There you are little Peanut.

Some days I find myself stopping to look in the mirror. I lift up my shirt and turn sideways for some physical proof that my little baby is growing inside me. So far it's really only been hip widening and bloating (I am only 12 weeks and 1 day), but today was the day.

I went to the doctors office this afternoon for my follow-up exam following Tuesday's car accident. I peed in a cup (again), the doctor checked my cervix (not my favorite exam) to make sure it was still completely closed and we did an ultrasound. We did do some ultrasounds in the ER on Tuesday, but I wasn't allowed to really watch at that time and they didnt explain anything that was on the screen. Today the screen was pointed straight at me.

There was my little peanut on the monitor, looking right at us. The doctor pointed out the little face and dark areas where the eye are. It was as if he/she was saying, "What?! Would you just let me rest already???"  ... or .... "Hi mom, I told you I would be fine." - I also got to see the little flicker that is the heartbeat. And then the doctor turned on the sound so I got hear the heartbeat and wow is it strong! The doctor even said, "That is a pretty perfect heartbeat." .... That's my little peanut  :)

It put my mind as ease. Just a few days ago the thoughts of losing my child was unbearable, but he/she is much stronger than I gave him/her credit for. The doctor did give me some print outs of my little peanut and I cannot wait to share them with you. But first, Josh must see his little baby. I really can't wait to show Josh tomorrow when he gets home. And I cannot wait until the Tuesday when Josh gets to hear the little heartbeat too.

I find myself rubbing my tummy and looking at my stomach in the mirror more now. I still can't believe that there is a little person in there ... one little person that can make me feel so much love. --- I just cant wait to meet you, my little peanut  :)

Aaaand Josh laughed at me.

For those of you who don't live in Ireland or England ... this is the best flavored milk in the whole wide world. Unfortunately you cannot get it here in the USA, not even in powder form. I tried to buy it from a website that sells Irish food in the USA, and they didn't even have any, and I was craving it BAAAADLY!!!

So I did what any pregnant lady with a crazy craving would do .... I emailed the company in England. I told them I am pregnant and am craving their banana flavored milk and asked if they knew any way I could get some all the way over here. To my surprise they responded within 24 hours saying that there is no way I can buy it over here BUT that they would send me some samples.

We were a little concerned that the package would get stopped in customs .... but nope! Here they are and I am one happy happy pregnant lady! Josh had laughed when I told him that I had e-mailed England, thinking that I was crazy. But nope .... I would be laughing now, but I'm too busy looking for a big old straw!!!

First little bump in the road (Part Two).

So when I got home after the accident my gut was telling me to go to the ER and just get checked out. Even if everything was perfectly fine, it would put my mind at ease, allowing me to relax and just recover from the accident myself. So off to the ER I went, crying almost the entire way there. Terrified of what the outcome could be.

The waiting room was thankfully pretty empty. So I checked in and was in the back for my vitals within 10 minutes. They spent 10 minutes doing blood pressure, heart rate and questions before taking me straight to my assigned bed in the ER. Almost right away a nurse came by to see me. She took the time to tell me what was going to happen, who was going to come see me and how long this was all going to take. She was awesome and very friendly, taking the time to tell me about her 5 month old baby girl and how her pregnancy was. She made me feel very comfortable.

The first doctor came in with a mini ultra sound machine just to have a quick look at the baby. As excited as I was to see the baby, I was really wishing that Josh was there so we could see the baby together. I was also nervous that she would find something wrong. But nope, there he or she was, moving his or her arms and legs, just hanging out. We could also see the flicker of the little heartbeat. But even though that all looked okay, they wanted to send me to radiology for a more in depth look just to be sure.

Nicole (the nurse from earlier) came back to draw some blood and put me on some IV fluids. She said they like to do that when they have a pregnant lady to make sure I don't get dehydrated with all the excitement. It was weird, I could taste it for the first few seconds, but after that it just made me really cold. I also had to pee like 10 times once the drip was finished.

Then thankfully, my friend Bekki came to keep me company. I was so happy to have someone there especially with Josh being out of town. It made time go faster and she kept my mind of off everything. Having her there even made the guy across the way throwing up not seem so bad. Thank you again Bekki!

They then took me downstairs for the in-depth ultrasound. I wasn't allowed to see the screen or hear the heartbeat (which is good, cause I want Josh there for that) because they only do ultra sounds for trauma patients. She took a ton of pictures, but then couldn't help herself by showing me one of them. She said, "Do you want to see something really cute?"  ... ummmm duh! When she turned the screen, it was my baby holding/rubbing his or her nose with his or her little hand. I loved it, because I used to do that as a baby  :)  It made me smile. Taking after his or her mommy already!

After waiting in my ER bed for another hour, the doctor came by to tell me what they had found. Everything looked okay except for the little spot of blood around where the placenta is attached to the uterus. While this is normal for some women, they found it on me after trauma and so they didn't want to assume it was there before. So they put me on bed rest for at least 3 days or until my regular ob-gym clears me.

It was quite a day and things could most definitely have been a lot worse. I am very thankful for whomever was looking over me and my little unborn baby during the accident and in the following hours. We are both very lucky. 5 hours in the ER was well worth it. Now I am just resting and healing with the help Bekki and Kyle who live right across the street. I look forward to telling our child about our first little adventure together.  :)

First little bump in the road (Part One).

And may I say, hopefully the only bump in the road! Yesterday was quite a day for me and baby, here is what happened:

I was driving back home from LAX after dropping Josh off for his Ebar days in Cabo San Lucas. Traffic was pretty awful on the 405 south. It was stop and go all the way ... mostly stop. I was just relaxing, listening to the radio and looking forward to getting home. About half way home, we had picked up speed a little bit but seeing red lights ahead of me I put my foot back on the break. I came to a full and complete stop behind the Toyota. I always glance in my rear view mirror to see that the person behind me has also slowed down and stopped, but that wasn't the case in this situation.

What I saw in my mirror was a little Honda coming up behind me at around 35-40mph and a lady sitting behind the wheel with a panicked look on her face. I braced myself. When she hit me it felt like everything went into slow motion. I stepped on the break extra hard as my head and shoulders rocked forward and the seat belt hugged me tight. But she hit me hard enough to move me a few feet into the car in front of me, rocking me back and forth for what felt like forever.

Once that part was over, all 3 of us pulled over to exchange information. The lady from the Honda behind me was very apologetic, admitting fault to the two of us. She said her flip flip got caught under the break peddle stopping her from breaking. Last time I heard, it's illegal to drive in flip flops for this exact reason. So she will be paying for damages on both cars.

We all then got back into our cars and moved on. I had planned to go home and just rest until work. But I found myself talking to the baby, telling him or her that it was going to be okay. I was feeling a little discomfort where the seat belt had hugged my hips (where the baby is), so I knew my day was far from over.

Okay, so which doctor are you?

Doctor visits come with the territory of being pregnant, at least for most women. Since my insurance covers everything pregnancy related, I am definitely taking advantage.

So far, I haven't seen the same doctor twice. I went in for the initial pregnancy test a long time ago and was taken care of by a nurse. Then I came back for my first official prenatal visit and had Dr. Wu, who said will be my doctor throughout my pregnancy should everything stay normal and if I am having the baby naturally. He will even be there when I am giving birth. So I know I will be seeing him again  :)

Then last week I had my first educational class thingy with Martha. She just basically gave me the run down of what will happen over the next 7 months and who I can call for this, that and the other. I will also be seeing her again, for more general information as my pregnancy progresses. It's nice to have her, because until meeting with her I had no idea where to go for what. So she makes all the technical stuff less stressful :)

Then today was my first trimester blood screening. So I had to go to Quest Diagnostics to have some blood drawn. I know I will be back here because blood test are normal through out the pregnancy. Although what's not normal is how much blood they took! Five test tubes of blood were taken out of my arm. Because I am prone to passing out I like to focus on the clock and my breathing. He was sucking blood continuously for 1 minute and 20 seconds!!! It's no wonder I got light headed despite taking deep breaths. But out of all the doctor visits I will have to deal with, this wont be considered the worst. The pap smears will always win the 'worst award'.

The people I have yet to see include the dietitian, social worker, dentist and ultrasound technician. And I guess Dr. Wu has a partner that will be working with me as well. It's crazy the amount of people it takes to ensure a healthy mom and baby. It's quite a network! So far, everyone has been great and I am very thankful for every little part they play in my pregnancy. I feel like I am in good hands ... how ever many there are!  ;)

Pregnant in Vegas

This past weekend Josh and I went to Las Vegas for his sister Shannan's wedding. I love Vegas. A few years ago I would make a trip out there every couple of months. But I knew this trip would be different, not only because we were there for an event, but also because I'm pregnant.

I have never spent a whole weekend in Las Vegas completely sober. It's not that I would get completely wasted, but I would move in and out of a steady drunken state. I was pretty excited for this new experience. And I must say that I think this was my favourite Vegas trip to date  :)

Definitely the most fun part was telling the side of Josh's family that didn't know we were pregnant yet. We are getting a little more relaxed about telling everyone now that we are nearing the end of the first trimester (I am 10.5 weeks). It's fun to tell family that you will be bringing a brand new family member into the world, especially when the family is as close as they are :)  It was also fun remembering the entire trip  ;)

I was going to say that I enjoyed not have to spend any nausea filled hours in bed ... but that's not entirely true. Two of the mornings, I wasn't feeling very well. But the for the most part, the nausea stayed at bay allowing me to enjoy the trip. One thing that did bum me out a little bit was when we (the ladies) went dancing on Saturday night at the Luxor. I had been very much looking forward to that, but my night-time stamina just isn't what it used to be. I was good until about midnight, but then people around us started smoking which not only made me feel ill, but made me worry about the baby. Then ... if you can believe it ... I thought the music was too loud!!! Must the the pregnancy senses, because I have never thought that before. It could also have been due to the lack of alcohol. I felt bad, and didnt want to riun the night, so I sat and danced instead giving my body a rest and drank some cranberry juice. Though we ended up leaving pretty early anyway (early for Vegas standards).

All in all, I very much enjoyed the trip. The wedding was gorgeous and I fell inlove with Josh's side of the family all over again. I fell inlove with Amy's family too  :)  All of our families are clearly meant to be together.
I also got to eat 3 plates of mashed potatoes at the buffet, shop with Danni at the Miracle Mile Center and visit the glorious M&M store. But more importantly, Josh and I had the quality time we needed to make sure we stay connected through-out our pregnancy despite him having to work long hours. Needless to say, I fell inlove with my baby-daddy all over again too  :)

Buying clothes from a different rack.

When I became pregnant I decided that my clothes buying would be limited to maternity necessities. All that changed when we (Josh and I) received our invitation for his sister's wedding. So then I decided that I would wait until the week before to shop for a wedding outfit, because I had no idea how much I would have grown by then. Today was that day.

We leave for Las Vegas (the wedding venue) the day after tomorrow and so I hit the shopping mall today. I spent about 2 hours browsing the various stores trying on dresses, shirts, skirts etc and didn't seem to having much luck. Then in one of the dressing rooms I started to feel nauseated from all the standing, walking and the heat. But I continued on for a while, slowing down and sitting when I needed to.

Coming to the two hour mark I was getting fed up. I tried on stuff that looked good on the rack, but with my changing body, just didn't look good on me. I don't yet have much of a belly, but my hips are wider and my boobs are whole size bigger (i know right ... i have boobs!) so everything looked a little strange. It's not that I dislike my changing body ... it's just that the proportions are off a little right now (what looks good on my boobs, looks terrible around my waist etc). My usual wedding attire would include a tiny, tight fitting dress, but I had to rethink that one too.

It was exhausting. Eventually I just decided to give up. I was frustrated, still nauseated and getting tired. I think I will just have to shop in my closet this time around. Luckily I have a ton of stuff to work with :)

The Irvine Lake Mud Run.

The mud run, mud walk, mud stroll, mud slip and slide, mud swim and there was even some mud sit down time. I am so glad that I didn't drop out of the race just because of my pregnancy. It was so much fun! The original plan had been to just walk it and go around any obstacles that I felt uncomfortable doing.

But we ended up jogging quite a bit of it ... 'we' being dad and I ... and I didn't skip any of the obstacles. There were times when we had to walk because I just felt very out of breath, though the rest of my body felt like it could have gone on forever. I just basically listened to my body and dad listened to me.

We were told that it was a 5k race (3.1miles) but we passed the 3 mile sign a good 20 minutes before we crossed the finish line. So we are thinking it was closer to 3.5-4 miles. Our total time was 01:06:49. Over-all we came 447th out of 705 racers which I thought was awesome considering we weren't out there to get a good time or a good placing. Had I not been in the first trimester of pregnancy, we definitely would have gone a lot harder and I know that the next one we do one (after the baby is born), we will have a much better time because I won't be afraid of falling and harming my unborn child.

The next mud run in Irvine is March 31st. I won't be doing that one as it is 2 weeks before my due date, but dad and Josh are planning to do it. So I can stand on the side line with mum and cheer them on as Josh and mum cheered dad and I on this time  :) 

So even if you are not a 'runner', I highly recommend a mud run. I have never laughed so much during a race in my life! And it's all about team work. I cannot imagine doing a mud run alone. I think that experience is meant to be shared. Not only that, but there are times when you need help getting up a muddy hill ... I know I'd still be out there somewhere had I not had dad to help me!  ;)

The cRaZy lady within.

On the days when the nausea isn't distracting me, the mood swings come at me with full ... ummm ... swing. Today was one of the glorious days.

When I'm having an emotion day, it feels like PMS on steroids. When I would be pms-ing and would suddenly want to cry for no reason I could control that because I knew it was the hormones speaking and after a few minutes I'd be fine. With pregnancy mood swings, I have little to no control over anything. Even I get surprised by what I say and do sometimes. It's scary and I feel like I should come with a warning lable for all who approach me.

As an example, here are the range of emotions I felt today: Happiness. Excited. Sadness. Anger. Annoyance. Lonliness. Needy. Indifferent.
Through out the day, I cycled through all of these more than once. And it's not necessarily the switching back and forth that's exhausting, it's trying to hide it from all the non-pregnant people in the world ... and there are a lot. Oh I just realized that I forgot to add 'paranoia' to my list ... meaning that I get paranoid that people are picking up on my mood changes and think I'm a bitch. I try to compensate for that, but I think I try too hard and come across as a bitch sometimes anyway.

I feel like if there was a room I could just spend days like this in where I could jump for joy, cry my heard out or curse like a sailor all day long, we'd all be a lot better off. Like a sound proof room where nobody has to witness my madness.

After days like today, I come home exhausted. Josh is alwasys ready and waiting with the big hug I need and with a listening ear on the off chance I want to talk about it. But to be completely honest, I am embarrassed that I want to just cry and dont have a reason for it. It's weird to fight tears when I know they are coming from an irrational place like a bad dream or anything else.

From what I've heard, I will continue to feel like a crazy lady from time to time. But I am hoping that it feels so out of control because the hormones are still new to me and that they will somewhat mellow out as time goes on. But for now, where is that sound proof room.

Could it be a sign???

I was putting away my clean laundry today and found this sock in among mine. Because we live in an apartment complex we share the laundry room with other people. So it's not a rarity to find random socks with your laundry when someone else might have dropped it.

But look at this sock! Its a baby sock with the age 0-6 months written on it. AND it has a pink elephant on it! Anyone who knows me, knows that I own like 12 elephant statues and stuffed animals. Elephants are my animal! I am and ele-friend  :)

So far today, more than one person has said that it's a sign. The pink for a girl and the elephant for happiness. I just about melted when I saw the sock ... I am sure the whole complex heard me awe-ing hahaha!

Of course this could all just be a happy coincedence. But really ... why this sock and why my laundry? Whatever the explanation, it made my day. Not because I necessarily want a girl, just because it's a baby sock and I'm growing a baby  :)

The blog title?

You know, if you are reading this as someone who doesn't know me, it just occurred to me that I have never really explained the title of this blog. As far as I can remember I have not mentioned running of any kind in any of my blogs. So here it goes ... 12 blogs later, finally an explanation.

Before I became pregnant I was an avid runner. I was on the road or in the gym 5-6 days a week running a minimum of 5k (3.1 miles). I also did the elliptical machine, the StairMaster, the bike and rowing machine from time to time as well as light weight lifting. I like to think I did swimming too, but I don't think once every 2-3 months really counts.

Obviously since taking the pregnancy test which came up positive I have scaled back big time. I remember the last workout before the pregnancy test ... by the end of it I wasn't feeling well and had some abdominal cramping. I also read that if you work out hard for prolonged periods of time keeping your body temperature elevated you could be doing damage to your unborn child. Of course I don't want to do that, so I haven't been pushing myself as I was before. I had been working on improving my 5k time, but that can now wait.

For the past few weeks it has been difficult to workout anyway, due to the nausea and exhaustion, but when I do make it to the gym or out the front door, I just walk. My muscles feel like they are getting a workout, but I am not turning red and sweating buckets like if I was running. I sometimes lift lighter weights than before, but it has really come down to listening to my body. If something doesn't feel right, then I stop.

I do still have a mud run with my dad a week from tomorrow. I considered dropping out, but its only 5k. I figure we can walk/roll/skip/jog through the mud. We are not out to win, just to have fun. I signed up months ago and it wasn't cheap, so I'm still participating! I am not missing out on my chance to get dirty!