Week 18

I cannot believe I am 18 weeks, almost 19! The holidays have come and now here we are [almost] in the New Year. The year that Baby Koehn will be born! Ahhh!

I have been feeling pretty great the last few weeks. I actually have some energy now to get back to an almost-normal schedule. I thought this would never happen. I am able to eat normally again (sans red meat in any proportion) and am back to a pretty good exercise regimen. One complaint I do have is that I can't do the workouts I was doing before. My dr said I could continue whatever I was doing pre-pregnancy, however I am not allowed to get my heart rate above 140. What??? My heart rate gets to 140 while walking at 3.4 mph with a 1% incline! Ughh. So I have kept my workouts to minimum of walking/elipitcal/yoga with some very mild resistance exercises. I can't wait to resume my running and Fusion Fitness workouts post-baby. Staying thin and exercising intensely truly makes me a happier person. I know, I'm weird. I have to reassure myself on a daily basis that I will eventually get my body back...at least most of it : )

We had a wonderful Christmas at home with our families and got some really great stuff. I was glad that baby stuff was kept to a minimum, only because it reminds me that we are still just two people. Alex and I are determined to welcome this baby with open arms, but try and not be those parents who get too obsessed with their children. We very much value our marriage and the time we spend together. I will love this baby unconditionally without forgetting my dear husband and the life we have together.

Here are my latest cravings/feelings:
- Feelings that this pregnancy is REAL. There really is a little Koehn in there.
-Small, fluttery feelings in my upper belly. It's still hard to tell if it's the baby or just little gas bubbles. They tell me it's probably baby : )
-An increase in appetite. I didn't think I could eat more than I was before! My stomach is a bottomless pit. Scary.
-A lot of anxiety about weight gain and not looking like my old, skinny, self. It's getting better, I just have to keep reassuring myself that it's ok.
-A lot of thoughts about the day to day responsibilities of having a baby. I am surprisingly not as nervous as I thought I would be about it.


I think that's all I've got for now. Happy New Year, everyone!

Week 16

This post has been a draft in progress for about a week now....guess I need to post it and move on : ) Just in time for the 17 week post!


Hmmm....well apparently I missed a week...or so. Time seems to flying by recently! We had our 4 month appointment this week and things seem to going well. We find out in a few short weeks if we are having a boy or a girl! Can you believe that? It's amazing to me that that baby just keeps on growing! Things to note for this week:

-Baby's heart rate is 150. Girl or boy? Guess away.
-I've gained 10 pounds since the beginning of this pregnancy. O.M.G. Does this freak me out a little? Yes. Maybe more than a little.
-My belly is now showing through even my baggiest scrubs. It's no secret anymore!
-Favorite foods: Pita chips and roasted red pepper hummus, cheese, Wheat Thins and dried fruit (cherries, bananas, and fruit leather seem to sound most appealing). I'll eat anything salty. Pickles, chips, cheese dip, bologna.....yes, you heard me. I went through a couple days where I HAD to have a bologna sandwich for lunch. Yuck, I know. I'm especially hungry right after work. I'm starving right when I get home! Also, the last few days I've been craving Chai Latte's and lots of lemon slices in my water.
-Least favorite foods: Steak or any slab of red meat as well as sweet potatoes in any form (this has been since the beginning of my pregnancy.)

Alex and I have been having lots of discussions about what we want our "parenting style" to be like, as well as our discipline strategies, support for each other, etc etc etc. So far he has been really great about being open to this new addition to the family, with only one big disagreement so far. I think our ongoing struggle will always be about how much Alex works. He IS a workaholic. So this is still in debate as to how we will attack this.

I've talked to Alex for several weeks now about starting to take pictures of my belly and we never can seem to remember. So tonight after my quick yoga workout, I finally snapped a really terrible picture with my phone, but at least that's a start. Here it is:





Hmm, what else. I think that's good for this week. More to come next week!

Week 13...and a half

Hi everyone! This week has been a grueling one, as Alex started off with a cold and has successfully passed it on to me. Ugh. Thankfully, it has stayed pretty contained in my head and sinuses. I have been taking lots of supplements and fighting this virus with tooth and nail! My Thanksgiving will NOT be ruined! Speaking of Thanksgiving, I cannot wait to get home to the family. Unfortunately, we will spend Thanksgiving day here in KC and then as soon as Alex can get off on Friday we will head to McPherson. Needless to say, I am so ready to spend some Quality Time with the family. We are so lucky to have [almost] all of our family in the same town. If we could just get the extended Fast family and Alex's brother Aaron closer to McPherson, we'd be in business : )

In other news, I am almost through Week 13. Nothing real exciting this week, but I am still constantly seeing changes. Here are the things I've noticed:

• My belly getting bigger and bigger, by the minute it seems. No twins though, as this was a question I had for Dr. Carter this week. Whew! (Alex and I both come from a lineage of twins...ugh, can you imagine?)


• My energy is slowly coming back, but still not back to what I felt pre-pregnancy. I have been walking a tad more and getting a little bit more done at home, but not much.


• More people asking me about my belly and asking about names, gender, due date, etc etc. I must say, it's a lot more fun when you can talk to friends about what you're going through. Plus, it makes it a little more "real."


• I cannot stop craving junk food. It is all I can do to "do the right thing" and eat my fruits and veggies. All I want are Ched'r Peppers from Sonic! Ahhhh!!!


• I went maternity clothes shopping this past weekend with my friend Danielle, who is now 19 weeks pregnant. She is barely showing and is just now deciding to buy some stretchy outfits for the future. I, on the other hand, can no longer wear normal shirts/pants without it looking like my clothes are entirely too small. I was also given a whole box full of clothes from my boss' wife, who is about the same size as me. I hit the jackpot! And just in time for Thanksgiving, too : )

Alex has been so wonderful through this whole process so far. I feel so terrible for him sometimes because I am just SO tired all the time and he picks up so much of the slack. Our house has been a mess and without his help, we would probably live in a pigsty and have nothing clean to wear. He made a trip to Trader Joes earlier this week and came home with a bottle of sparkling italian soda and a beautiful red rose, just for me : ) (However, I think he was partially trying to make up for the fact that he had come home with a month's stash of Two Buck Chuck. ha)

Well it is wayyy past my bedtime. I think I better hit the hay so I have enough energy to cook our mini-Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday! Cheers!

Week 12

Hi everyone, I know it's been AGES since I've written. But I figure maybe this way would be a good way to keep everyone up to date on how our Small Fry, aka, Baby Koehn, is a-cookin'. So, without further adieu, here, in bullet-point format, is how my pregnancy has been going. In a nutshell.

Leading up to this week, here are a few of the symptoms I have been experiencing:

• Starting in week 7, I had severe dizziness/fainting. Yes, I said fainting. Nothing a little hydration through an IV couldn't fix!

• A HUGE increase in appetite. Those books that say you should only eat an extra 300 calories/day (approx 1 bagel, without cream cheese) has clearly never been pregnant.

• Nausea off and on, but has mostly subsided

• Constantly needing to pee.
  

• Constipation. Severe. Eww.

• Occasional migraines-oh the agony! So miserable when you can't take a single thing. Sometimes a few sips of coffee seem to do the trick.
  

• Decrease in motivation/ability to work out. I am SO unbelievably tired that taking myself for a walk around the block is nearly impossible. Pretty crazy for me, considering I was working out pretty intensely, 5 days a week, before this "alien" has taken over my body. Hopefully in the second trimester I will gain some energy back to start up a workout regimen again.
  

That pretty sums up the first trimester. Here, again in bullet-point format, is a list of my most recent symptoms:

• A growing belly. NO JOKE. My belly seems as though it's growing by the minute. No pictures yet, because I'm frankly not quite ready to accept that it's ok to get "fat." (This is a whole issue in itself, one to be discussed in another post.) I never realized that this would be such an issue for me! (Well, maybe I did.)
  

• No cravings, per se, just a beastly appetite for LOTS of food. One thing that I have NOT wanted since the minute I found outI was pregnant is beef. Not steak, not barbecue, no slab of beef in any form. I can barely choke down beef tacos. However-chicken is a whole different story! Give me chicken in any form-baked, fried, in quesadillas, enchiladas, on pizza. Wherever I can get it! Weird, because I've NEVER been a huge fan of chicken. Hmm.
  

• Foods that I have wanted in my diet recently: yellow squash, eggplant, apples (granny smith or honey crisp) with grandma's caramel apple dip, lots of CHEESE! (hmm, constipation cause???) and wheat thins. And to be real honest, I would eat hamburgers and pizza every night if I could. I have never in my life allowed myself to do that, but this pregnancy has really opened up my abilities to eat junk food whenever offered! (Let's just say Halloween was areally difficult holiday to get through.) Next up: THANKSGIVING! Yessss. A pregnant woman's dream!

• (I really miss lunch meat. I used to eat it all the time for a quick piece of protein.)

• Horrible constipation. This is an ongoing issue. We'll leave it that.

• Indigestion. This is an issue that my NAET dr and I are working on. Gotta get that liver motivated again!

• I've been super super tired, but just the last few days have seemed to pep up *ever so slightly.* I'm hoping that this is a good sign!

Well, I think that is really as much as you probably want to hear for now. I must say that when people ask me "How are you feeling? Do you feel different?" I think to myself, "YES! I feel nothing like myself!" All these symptoms are SO foreign to me, along with getting "fat," I'm just hoping that the second trimester will bring me some more energy in hopes of feeling like a real person again. But as they all say, it's all worth it in the end! Cheers to our little Small Fry!