Little Life Update

I've been starting to get a little too post happy on Instagram and Facebook, so I need to direct some energy to this blog so people don't start freaking out on me.

// Vince has torn some ligaments in his ankle and was ordered to be on complete bed rest for 5 days, then slowly become more weight bearing over the next six weeks with crutches. I've been tending to his every need, being sure to throw in a, 'Yes, your prince,' or 'Yes, my king,' when he's being a little extra demanding. (I don't like my coffee ground like that, can you do it a little finer? This meal definitely needs a little more salt. My toes are cold, can you put the blanket over it a little better?) All in all he's very appreciative of everything and is trying to be more mobile with his crutches and help out, but then I just yell at him to go lay back down because something will get dropped or spilled and I'll have to pick it up anyways. BUT, it's the thought that counts so it is nice that he is trying. Plus, he took care of me in way worse condition for many months so I can't really complain. (He wanted me to point out that I am neglecting rubbing arnica cream on his ankle in order to write this, so I'm doing a terrible job.)

It has honestly been a little blessing in disguise though because I get to spend SO MUCH TIME with my husband before school starts in a week. He was supposed to go on a ski trip to Colorado for six days (!!!) which was making me anxious, but I of course wasn't going to tell him he couldn't go because our big trip to Jackson Hole for skiing was canceled, the snow has been terrible here, and he's only been able to ski three days this year. Needless to say, I am sad he is so upset about missing his skiing, but way happy he was here! Before school started last week we were snuggling on the couch and I had the realization that it was one of the last 'real' times to spend together because then my time would be filled with nursing school and clinicals and his would be filled with work, and then very very soon a new baby! Luckily school has been slow to start, he's still not allowed to work, and we've been able to have plenty of time together. Maybe too much time.

32w5d
It's also been helpful at kicking my butt into gear. The nesting has fully kicked in and the dishes have been done after every use, our house has been very clean, fresh meals have been made multiple times a day, and I got prepared for the school year with freezer meals, meal planning, and snack lists. Everything seems to be situated for the baby (at some point I'll talk about how things are set up because we're staying in our <400 and="" any="" are="" basically="" bedroom="" carseat="" debut.="" even="" foot="" for="" her="" house="" installed="" is="" make="" one="" p="" ready="" she="" square="" the="" time="" to="" wants="" we="">

He starts physical therapy on the 30th so we'll hopefully know more about when he can start walking and what the estimated healing time will be. It would have been easier if he just fractured his ankle, it heals so much faster!

// On that note, it finally snowed about a foot here! I didn't let it deter me from my daily walk even when it was below freezing and snowing. It melted within a couple days, though, and it's back to being sunny. Today was incredibly cold though, but sadly no snow in the forecast.

And this is from our walk the day before in the woods when it was warm enough to take off my jacket and sweater.

// So much food has been eaten and I am now 166 pounds. I've never been over 150 pounds (I don't think I've ever even been 150 pounds) so it is really strange to think, 'I'm almost 170 pounds!' My arms and legs are still way skinny from the 30 pounds I lost at the beginning of my pregnancy so it's weird to look at myself and wonder where all the weight is. This puts me at 19 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight, so I'm hoping my doctor will be a little more happy with me at my next appointment now that I'm getting closer to my 'goal' weight gain. It has surprisingly taken a lot of effort to eat so much, and if I skip even one meal of the day from sleeping in or being lazy, I can see a difference on the scale the next day, so it's been like a full-time job to eat healthy, filling meals! I realize I may sound like an asshole complaining about how hard it is to gain weight, but it really is stressful in it's own way, so no judgy judgy.

// Roxi has continued to be all sorts of cute and needy and knowing something is up. Her world is going to come crashing down when the baby girl arrives!

// Christmas was spent in Utah with family, and it was so great! We stopped in Vegas for a night on our way up there and ate In-N-Out (multiple double-doubles protein style and chocolate shakes) and PF Chang's, which was amazing as always, and took a short walk around. We pulled into town at sunset and it was beautiful!

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Then we were in condos with family for the next four days! There was close to 40 of us split between four condos, with the condo I was staying in being the 'main hub' for people to hangout at through the day, eat, etc. It was so great to be able to hangout with so many aunts, uncles, and cousins, even if over half of us had a cold of some sort.

From the drive home.

// Going back to school - I started last week! My plan is to just keep going until I have her, take about two weeks off classes, then keep going! I'm not allowed to miss many clinical days and have to make them up anyways, so I really don't have any choice but to continue because I don't want to take a semester off. Luckily I'll be able to pump at clinicals and even have the option to have Vince bring the baby to me to feed! Our plan is for him to do that once per clinical day so we can see each other, and then he'll just give her a bottle of pumped milk the rest of the time. One clinical is a ten hour day, the other is an 8 hour day, and class is four hours a week with a simulation lab being four hours every few weeks, so it's not really that much time away when you compare it to moms that work full-time, but it'll still be difficult! Fortunately we won't have to do daycare either because Vince will be with her both of my clinical days, and my grandparents will be with her on my class/lab day. That will definitely make it easier knowing she'll be with people who love her and will take amazing care of her! Spring break is also the middle of March so we'll just have to survive a couple weeks at most to make it to a little break.

31 weeks and all fancy for family pictures

// Other than starting school and Vince being injured, there hasn't been much happening! I'll be 35 weeks tomorrow (update coming!) so baths are a daily routine to prevent my back from tightening especially with 8 and 10 hour clinical days coming up, Hypnobabies sessions happen most days to prepare me for a natural birth, plenty of coconut oil has been rubbed on the belly, calming essential oils have been diffused, homework is being turned in early...relaxing in its own way!

34w4d

Today, I Love...

When my stepmom was pregnant with my little brother and after she had him, she would walk and walk and walk around the neighborhood for what seemed like hours. I never understood it because even though the neighborhood can be pretty, it would get quite boring. Now that it's getting colder and it's inconvenient and difficult for me to go hike in the woods, I've taken to walking my neighborhood. And it's lovely! I think I will enjoy exploring the surrounding neighborhoods and the quietness of it now that winter is here. Tonight the roads were deserted, the pond was starting to freeze over, and I was just excited to be outside with a kicking baby in my belly and a dog that was so happy to smell everything.

Post idea from one of my favorite and most inspiring blogs, Assortment. My post is just a little wordier. ;)

27 weeks

Every week seems to just fly by so fast, it's getting a little crazy. This week was a very busy one, so I'm hoping for a more calm one coming up!

Monday night some of my family had an early Thanksgiving since a lot of us were seeing our spouse's families on Thursday. It was a great time as always. On Tuesday I drove about 2 hours to Phoenix for my step-grandpa's funeral (beautiful Catholic mass) and had to come straight back home afterwards because I had to work Wednesday morning. I woke up early to get to work, then right after work headed back down to Phoenix for Thanksgiving! We were luckily there for two nights, but ended up doing a lot of driving on Thanksgiving traveling between families, so although it was fun, it was still a bit tiring. We came home today and traffic was just insane so our 2ish our drive ended up being 3 1/2 hours. No fun at all! 

Slow traffic was an understatement. We were completely stopped! Luckily it wasn't a fatal accident and just looked like 6 cars had fender benders and were blocking the road.

I was able to enjoy In-N-Out, PF Chang's, and a Thanksgiving feast, though, so it was all worth it. Plus, I got to celebrate my mother-in-laws birthday and spend a lot of time with great family.

Double-double protein style (w/ allergy to the bun!), fries, and a chocolate shake. I could have easily eaten a second cheeseburger.

On to the baby update.

How far along: 27 weeks (last week of the second trimester!)

Weight: 155 pounds (-30 total/+8)

Nesting: I have definitely been nesting for a few weeks now, but I've also been really tired, so it's kind of difficult to deal with. My brain keeps telling me I must clean super random things like under the couch and shower walls (which I've never cleaned, ever, because it's never accumulated scum/mold or appeared dirty), but my body is like, "I'm going to just completely fall apart on you if you don't take a nap right this second. Oh, oh look! Your eyes are closing! Better sit down before you just fall over!" Luckily I'll find moment where I can get some stuff done and still have time for a nap. 

Annoying Symptom: Dry, dry, DRY skin. Like so incredibly dry that certain parts of my body look sunburned because they are so red, irritated, and painful. I've been using fractionated coconut oil, but it's time to break out the really greasy balms because after an hour it doesn't help anymore. I made a belly butter with shea butter, cocoa butter, coconut oil, beeswax, etc a few months ago that I've been using and it is really soothing for my belly but it stays greasy for a long time, so it's inconvenient to use unless it's night time. So I'm going to try and either make something less greasy for the rest of my body (my hips are somehow the driest which is weird, and it doesn't help to pull down/up my pants all the time to pee) or I'm just going to buy some heavy duty lotion and save the oil for my belly. I've just grown to love non-toxic things and lotions have so many bad ingredients! But, the itchiness just kills me. I of course fell in love with the Paul Mitchell lemon sage lotion at the hotel, and of course it's crazy expensive. So any lotion recommendations would be great!

Sleep: I'm not quite sure if I'm sleeping poorly, or I'm just extra tired, but I'm so tired all the time now. I feel like aside from waking up to pee constantly or having terrible dreams, I sleep pretty solidly. I'm thinking I could be anemic so I've started taking my desiccated liver pills again for the iron, and hopefully that helps! I have blood work getting done next week so I'm going to ask my doc to tack on an iron levels test. I don't take prenatals anymore (I know, I'm so terrible) but I do take individual vitamins tailored to what I need, but I haven't been taking iron because CONSTIPATION. The desiccated liver pills have more bioavailable iron (uh, I sound like a hippy) so it shouldn't affect my bowels like other iron pills! So I feel like it's probably that, and the fact that I'm so much closer to the third trimester. 

Cravings: Chocolate. 

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Movement: She's been more relaxed the past few days which is a little odd, but I'm still feeling her punch and kick! I think she finally changed positions and is no longer breech, so I think I'm just feeling things differently now. I have an ultrasound next week so I'll be able to see her position and know for sure.

Wedding Ring On or Off: Still off.

Best Moment of the Week: Duh, so much good food.

Vince brought me leftover PF Chang's in bed at the hotel, and my pillow fell over flinging a fork full of food everywhere! Yes, I did clean it up but I wanted to cry about a forkful wasted. 

Looking Forward To: This school semester being over. I have a standardized Kaplan exam, two final simulations, and my final, and then I'm home free! So close, yet so so far. 

Panicking About: Time going so quickly! I missed out on my entire first trimester and part of my second, and now that I'm almost to the third, I feel like pregnancy is going to be over soon. The other day I was thinking about how some babies start eating solids round 4-6 months old and I was like, "OH MY GOD, THAT'S SO SOON! My baby won't be a baby for long!" I of course had to remind myself that I haven't even had a baby yet and that I needed to chill the hell out.

What I Miss: Easily putting on shoes. I'm not going to lie, I thought it was one of those things pregnant people just exaggerated about, but it's true! Oh, so true! I don't feel like I'm even big enough yet to feel like i should have a problem with bending over, but I definitely can't bend. So I always have to sit down and angle my body to the side or lift my leg onto something, like the trash can. My balance is getting a little wonky though, so I'm not sure I'll be able to do that for long. 

Milestones: Swimming! A couple days after finding out I was pregnant I had a crazy strong desire to swim, but we all now what happened soon after that. I have a membership to the NAU gym and olympic sized pool but it's full of intimidating college students and I wasn't even sure if I could swim now that all my muscle is gone, so I was going to get a membership to a local gym that has a lot of old people. They decided to up their prices though and I didn't want to pay for it, so I just haven't gone swimming but I think about it all the time. I was able to hangout in the pool at our hotel, though, and I am definitely capable of swimming so now I'm more determined to just go to the pool at the college. They have a lot of lanes open for open swim so hopefully I can figure out their slow times so I can go and not worry about being embarrassed/slowing people down with my snail pace!

26w5d

Crassssshhhhhhh.

Today was my first real crash on my mountain bike! I've crashed before when I used to do some downhilling with Vince, but I always had full pads on and rarely actually felt anything. Since I am stuck on my couch at the moment with my leg unable to move itself, I'm going to tell you all about it over a million paragraphs, though it was like a three second crash.

Vince and I have planned a shiftaroo type of ride where I drive him to the top of Snowbowl with Roxi, drive back to the bottom and leave the truck for him to pick up and take Roxi home, then I ride from the bottom of Snowbowl to home. The first part went well and I parked the truck and started riding the AZ Trail. I didn't get any warmup in because the place I originally wanted to park that would have given me a warmup was not in an ideal spot for Vince because it would have made him late to work. So I started riding mostly at a decline until I get to the trail I was looking for, which started ascending right away. I had never ridden this part of the trail on Rocky Moto, but right away there were some technical spots. I wasn't able to clear some of them, especially since my legs weren't really ready to do the riding I was doing, so I ended up getting off my bike to walk a section. In my head I thought, 'Walking fucking sucks! I need to at least try riding this stuff. What's the worst that can happen, I fall? So what!' When I got back on my bike I just started crushing it. I was pedaling hard, clearing some stuff I wasn't sure I was going to clear, and then one mile later BOOM. I crash.

It was a pretty steep uphill with the trail leaning off to the right. As soon as I hit the big rock I was trying to clear, I felt myself leaning too far to the right, so I tried to unclip my shoes so that I could place my foot on the ground to balance myself. Unfortunately, my foot was stuck between my bike and a rock and I couldn't get it off! My knee and elbow quickly slammed into a pile of big rocks with my left leg getting caught up in the bike. I sat on the ground for a few seconds doing this:
(and no, you don't need to watch the whole video, it's just the first 15 seconds on repeat)

I stood up to try and shake it off but my right leg wouldn't work! Immediately upon impact under my right knee I felt something shoot up my quad to my hip and down my calf to my toes and knew I hit a nerve or something. I figured I'd walk for a minute to try and see how I felt and quickly realized I wasn't going to be able to finish my ride. I called Vince to make sure he hadn't already left with the truck yet, and luckily he hadn't.

I didn't want to make him late for work so I decided to hop back on my bike and just ride through the pain, and it felt better! I was able to get down the difficult parts of the trail with just a little pain in my leg. After a couple minutes I stopped for a second thinking I might just call Vince to tell him I'd finish my ride and that maybe my pain before was just because I was scared, but as soon as my foot touched the ground it hurt so bad. Last year Vince hurt his leg (he didn't work for many weeks!) and I think it was so bad because he kept riding after he hurt it, thinking it wasn't terrible. I wanted to avoid that, so I sadly headed back to the truck.

As soon as I got to the truck and off my bike, the pain quickly set in and spread. Instead of just being localized around where I hit it and the area in my quad and calf I originally felt the pain, I felt it spread to my groin, hips and butt, down to my toes and around my ankle, and all around my kneecap and the back of my knee. So painful! Vince drove us home and I kept trying to lift my leg to readjust it and it hurt too much to even move it.

So now I am at home hoping that rest will let it heal quickly. It's not like I have an open wound or a torn muscle, so I have no idea how to let it properly heal other than resting it. I'm looking forward to a lot of riding this year, so I'm wanting to let it fully heal before I get crazy again. And you can bet that the next time I ride that new trail, I'm wearing kneepads!

My right knee (left in the picture) is clearly swelling some in various places, and I'd only been home about 5 minutes! Also, knees are so gross, I hate them.

And to end this post, here are some recent pictures: 

And one from the other day when Vince and I rode: