Tag Archives: pregnancy

Into the 3rd

Well, here we are at 28.5 weeks!  We got back from our trip almost three weeks ago now, and I realize I’ve written very little about it.  I spent the first two weeks exhausted, fighting the third cold I’ve had this pregnancy (poor little immune system), a Roman superbug, and diving right into a busy time at work.

After the sore throat, runny nose, etc., the superbug announced its presence in my sinuses last Monday with a sudden onset toothache affecting only the teeth on the top right side of my mouth.  For a few hours, I sat at my desk, feeling like my face was going to explode.  The tooth pain abated on its own, but since that time, I’ve upped the neti pot to twice a day, which seems to be working.

I’m actually trying to be good about resting my bum knee, which means almost no biking, because I need it to get me through an entire day in the saddle for the Cycling Savvy training this Saturday, followed by a community bike ride on Sunday.

I’m still keeping active with some walking, upper body weights, and the prenatal yoga class I just started.

I hope to get back on track here soon, with some posts on our time in Italy and green baby prep.  Until then, here’s hoping for sunny skies to dry up the soggy ground and healthy knees for biking!

Traveling while pregnant

I purchased our tickets to Europe back in December, still early-on in my pregnancy.  I’d already checked with my doctor and midwife about international travel while pregnant and received the green light, with advice to travel during the 2nd trimester if possible.  With that in mind, I nervously committed a large chunk of money to the trip, not knowing how I would feel, or how big I would be, or if there would be any pregnancy complications that contraindicated travel when March 22nd rolled around.

Fortunately, I felt great during the 2nd trimester and my still-small belly, while sometimes frustrating because I wanted to “look” pregnant, made for relatively easy travel, with just a few challenges.

Challenge #1 — The Bladder

In London, I could count on relatively easy restroom access when out-and-about by ducking into a Starbucks or McDonalds.  I became accustomed to walking in, quickly scoping out the place and the most likely restroom location, and making my way there, and back out, without making it too obvious that I wasn’t a paying customer.

Italy was trickier on the restroom front.  In Florence, I ducked into a small restaurant and waited an agonizing 10 hours (okay, more like 10 minutes, or less) for the father and little girl  who stepped in just before me to vacate the restroom, all the while hoping that the staff in the nearly empty place would not approach me and ask what I was doing, or call the polizia and haul me off to jail.

In Rome, we wandered for at least two hours trying to find a restroom one afternoon.  I should have just sucked it up and played the pregnancy card, but the one time I tried to do that, in a small gelato shop (where we actually PURCHASED something, by the way), the rude woman denied my request.

Now I suppose it was POSSIBLE that they really didn’t have a restroom, even for employees, in the tiny shop, but I doubt it.  There I was, a customer, obviously pregnant and in distress, and this woman wouldn’t help me.  I left the shop fuming and in tears.  When we finally found a restroom, it was at least an hour later 😦

Advice: Take full advantage of any restroom opportunities you get.  Always go before leaving a museum, restaurant, etc.  You never know how difficult it will be to find the next toilet.  Though it didn’t work so well for me, don’t be shy about playing the pregnancy card.

Challenge #2 — Lots of walking while carrying extra weight

We walked EVERYWHERE in London and Italy, which was great from a physical activity perspective, but turned out to be hard on my body.  Despite my relatively small size, I’m already carrying an extra 20 pounds — not insignificant!  That, combined with loosening ligaments due to pregnancy hormones, led to some painful times.  From the night of our second day in London, until sometime in Florence or Cinque Terre (about 6 days later), I walked around with excruciating foot pain and seriously thought I may have stress fractures in one or both feet.  Miraculously, this went away on its own, despite being on my feet constantly.

Unfortunately, about the time the foot pain resolved, I started having issues with my left knee.  Although I think that may finally be getting a bit better, it’s been at least two weeks now.  It’s been especially hard trying to be good and stay off the bike since we’ve been back.  Since I nigh upon refuse to drive anywhere within easy biking distance, I’ve felt like a prisoner in my own apartment.

Advice: Keep in mind the additional stresses that pregnancy puts on your body, even if you’re in relatively good shape.  Don’t expect that you’ll be able to do everything, and plan to scale things back a bit.  Tune in to early warning signs that you may be over doing things, and adjust as necessary.

Overall the trip was great, and I’m really thankful we had the opportunity and that it went so well.

There’s no place like home

Before trip
Three weeks later . . . in Rome

All of the sudden, I look significantly more pregnant.  So what changed?  Turns out I’m having twins — my regular baby, plus an Italian food baby 😉

Right now I’m enjoying being home and trying to recover from some bug that manifested itself partway through the return flight from Rome [glares at the woman on the plane who had that nasty phlegmy cough — yes, I blame you, although realistically I must have been exposed to something prior to the flight].

The trip was great, and, of course, I made many observations on the green and not-so-green aspects we encountered on our travels, which I’ll be sharing here in the coming days and weeks.

Ciao for now!

Clothing my pregnant body

Going into this pregnancy, I hoped to avoid buying any NEW clothing.  I mean, what a ridiculous thing, right?  Why buy something brand new that I would wear for a few months at most, when there should be plenty of good condition used maternity clothes floating around out there.

The reality: finding used maternity clothing is easier said than done.  Where is all of the gently used maternity clothing?  Are there lots of mothers out there, hoarding their maternity clothes for the next potential pregnancy?

Goodwill: I struck out at my local Goodwill store — one small, disorganized rack with nothing in my size.  If I were willing to drive to some of the posher Goodwill locations, maybe I would have better luck, but it’s hard to justify the gas for a distinct “maybe.”

Kangaroo Kids: I had a bit more luck at this children’s and maternity resale shop.  I scored a pair of gray dress pants, a black knee length skirt (that I need to grow into), and two tops for about $22.  The downside is the distance — it’s out in the direction of my MIL’s, so it was easy enough to justify a stop, but I wish it were closer so I could pop in more often, since their inventory changes daily.

Scholarshop: Both Scholarshop locations have a maternity rack.  Small selection, but good condition and easy to look through.  I considered a few purchases, but at that point I was waiting to see what I would get from my sister.  Not quite as far away as Kangaroo Kids, but not super easily accessible without a car, either.

My sister’s closet: My youngest sister and I are fairly close in size, and she just happened to be about four months ahead of me in this pregnancy thing.  She is now a new mama, and done with some of the maternity clothes.  I inherited a few tops, a pair of jeans, and a nice pair of corduroy pants.   The jeans and most of the tops are currently a bit big on me, but maybe I’ll grow into them?

New purchases

Belly bands: Back in January, before acquiring any other maternity clothing, I purchased three belly bands.  I hoped to use them to extend the life of my regular pants, but they didn’t work particularly well for that.  The thin, stretchy fabric could not hide the fact that my pants were halfway unzipped.

I am using them now with my maternity pants, as many of my regular tops still fit, but aren’t quite long enough to hide the weirdness of the maternity pants’ waistbands.  Belly band to the rescue.

JCPenney: Looking for a couple of maternity pieces that would be well-suited for travel, and with a gift card that needed to be used anyway, I did some online shopping.  I ordered a pair of pants and three tops.  I wanted a pair of leggings to round things out, but they were no longer available when I went to checkout 😦  They have yet to arrive, and I’m honestly not sure if I’ll keep any of them.

I’d like to get back by Kangaroo Kids and Scholarshop, but I’m not sure when that will happen.

The fact that I can get by, pretty happily, with my limited maternity wardrobe of 2-3 pair of pants and a handful of tops proves that my pre-pregnancy wardrobe (while not huge by most standards) was significantly larger than necessary.  I look forward to whittling it down, but at this point I don’t want to get rid of too much until I see where my shape settles post-baby.

Weekend bicycling whirlwind

The weekend’s bike trips (and restaurant visits — three in one weekend!!!):

Friday

  • South Grand — Lunch at Basil Spice, a Thai restaurant, with Matthew and my FIL.  We dined while watching construction work on the South Grand Great Streets project.  Pad See-iew for him, Pad Thai for her, both with tofu, both off of the $6.95 lunch menu.  We shared our dishes.   Both were good, though we really enjoyed the Pad See-iew.  I came prepared with my own take out containers and was disappointed with the clean plates that resulted from the smaller lunch portions 😦
  • The Hill — Errands at the Italian shops.  Purchases included olive oil, dried porcini mushrooms, farro (an Italian grain that I’ve been wanting to try), and Swiss cheese so we can make more reubens.  Unfortunately, our source for affordable dry active yeast has dried up, though I did see a mobster in the bakery, so the stop there wasn’t a total waste.
  • The CWE — Dinner at Terrene.  Terrene, with a focus on local food and sustainability, has been on our radar for some time, but until January, it was on the “allows smoking — do not patronize” list.  (Yes, two restaurants in one day — crazy for us, but we had a Groupon-type thing that needed to be used.)  I’m still a bit hesitant to whip out the camera in restaurants, so no food pics.  We ordered the flatbread, half veg sausage, half mushroom; the gnocchi, and the vegetarian meatloaf with mushroom gravy.  We enjoyed the first two items, but the veg meatloaf was missing something.  I realized later that the only trace of the gravy was three small oyster mushrooms — wish I’d realized that earlier and asked for more gravy.

Saturday

  • Tower Grove South — Winter farmers’ market.  With the beautiful weather, two vendors set up outside the church.  We purchased spinach, a HUGE head of bok choy, green onions, and carrots.
  • Tower Grove South — Trip #2 to the neighborhood for my prenatal appointment at River City Birth, followed by a stop at the new-and-improved Local Harvest Grocery, featuring a nice, spacious bathroom — the highlight of the visit for my poor, cramped bladder 😉  We also bought some bulk dry goods and a local Colby cheese.
  • After this trip, we returned home, where I proceeded to take a 2-hour nap 🙂  And then there was a car trip 😦 to Young Ethicals game night for good snacks, games, and fun times.

Sunday

  • The Grove — Church at St. Cronan’s.
  • South Grand — Lunch at Pho Grand with Matthew and my MIL.  We split a vegetarian special and a special curry, though there was some contention about the way they were split — the hungry, hungry hippo pregnant lady may be taking more than her share 😉
  • Interlude to make lemon squares (from our lemons — frozen juice and zest) and do laundry.
  • The Y — if my bike isn’t already out, I usually just walk to the Y, since it’s less than a mile away.  If I’m out and about, and know I might be biking again that day, I lock my bike up outside to save lugging it down and up the basement stairs an extra time.
  • Aaannnddd, another nap — the active transportation takes a lot out of me these days!