Back in the Saddle

Ok.  So, by the end of this week, I started getting serious cabin fever.  I haven't left the house much for 2 weeks and haven't left the baby for more than a few minutes at a time.  I wanted a few minutes of Mandy time.  And I was getting ANTSY to run.   

Is it too early to get Avery fitted for running shoes?

At my doctor's appointment a week ago Friday, he told me I could start exercising again at 2 weeks post birth.  At the time, I was skeptical of the idea since I'm only getting 4-5 hours of broken sleep each day.  By Friday - I was READY TO RUN.  I told my husband and he suggested I join my MiT group for the Saturday morning run.  Morning is the hardest time for me after being up with the baby all night - but it still sounded like a good idea.


I feed the baby that last time Friday night from 4-5am.  Fell back asleep.  Woke up at 6am.  The group starts the runs at 6:30am and the location is about 20 minutes from my house.  DANG IT.  I ran around trying to get myself out the door and called Sarah to say - "I'm coming, I may be late, but I'm coming!"


I was a hot mess.  I forgot my fuel belt and my asthma inhaler - not good with the 100% humidity and fog we wound up running in - BUT, I remembered my Garmin and post-run chocolate milk.  Priorities.  :D


I was a delirious crazy woman when I got there.  It was so awesome seeing all my friends and being there for a run that I got so emotional.  I'm sure I'm also still hormonal, which didn't help.   The funniest part was saying - I sure hope Avery is willing to drink from a bottle, otherwise Mark is in for a long morning!  


I ran with Mollie and Sarah, who said they'd be going a slower pace, so as not to push myself too hard despite the adrenaline from being out again....I mean I did give birth 2.5 weeks ago, right? It was AWESOME.  At 1 mile out, I didn't want to leave Mollie and Sarah - but my body was happy to turn around.  I walked decent amounts of that 2nd mile, but - in my defense - I ran faster when I was running.


I didn't stretch afterwards because I was anxious to get home to Avery.  As a result, I was stiff getting out of the car.  Honestly, I may have been more stiff than after my half-marathon last Fall!  


2 miles.  30 minutes and 46 seconds.   Not good time, but not terrible considering I haven't run since May...and recently gave birth.  LOL.


I cannot say this enough - LOVED, LOVED, LOVED seeing all my running friends again.  LOVED IT!


My new goal - be in good enough shape to run the Oktoberfest Meiler Veir on Sept 23rd.  It's a 4 mile race with a medal...and a Schmidt's cream puff for the finishers.  That's my kind of race!  I live in Columbus, and have never had one of these.  Blasphemy. I WILL RUN THIS RACE!  :D

Schmidt's Cream Puffs - Picture from the web.

I'm a Mommy now!

My water broke during my workout Tuesday August 9, 2012 around 10:45am.  Why was this funny?  Right before the workout my trainer joked that we were "off to induce labor".  HA!  I'd originally thought I'd peed my pants, was embarrassed and excused myself for a bathroom break.  Once there, I discovered that it wasn't pee.  OMG!  I came back and told my trainer that my water broke and we were done for the day.  He seemed a bit stunned.


My husband came home and we went to the hospital.  We spent most of the next hours comfortably joking.  My water had broken, but the contractions hadn't really started yet.  We both commented that the baby was being so nice to come a month early to give mommy more time to train for her mountain climb and half marathon.  HA!


Because my water had broken and dilation was very slowly progressing, they started Pitocin around 2pm.  My labor contractions never achieved any kind of a normal pattern.  I suffered through the placement of internal monitors on the baby and on my uterus...twice for the baby.  This was before any sort of drugs.  OMG.  Probably the worst thing I've experienced, EVER.  Finally - around 7 or 8pm, after a few hours of multiple contractions without pauses in between (Nurse said it was the strangest contraction pattern she'd ever seen), and after my legs started trembled from trying to stand through these string contractions, I opted for pain relief. Best. Decision. Ever.   I still slowly progressed until the last hour of labor - when I dilated 5cm in that hour alone.  I pushed for about an hour and Avery made her appearance at 3:40am on Wednesday, August 10th.  She was 5lbs, 3oz and 18 inches long.


Because she was early and small - lots of doctors and nurses were present in the room initially, but she was finally cleared to stay in the well-baby nursery instead of the NICU.  She got several visitors in the hospital and was swimming in the newborn clothes we'd brought until some nice friends brought some preemie clothes.  

Daddy and Avery in the hospital

We came home on that Friday, August 12th - and were so happy to be home!  Both Pops and Grandma had flown in to visit and the crazy family paparazzi went crazy.  There was nothing she could do that wasn't worthy of photos.

I think I have a million photos of her in the swing.

She still has her days and nights confused.  She wants food every 2 hours at night (and takes an hour to eat - so I get maybe an hour off).  During the day - she goes about 3 hours - because I wake her up to eat.  So, I get 2 hours.  BUT - she's worth it anyway.  :)


Editors Note:  Since I originally wrote this post - the pattern has changed.  Sleep is optional for her from 10pm until 4am.  AND - it only occurs if she is being held.  Mark and I SWEAR that she KNOWS as soon as we get back into bed...and starts crying again.

Such an innocent expression after peeing on mommy after her first bath!

She has now had two baths.  Her first bath went pretty well, at first.  She screamed for the last little bucket of rinse water.  The best part to some though - was when she peed through the towel on mommy after the bath.  However, it could have been worse, she pooped in the diaper I put on her mere minutes later.  The second bath, aka Baby Torture, went well in that she was clean when it was done.  HA!  She screamed bloody murder.  I texted Mark to let him know that I'd tortured the baby for keeping him up the night before.


So far - I am ABSOLUTELY LOVING being her mom....except for the whole no sleep.  She is so tiny and so vulnerable.  I never imagined I could be this protective of anyone so quickly.  Everything she does is cute by definition...except the whole no sleep thing.

Those are runners legs!

Last Monday, she had her appointment at the Pediatrician and passed with flying colors.  She actually gained 4oz since her discharge weight of 4lbs, 13oz!  She is a champion eater.  Yesterday she was up to 5 lbs, 8 oz!!!  Doctor said we could let her sleep 4 hours during the day and 5 hours at night.  Pfft.  5 hours sleeping, at night???  HAHAHAHA.  Funniest thing I've heard all day.


Here are a few pictures of what she does NOT do at night:

Look at that little foot peeking out - she has mommy's toes!

Cassie is already guarding her.

I just took this picture to prove she does sleep!

I'm sure I will be annoying with the plethora of pictures and videos I have of her already!!!!  :D

Look at those legs!

~ Proud Mommy

Early Delivery!!!

So, I've been absent from the blogging world for a little while....but I have a good reason...

Little Avery decided to make an early appearance!!!   My water broke during my workout on Tuesday.   I will do a better recap of everything in a later post...For now, I just wanted to announce little Avery!


Avery was born August 10th at 3:40am.  She was 5lbs, 3 oz at birth and was 18 inches long!  She's so tiny!  


Thank you to everyone for the well wishes and bits of help!   An extra shout out to my friends Teresa and Amy who brought me preemie clothes in the hospital since she was swimming in the newborn outfits!  Thank you to Sarah for keeping the Lucky 13's updated for me and bringing us dinner in the hospital!   Thank you Deb for visiting and taking the awesome pictures used in this blog!


Loving being a mommy,

The Great Mixer Confession

I have a confession, and I need your help.


I always wanted a standing mixer...ever since I found a great chocolate chip cookie recipe that required the use of one.  I put it on all my wish lists and every time we saw one at the store, I pointed it out to Mark.  Poor guy.


So, for our 10th Anniversary before we went on our trip, we took advantage of a Kohl's coupon and the chance to earn some Kohl's cash and I finally got one!


My confession - being pregnant, etc., etc., etc., it has remained in it's box for at least 5 months.  *gasp*

Until Friday morning.  I finally cleared a cabinet spot for it - which after realizing how heavy it was when I removed it from the box - promptly changed to a different cabinet spot.  

Ok.  It's out of the box.  Now what???  I'll be the first to admit....I AM NOT A DOMESTIC GODDESS...in any way shape or form....despite my current housewife status.


It came with this nifty book...

But - half of the book is simply the first half of the book in another language.  I need ideas, recipes and suggestions for how to use this mixer before my husband forbids me from receiving the next thing I beg for!  Somehow - no matter how good the cookies are....I think he will be disappointed if I only use it to make the one cookie.  


Help me!

THE PLAN

It sounds so ominous when I put it in all caps like that, doesn't it?  HA!


So, clearly, this taking a few months off for baby production has given me a bit of cabin fever. 

I have combated the cabin fever by pulling out my typical Type A planner persona and my mad excel spreadsheet skills to work on a training plan for post-birth.


At this point - I think I have a solid plan that takes me up through the Knoxville and Cap City Half Marathons.  I will add to THE PLAN once RMI has the 2012 Rainier climb dates set and my family has selected one.  THE PLAN includes plenty of strength training, stair climbing (for the mountain training) and cross training as well as some runs.  I have planned the long runs to coincide with the MIT long run distances from this past Cap City training, for the most part.  That way I can (hopefully) run the long runs with my friends training for that race.


I have planned for this to start 6 weeks post birth...and for the first couple of weeks to be light duty (Strength training similar to the training I'm currently doing and 1 mile runs/jogs).  I have also planned it to allow me to run the Flying Feather 4 miler on Thanksgiving day - because I thoroughly enjoyed that race last year.  In addition, I penciled in a Chi Running Workshop for 12/3/2011.


I have decided, for liability reasons, NOT to post the full training plan here on my public blog....


To summarize THE PLAN though, once I get into the full training mode, the plan will mostly include: 3 days of runs, 2 days of both strength training and mountain climbing training (i.e. stair climber with weighted vest/pack), 1 additional day of cross-training (except on weeks with truly long runs) and a minimum of 1 day of rest.  My cross-training days will be non-impact cardio work.  My day of rest will mean no activity other than walking the dog.  A few weeks have variations - such as the weeks where I actually have a half marathon on the schedule.  And, of course, the whole plan is subject to change depending on Bug's arrival date, the difficulty of birth and my necessary recovery time.


To aide in this plan I have just ordered and received my jogging stroller (THANK YOU to my awesome Lucky 13's for making this possible), a foam roller (because who doesn't need a foam roller?) and a book on Chi Running (because it intrigues me).  I also need to get a weight vest.  In addition, I'd love to convince Mark that I need the Nathan Intensity Women's hydration vest.  It is cheaper on Amazon - think that'll work?  :)

All assembled and ready for when we are!  Thank you MIT Lucky 13's!

I have been asked to write more about what got me into the idea of climbing mountains - and I'm sure as the training goes that'll come up more and more. I did climb my first mountain when I was 13 with my family.  Mt. St. Helens.  I was the youngest one at the crater-top and that made me feel super cool.  But, the main reason for doing it NOW???  Several members of my family did it....and their experiences and photos are AWESOME.  And....as we all know, they can't have a check mark that I don't.  HA!