly (and I know we are so, so lucky with this) it happened very quickly. More quickly than we expected and to be honest it was quite the shock. Shit got real very quickly, pardon my French. I’m going to do another post about this because it’s quite a funny story and I want to share it.

But basically I am now 11 weeks pregnant and while I can’t see any bump yet (though my boobs are gigantic it’s incredible!), I wake up every day knowing my body is doing incredible things and a constant reminder that the future is looking very different indeed…

So that’s it! I’m preggers. Up the duff. Bun in the oven. Mit baby.

I’ll be doing some more posts about how I’ve been finding the first trimester and my experiences with running, if anyone cares 🙂