Saturday

This is a picture of the sunrise this morning. Scott took it as he was on his way to the north shore to go surfing. I thought those of you who are enjoying snow right now might like to see it. Waves are huge right now on the north shore... they may hold the Eddie Aikau surf competition on Monday which is only held if/when wave heights reach like 40 feet. Yep. That big.

Luckily on the south shore the waves should not be quite so big. The Double RoughWater swim is tomorrow morning on the south shore. A couple years ago on the day of the race there were white water crashing waves that we had to duck dive through on the way out. That made it way harder for our kayakers than it was for us. Lots of kayakers that year got dumped over. I don't mind swimming through waves. I kind of like it actually.

Anyway, I'm not afraid of the ~7000M ocean swim tomorrow. Well, I'm not afraid of the distance anyway. I AM afraid of the cold though. The water is in the low 70's which I suppose is fine for some people but for me right now, it's cold. My arms go numb after like 30 minutes in that water and this swim typically takes me just over 2 hours. That's a long time to have numb arms. Wetsuits are not allowed because it's a swim race, but I'm going to bring mine anyway and may ask the race director if I can wear it (which will obviously DQ me from any awards). Might be a smart thing to DQ myself from the beginning so I don't get some crazy urge to actually race the thing half way through... Anyway, I'll make the decision in the morning.

I capped off another decent running week today with a 10 mile run. I have fallen into a steady 9:05ish pace for all my runs these days... whether its 2 miles or 10... I'm obviously not trying to run fast and while normally I wouldn't be so thrilled with 9:05 pace, cruising through 30+ miles for the last 3 weeks in a row at that pace is just fine with me since I'm pregnant and all. I keep reminding myself of this HUGE base I'm building for myself by logging all these easy miles. That said, it did occur to me today that if I would have been able to keep it together to run this same 'easy' pace in Kona, I would have gone 10:50 and been top 10 in my age group. I guess 'easy' all relative. ;)

We took Moana to a birthday party today... a friend's First. Let me just say that I AM SO GLAD we did not go to this party before throwing Moana's. I would have been so freakin' intimidated. This was one of those real local style first birthday parties... I'm telling you... people here go all out throwing these things. There must have been 150 people there. It was like a wedding. Except they had a bouncy house.

Moana had fun in there. She did her best to get up and walk around but kept falling down and (most of the time) laughing about it.

And it turns out she's not afraid of balloons anymore. Obsessed may actually be a better word.
Ok. I have to go pack for the morning. Gonna go dig out that wetsuit...

Gone Fruit Pickin'

So if you've been following my facebook posts, you know that I discovered a huge avocado tree on some vacant land across the street this week. But the avos are up high, and not easily accessible. I sent Scott a text and told him we needed a fruit picker.

My resourceful husband got right on it and stopped at the hardware store and came home with a fruit picker. $8. Avocados at the store are like $2 each here, so I figured if we pick 4 of them, we break even. After that, they're free!

Moana was ready to pick fruit.

You might see the problem we still had though- no long pole. Hmmm. I posted this pic on facebook and mentioned that we needed a pole. I love facebook. Ask, and you shall receive. My awesome neighbor Christina wrote and said that they have the long pole, but no fruit picker. A HA! We will combine our resources and each come home with bountiful fruit!

Christina brought her pole over (which was an extending painting pole) and I led her to the tree. Can you see the avocados? You can only see a few in this picture. There must actually be 100+ big ones on this tree. It's like a gold mine in the sky.

Christina did the hard labor.

Score! Avocado in the basket! She got good at it after just a little practice.
Moana enjoyed watching.
She doesn't have a whole lot of patience though so she started eating them right away.
Christina got about 10 avocados today, so we each brought home 5. It'll take them about a week to ripen up, so we agreed that next week we'd go pick more and that way we'll have a batch of ripe ones and a batch waiting to ripen. LOVE IT.

So we brought our fruit home and then Christina decided that she could get some of the star fruit that is on the tree right outside our door. The starfruit is not quite as plentiful this year, and the tree is really HUGE and the fruit is up quite a bit higher than the length of our picker. Christina was undeterred. She threw her shoes off and started climbing the tree, pole in hand.
I was nervous for her, but she's a rock star. Check this out.
That star fruit is super juicy and sweet. YUM YUM. Moana liked it too. You know, there's nothing like having an afternoon snack that you just picked from the tree.

Do Pregnant Women Look Good In Bright Green?

So a couple weeks ago, while I was right in the midst of the "I wonder of this baby is growing or maybe I'm going to miscarry or is that some nausea I'm feeling but I don't feel tired enough to really be pregnant" mindset, I got an email from Carole Sharpless that said, Congratulations! You have been selected to be a part of Team Trakkers 2010!
Awesome. Add to my stress, why don't you? I wondered if they keep you on board if it turns out you're pregnant?

Apparently, they do keep you on the team, or at least at this point, it appears so! It does make me a little more bummed out about the fact that I'm not going to be racing next year though. Although, I'll let you in on a little secret, which of course will no longer be a secret once I type it here, and since we all know that I can't possibly actually keep a secret from my blog readers*, I'm going to spill it right here right now...

Trakkers owns the Rev3 Races, so they are encouraging their athletes to do as many of the series as they can**... which of course is a challenge for me living here in Hawaii. But the attraction for me is that the Cedar Point Rev3 race is in Ohio, which is where my family lives. And it's Sept 12, which is like almost two full months after I give birth. Hmmm. I wonder if I could do a half iron race less than two months after I give birth? Hmmm. I wonder. It's in my head, y'all. If my delivery is just a tad early and is as easy as it was with Moana, I'll be back running and swimming 10 days later... ok ok I know it might be crazy, but the good news is that I don't have to enter early. I can wait and make a decision right before race day if I want. Shoot, I think the biggest challenge wouldn't be completing the race- it would be flying an almost two year old to Ohio. (The two month old would be easy because he/she will sleep the whole time.)
So there it is. My 2010 goal. I think. It depends. But maybe.


*Oh, but I can keep a secret. I've got a secret. But don't worry. I'll share it soon.

**IF you're thinking about entering a Rev3 race for 2010, hold off for a few weeks on entering because I'll have a discount code for you to save $10 off the entry fee. :)

Exercising Through Your Pregnancy

Wow. First of all, thank you all for your support. I really wasn't sure how that last post was going to go over- knowing that there are so many people who struggle with fertility having the opposite problem as me- I thought it was entirely possible that I was going to end up with a gang of haters. Who knows, maybe you're out there, secretly hating me, but overwhelmingly I felt amazed at how awesome you guys (um, gals) are in encouraging me to let myself feel how I feel and even express it 'out loud' here on my blog. It really does help to get it out there instead of burying it. I would suggest it as therapy for everyone. ;)

Moving on.

This book has been recommended to me several times and I finally went out and bought it. And all I have to say is, awesome! James Clapp, MD does a great job in working through the myths and fears associated with exercising while you're pregnant, and explains many physical things that I've always wondered about. If you're an athlete and pregnant already or looking to get pregnant, it is a must read.

When I found out I was pregnant with Moana, I immediately set a bunch of arbitrary limits on myself concerning exercise. I hadn't started blogging yet and didn't know anyone who ran while pregnant, so I sort of assumed that it might be ok to keep running for a while, but had no expectations for continuing all the way through. I was amazed when I found so many bloggers who ran (a lot!) when pregnant. For whatever reason, I decided that 4.5 miles was as much as I should ever run while growing a baby. I stopped biking immediately (though I do admit I rode like twice for about an hour really slow during the first trimester), and limited my swims to 2500M. Later on during my pregnancy when I felt completely fine, I did do some 4000M swims and upped my regular swims to 3000M 5x/week. But my point is, I had no basis for these limitations other than my own estimated guess at what the limits were for pregnant women.

Dr. Clapp does a great job of explaining so many positive benefits for mom and baby when mom exercises throughout her pregnancy. I now feel justified in continuing to do whatever exercise feels good, including running and weight lifting the whole time. He says that the arbitrary HR limit of 140 is not reasonable- that in fact, early on in pregnancy, HR is no longer a good measure of how hard mom is working... This is due to the fact that our vascular system has relaxed and expanded in order to make room for all that extra blood volume that we don't yet have, so our hearts actually have to work harder for a while pumping the less than adequate blood supply and our heart rates might be higher than usual even while exercising easily. I am totally experiencing this right now.

Anyway, the key points Dr. Clapp makes about keeping it safe while exercising during pregnancy include the following:
1. Make sure your body temperature does not go above 102 degrees. You know what is interesting about this? In studying pregnant women who exercise, Dr. Clapp found that our bodies, in an effort to protect the fetus, actually regulate our temperatures even better when pregnant- our bodies direct blood flow to the skin more readily to help cool us off while exercising. So we sweat more and stay cooler. This makes me wonder if this is why I've been so much colder than my training partners in the ocean lately? I think it is.
2. Make sure you don't get dehydrated. Got it. I'm good at drinking a lot. :)
3. Make sure you don't let your blood sugar go low. This was really interesting to me too b/c I have felt like I've had lower blood sugar more often when working out when I'm pregnant. The physiology behind it (that I just learned from Dr. Clapp) is that while your body would normally release glycogen stored in your liver when your blood sugar starts to dip during exercise, when you're pregnant, your brain sends a signal to your liver to keep that glycogen for the baby rather than releasing it to mom. After 45 minutes or so is when your liver would normally kick in and start providing back-up glucose, but this mechanism is turned off when you're pregnant. So you have to take in your own carbohydrates more often rather than depending on your liver. Interesting, no?
4. Finally, avoid physical injury. This may be more important later in pregnancy when your balance may be thrown off due to the weight changes from that big baby.

Anyway, I'm not putting any arbitrary limits on myself this time around. I'm doing whatever feels right at the time. That means riding my bike until I can't sit on it anymore and not necessarily avoiding all hills. That means running 35 miles/week if I feel like it (and yes, I have felt like it), and keeping my long run up at 10 miles as long as I can. And it means swimming as much and as fast as feels comfortable. Exercising now is more about keeping my own sanity rather than gaining any fitness, but given Dr. Clapp's advice, I think I can do a pretty good job of staying sane. :)

Honestly

So this is a challenging post to write. Mostly because it's probably not what everyone wants to hear. But it's going to be honest. I know there are some blogs that I enjoy a lot- those that are honest. And honestly, life isn't always a box of chocolates. So here we go...

You know what? I didn't want to be pregnant this year. You want to know how that appointment for the ultrasound actually went on Wednesday? Here it is.

I ran and swam that morning. I was so distracted and distraught about the upcoming ultrasound on my run home from the pool that I tripped. Over nothing but the asphalt. And I fell. Right on my shoulder. And I cut my chin on the road. I was an absolute mess.

Scott met me on the way to the clinic. As we drove there together I cried. I told him there was no good way for this to come out. I did not want to be pregnant. I did not want them to find a heartbeat. But what woman wants to go through a miscarriage? How could I possibly hope for a miscarriage? What kind of monster would I be? I cried some more.

I kept myself together for most of the appointment, though I was silent and stone-faced when the tech excitedly announced that she could see something. She must have thought that I didn't understand or something because she kept saying, Congratulations!! I couldn't reply to her. Instead I just pursed my lips together as the tears flowed down my face.

I know all this is probably unbelievable to some of you who try and try to get pregnant. I can't imagine how hard that must be. All I know is that for me, the girl who gets pregnant even when she is actively trying not to, fertility sucks.

Eventually I did want to have another baby. But I wanted another year alone with Moana first. I wanted more time so hopefully we could move out of this 2 bedroom condo and into a house with more room. I wanted another year to capitalize on my fitness and race again. Just one more year before I sacrificed myself again for the sake of expanding our family.

Instead, part of me feels like there's been a hostile take-over of my body. Call me selfish, but I really like having my body as my own. Sharing it with another growing human being is tough, and requires sacrifice. It's so tough that it really would have been nice, for once, to actually plan and prepare and try to get pregnant. Instead, I am required now to sacrifice myself while this Scrappy little baby grows and grows, and I grow along with it.

In the end, I know I will be happy. I will be happy to hold my little baby once he or she is born. I will be happy that Moana gets to be a big sister. 5 years from now, I will be glad that I had my two kids close together so hopefully they can be good friends. But for now, I appreciate the text I got from Jenny after my ultrasound. She told me to give myself permission to be pissed off. So while I will not wallow in a pity party for myself for the next 8 months, I am taking some time to let myself feel how I feel.

Wow. Honestly? This post wasn't that challenging to write. I guess when you write from your heart it all just comes flowing out. Thanks for listening. And I hope I didn't offend anyone. I just had to get this out because if I didn't, and just pretended all along that I was thrilled to death to be pregnant again, I would feel like a fraud. Be assured, I will love this baby, though likely more after we are done sharing a body. ;)

Scrappy

I am completely shocked. I was 100% prepared for the ultrasound tech to find nothing yesterday. I thought she was crazy when she said, "I think I see something..."

But sure enough, I saw it too. That teeny little pulsating blob of cells that was about the size of a grain of rice. There it was. Beating 111 times a minute.

I am just in total disbelief that my body was able to construct a little heart and make it start beating without giving me any real signs. I mean, I pride myself on 'knowing my body' but clearly I do not know my body like I thought I did.

I have been running and swimming lately like I am not pregnant at all. It's amazing that this little kid has been able to get started like he has. Scott and I are calling him Scrappy. Scrappy, Who Has A Will To Live.

That's all I'm going to write for today. I have a lot more to say about this, but it's Thanksgiving. I'll write the rest of my thoughts at another time.

OverAnalyzing

This whole pregnancy thing just might have been easier before the invention of all these tests that tell us probably too much information that doesn't really mean what we think it might mean...

I got the results back from the second HCG test last night. I was hoping it might be somewhat definitive in that either the levels were not going up at all, or else the levels would double... either way, that would have been a pretty clear sign.

What did I get? How about an increase of 50%? 72 hours after the level was at 22,000, it came back at 33,000. Hmmm. Still pretty high, but I thought the levels had to go up by at least 65% every 72 hours to show healthy pregnancy?

I got the results via email last night. So of course I spent the rest of the evening googling HCG levels and trying my best to diagnose myself, to no avail of course. I found some info that said levels should be doubling every 72ish hours throughout the first trimester, and some info that said once levels are high (over 6,000) they don't necessarily have to double.

The thing that I found most interesting last night was one website that said that once your HCG level hits 6,000 you should be able to see fetal activity via ultrasound. Hmmm. I had an ultrasound done 3 days prior to getting that first HCG level back (the one that said 22,000) so surely I must have had hcg over 6,000 on that day? But they found an empty sack that day.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Can you hear it? That's my head hitting the wall.

This morning I got a phone call from a nurse who pretty much knew nothing other than what my chart said. She told me my hcg levels were going up. Duh. I asked her if they had to double. She didn't know. I asked to talk to the doctor.

Eventually this morning I got to talk with the doctor about the results. She actually said that a rise of 22K to 33K over 72 hours wasn't something that concerned her, and that those levels put me in the normal range for 7-8 weeks pregnant, which is where she thought I was based on my LMP. But then we talked about the ultrasound last week that had me measuring just 5 weeks when the hcg levels surely must have been well over 6,000... she agreed and said that the blood test didn't match up with what was seen on the ultrasound so she ordered another ultrasound for tomorrow.

Bless her for not making me wait another week.

So that's all I've got. I can analyze it all day and night but I'm not going to know anything for sure until I go get the ultrasound tomorrow. And I swear, if it comes up with some ambiguous result I'm going to have a fit right there on the table.