Two Months Old!

Babybison is two months old today! She has changed a lot since her one month milestone, but in many ways is still the same. Still tall and skinny though developing new fat rolls and bigger checks every day. She now can successfully breastfeed. She smiles frequently though still not directed at anyone in particular (I tell her if she directs her first true social smile to someone other than me, she is in trouble). She's a good eater, an okay sleeper though nowhere near "through the night" and is still very easy to comfort and basically a content baby. She's learning how to put herself to sleep. She still spends most of the night in the stroller due to spit up but is getting in naps here and there in the crib which is a step in the right direction. She has met all three of her great-grandparents, and most of her aunts, uncles and cousins. She's been to the zoo, the aquarium, and on numerous runs with Mom and Dad.

My maternity leave ends this week- I had 9 weeks at home. I'm definitely ready to go back but am worried about the amounts of caffeine I'll need to consume to function at work. We are so, so lucky to have my mom coming in to watch Zooey for the summer. I am really amazed and so, so grateful that my mom wants to dedicate her summer to helping us raise Zooey. It will be so good for our little girl to get one-on-one nurturing from the best mom I know.

The newborn sized outfit we brought her home in finally fits!

On the exercise front, things are coming together nicely. I had an awesome tempo run last week (7:52 pace for 3.1 miles!!), and am starting to feel a little stronger with consistent strength work-outs. Swimming is happening but needs to happen more frequently and for longer durations. I look forward to getting back to spinning next week! I have the feeling between Zooey-care, out-of-town visitors, and training, not to mention going back to work, the next few weeks are going to FLY by. I'm trying to convince Adam of the importance of us taking a vacation this fall with Zooey before the whole first year of her life flies by without us having the chance to really enjoy her! I'm so looking forward to when she starts smiling and interacting! The rare moments where she is calm and alert now are great but they are still pretty infrequent and fleeting. After all she's only 6 weeks old in "preemie time".

So what has babybison been up to? In the past month, she's met a bunch of her family members including great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. She has spent quality time with her grandparents on multiple occasions. Zooey continues to enjoy running in the jogging stroller. She loves motion and noise. She is also very interested in light and does focus a bit on some colors and lines. She occasionally will make eye contact with us and definitely smiles and coos when she is happy or entertained but has not had a true confirmed social smile yet. Seems like she's waiting until I'm no longer her primary caretaker to give out that reward. (What a stinker!).

Zooey with Cousin Maya

Zooey with Great Aunt Kathy

Zooey with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Monson

Zooey with Great-Grandpa Monson

Zooey and me with Cousin Gwyn at the Shedd Aquarium

Zooey now has a clear awake and alert state that can last up to a couple hours. On Father's Day, she treated us with multiple long awake, alert and content phases and multiple long naps- the perfect combo to enjoy her but still get some work done! She now will sometimes wake up and keep herself entertained a bit before alerting us to her needs- she used to always wake up crying because she was so hungry, but now that she's taking in more food at a time, she can sometimes play for a while before eating. She definitely knows our voices, and looks around for us when we come to fetch her from the crib. Today she grabbed onto and shook a rattle for a good 5 minutes. She had no idea what she was doing which was pretty funny, but she kept hearing the rattle as she moved her arm and was clearly puzzled. We do the requisite tummy time (as recommended) and practice walking (which, btw, no one recommends but is hilarious, see photo). We also tried on her noise canceling headphones to prep her for concerts in the park this summer at Pritzker Pavilion:)

Tummy time success!

"Help, Mom what are you doing to me??"

Rockin out to silence.

Post-tummy time melt-down.

Sleep is still an issue and I expect it will be for a while. Apparently (according to my baby book) I slept "through the night" at 4 weeks. Anyway you look at it, Zooey is nowhere near "sleeping through the night". She still needs to eat at least 3 times, but if the doctor says we can (based on her weight) we might try a bit of sleep training to get it down to 3 times (as opposed to the 5 or 6 we're sometimes dealing with). The consequences of her not sleeping through the night are painful as shown by this photo of an exhausted Val reading Lancet Oncology with a perfectly content DAY SLEEPING Zooey. Hmm...sleep AT NIGHT, little girl. AT NIGHT!!

While she certainly is a lot bigger (now 7 lb 13 oz!) than she was when she was born (and she's so tall she wears 3 month clothes!), and she has made some clear developments, she doesn't seem all that different than when we brought her home. I expect the next month will bring dramatic changes, especially because I won't see her all day everyday so the differences will really stand out.

Zooey at two weeks with bison.

Zooey at two months. She finally fits in her
"coming home from the hospital" outfit!

Zooey helped us celebrate Adam's first Father's Day yesterday. We had a little picnic in the park and Zooey was fun and interactive for a good hour, which was great. She really enjoyed being outside in the shade without the stroller covers between her and the wind and birds. One of Adam's gifts was a photo of Zooey right after her birth which provides a nice comparison to her now.

Hi Dad!!

Family at two months.

That's it for now! Stay tuned for month three!!

The New Hardcore- Post Partum Edition

(Title is tongue in cheek- I consider myself far from hardcore!)

Today is the day. Today is the day when I declare that this is officially harder than medical training. We are almost at 9 weeks. It has been 9 weeks since I slept more than 4 hours in a row, more typically 2 or on a good night 3. The total nightly sleep is not enough. I'm dying. Well, I guess technically we are all dying, but I'm sure this degree of sleep deprivation speeds up the aging process. But this post isn't to complain. It's to celebrate that I have overcome this sleep deprivation again and again to continue my training for the Chicago Triathlon in August. It is a reminder that exercise is good in all situations, and when the choice is sleep or exercise, in many cases one might be suprised to hear that exercise is the right choice.

Today, for example. Now that I am trying to do every feeding for baby Z, I get at best one 2 hour block of sleep and the rest are between 40 minutes and an hour and a half. Last night was no exception. With me going back to work on Thursday I am a bit concerned about my job performance but we will take it one day at a time.

Given my fatigue, my relatively modest exercise agenda for the weekend- 1200 yard swim on Saturday and 7 mile swim on Sunday- seemed daunting. Getting out of bed seemed daunting. Raising my arm to my mouth to eat seemed daunting. Let alone Zooey care. But as Adam explained to Zooey this morning when she woke up crying and hungry, no one cares when adults cry- we are expected to suck it up. So what did I do instead of cry? I picked a (short lived) fight with Adam. I suppose the more mature thing to do would be to have said 'look, honey, I know you are tired too but 8 weeks of near full time Zooey care has ready worn me down, I need some free time stat", but that's not what I did. Luckily Adam got the point anyway and demanded that I swim or sleep or do something sans Zooey for a bit.

Every aching bone and muscle in my body (not to mention my overly fatigued brain that literally aches every time I'm woken from sleep these days) told me to take a nap. Sleep. Get vertical. 'Nothing is more important than sleep' every cell of my person screamed. But a small part of my brain knew. Knew that if I slept now it would be a good 3-6 hours before I had another chance to swim, if at all, given the huge to-do list in my head (plus Adam's to-dos). I honestly didn't know if I'd be able to swim with how tired I was, but I went through the motions, put on my suit with running clothes over them and headed down to the gym and pool. An hour later I had a 8:12 minute mile and 1200 yards of swimming under my belt. Now, two hours later, I'm tired again. My joints, muscles, and brain all hurt again. I still am not sure how I'll function at work on this little sleep. All I think about is when Zooey will big enough that we can sleep train her (she still needs to eat frequently now). I wish, wish, wish I was less tied so I could enjoy these early months of her life. But I know if I hadn't run and swum I would feel all that but worse because I'd feel the additional unhealthy lethargy of A Sedentary Day.

So for me the new post partum hardcore is pulling it together and getting into the pool today. Everyday in June except two I've exercised beyond the requisite one mile run. With no sleep and a newborn, that's hard. Really hard. And getting out for my 7 mile run tomorrow will be hard. Really hard. But I never let my job, or my pregnancy, or any other hardship be an excuse for fitness complacency in the past and absolute, total, I'm-not-sure-how-I'm-going-to-get-off-the-park-bench-where-I'm-writing-this-to-walk-Zooey-upstairs fatigue is no exception.

And to me, that's hardcore.

9 Months of Pent Up Motivation

Hi all. I'm back. Ready to talk about exercise and training goals once again. Hallelejah. I've missed myself, my exercising self. And I'm VERY excited to re-emerge from the pregnancy exercise intensity restrictions with plans to be a much stronger, faster athlete than ever before in the next year. First let's recap where I've been in the past year....

Last summer I completed my first and second triathlon, both while pregnant though I didn't know I was pregnant for the first one- the Chicago Triathlon in August 2012. I had just finished a very difficult, time consuming year of work so was starting to re-build my fitness and was excited to throw biking and swimming into the mix. I had my sights set on Ironman Wisconsin 2013 though since Adam and I were hoping to get pregnant I knew it was very possible that I would have to delay the Ironman. And sure enough, over Labor Day weekend, we noted I was a couple days "late" so decided to take a pregnancy test really more for fun than anything else. I thought the chances that I was pregnant after only 1-2 months of trying at my advanced maternal age was very unlikely. Luckily I found out I was pregnant about a week before registration for the Ironman so didn't lose the registration fee!

I have a handful of posts on exercising during pregnancy so I won't rehash here. Here are some of my previous exercising during pregnancy posts:

--Exercise During Pregnancy...In General
--Exercise During Pregnancy...What I've Done (so far)
--Pregnancy Fitness Goals
--The New Hardcore...Running at 30 Weeks
--The Ultimate Pregnancy Niggle
--Running Year in Review 2012

The bottom line is I stayed pretty darn active right until the day of delivery, keeping up my daily mile of running and also spinning, swimming and weight training until the end. My final pregnancy mileage is as follows:

549 miles run
24 miles swum
261 miles cycled (doesn't include the months of October, November, December as I didn't keep track of spinning mileage those months)

Because our Zooey was small and breech the decision was made to have a c-section at 36 weeks and 5 days. I knew a c-section was certainly possible since up to 1/3 of women end up delivering this way, and I certainly have no romantic notions of "labor" and am sorta glad I got to bypass that process. However, returning to exercise after pelvic surgery wasn't really part of my fitness plan for Spring and Summer 2013, and I have had to re-build much more gradually than I would like. But I've stayed as aggressive as I thought I safely could, kept up with my mile a day including the day after delivery, first with walking and then with intense hill walking as soon as my incision healed. At one month, I was really starting to feel the emotional and physical toll of not running. My knees and shoulders were starting to hurt. No amount of hill walking, even at 15% grade provided any endorphins. So after one false start (I ran 0.25 miles a few days before 1 month and felt it in the incision), at exactly one month after my c-section I went for a mile run.

For more detailed info on my early recovery:

--Turns Out I'm Just Like Everyone Else

I've worked up to 3 miles as my "long" run and hope to be up to 10 for my annual 4th of July "long" run. I still think a marathon in September is possible and I have my sights set on the Mill Race Marathon in Columbia, Indiana, a great suggestion made by my cousin Karin, also a runner. There is a half as well so Karin, Adam and maybe some other family members can run as well!

But my short term goal needs my undivided attention for the next few weeks- the Chicago triathlon in August. Last year I did the sprint, but this year I plan to do the International Distance. I've talked some great friends into participating as well, providing additional motivation ensuring that I can't back out! My plan is to continue my slow mileage build for running with occasional ad lib speed work. Running is also the core of any training plan for me. It is the activity I most enjoy, that provides the most mental benefits, and that I'm most comfortable with. But the sport that I'm weakest at really needs some attention- swimming. Ug. Once I'm back at work (read: have full time child care) I need one or two lessons to adjust my form but in the meantime I need to log some serious pool time. I'm in a post-natal strength training class that meets twice weekly (and allows the babies to come to class) and if I can muster a third session a week on my own that takes care of strength. I'm going to actually delay any focus on biking until I go back to work, partly because I definitely need child care for this activity and partly because I feel like I can ramp up to 22 miles biking without much problem. I may not be fast, but I can get it done, so time to focus on swimming and strength is probably most important for the next few weeks.

Well, there you have it. My rough plan to return to fitness glory. I don't have a day-by-day plan as I suspect it would be very constricting and bound to fail given Zooey duties. But as long as I get in one work-out most days and two work-outs one or two days, I should be good.

I hope.

Wish me luck.

This is going to be hard.

!

One Month Old....

On May 17th, Zooey celebrated her 1 month birthday. Well, more accurately, Adam and I celebrated by commenting on how much she's grown, how cute she is, etc, etc and Zooey continued her regular routine of eating, sleeping, peeing/pooping and other general bodily functions. Note crying is not a typical bodily function for her THANK GOODNESS! She's a great baby, very content, but is still eating every 2-3 hours so we...are...tired. But this too shall pass and we want to make sure we document the heck out of these times because we surely will not remember well due to a sleep deprivation haze!

First, Zooey's size. She appears huge to us and tiny to the rest of the world. She is roughly the size of an American Girl doll. She was 4 lb 10 oz at birth and now, four weeks later, she is up to 6 lb 4 oz so growing more than the anticipated 1 oz/day in the past few weeks. We can see a significant difference. For example, her cheeks have really filled out:

One week old, after a bath

Four weeks old, after a bath

She has grown an inch! While the bison and baby aren't perfectly lined up in the below photos you can see she really has grown! She outgrew the outfit in the first photo during week two! She's a weed!

One week old with bison

Four weeks old with bison

Look at that belly! It's sticking out over her pants!

Zooey's antics are as expected. Not smiling yet and may not for a few more weeks given her prematurity. Not sleeping for more than 3 hours. (Sad face.) But she seems to recognize my voice which is fun and she is starting to make eye contact. She is generally happy unless we do something to insult her like fail to feed her fast enough, take off her clothes if she is cold, or poke and prod her by putting her into a carseat or stroller. Also, the occasional gas or challenging bowel movement gets the best of her (as it does with some adults I know, so who can judge the baby?). For example:

Waaahh! Waahh!

A couple seconds later, staring at Dad, who entertained her with a song.

A content smile a few seconds later. See, she recovers fast:)

Other antics include lots of stroller rides outside which require excellent sun protection:

Too cool for school.

She also enjoys the occasional burp in the "monkey burp pose" causing her Grandpa to quip "Maybe they can find a job for her at a Goose Island 'branch' office".

Monkey burp pose

One surprise is the amount of interesting noises she makes. For example she frequently releases these high pitched air vent noises, similar to a fumarole causing us to call her Zooeystone after the thermal features at our favorite national park. She has occasional fumaroles on top, and occasional mud pots on the bottom!

The parents are hanging in there, looking forward to the time when our little girl can sleep for more than 2-3 hours at a time. I started running again this week so that's a huge step in the right direction. More on that if I ever have another few minutes of free time!

Some more photos:

First Mother's Day

Zooey- 25 days old.

My first Mother's Day started dramatically with our usually calm, cool and collected baby vomiting up what appeared to us newbie parents as all her feeds over a 12 hour period. So after a sleepless night, we headed to the pediatrician's office at 10 am on Mother's Day. Luckily, Zooey had continued to gain weight since Thursday and had no fever so we were sent back home with a follow up in a few days. Even more luckily, Zooey continues to have spit up now and again but nothing like that terrible 12 hours. Don't know what it was but glad it stopped!

So, needless to say, Adam and I were VERY sleep deprived. We thought about calling off our planned Mother's Day events but in the end decided it might be better to have adults around to give Zooey attention to give us a little bit of a break! Plus, who wants to call off Mother's Day?






Adam's Mom came up for a few hours to hang out with Zooey and later in the day my parents and my Grandma Nelson came into town with dinner and lots of arms to hold Zooey upright given her reflux. It was Great Grandma Nelson's first time meeting Zooey so that was very special. And having 4 generations of Nelsons in one room was pretty cool as well. It was my first Mother's Day, my mom's 35th Mother's Day and my grandma's 60th Mother's Day!

Great Grandma Nelson and Zooey

4 generations of Nelsons: Zooey, Me, Grandma Nelson, Great Grandma Nelson

Adam, despite a new low in the sleep department, snuck out to Michigan Avenue under the guise of "going to the grocery store" and returned with gifts for all the Moms, myself included. Let's just say he set the bar pretty high for Father's Day next month with his gift of Zooey's birthstone in earring and necklace form (i.e. diamonds).

Diamonds, Champagne and Red Velvet Cake for Mother's Day
 (plus homemade shrimp and grits and a great red wine the night before!)

All in all it was a great day and the best part was that Zooey is healthy and still gaining weight. But the diamonds were nice too;)

May 10, 2013: Babybison's Due Date

Today was babybison's due date. Instead of hoping labor will start soon and move quickly (I'm sure I would have been none too pleased to go past my due date), we are the proud parents of a little 23 day old girl. And she is indeed little! But growing! She's already outgrown most of her preemie clothes and is gaining the expected ounce a day so is already 5 lbs 5 oz! She's finally on the so-called growth charts though at less than the 3rd percentile:) But at least she's on the chart!

Zooey and I have been keeping busy- we've joined a weekly Chicago New Moms Group. (Well, I've joined and she has to tag along. She seemed very alarmed by all the crying babies. She kept looking at me questioningly and I told her not to get any ideas- she does not need to start crying, I like my quiet baby just fine!). We've been taking walks most days. We have various doctor and lactation consultant appointments to attend. I put books, mirrors and rattles 8-12 inches in front of her face for a few minutes each day. We do tummy time (which I hate and she doesn't seem to mind). I sing songs (mostly made up because I don't know any baby songs) and narrate the day to help her with language acquisition. We are reading The Great Gatsby (more accurately, I am reading it in quiet tones and she is staring off into space.) You know, we check off the list of stimulating activities you are supposed to do for newborns (thankfully this list isn't actually that long, just being alive is stimulating enough at this age). Yesterday I took "a break" for the first time since her birth and actually watched a movie. I don't think Zooey minded or felt ignored so maybe that will be a weekly activity as well. 

I don't have much else to report. Eating, burping, napping, pooping, bathing, putting on and taking off clothes a few times a day, staring off into space, making various cute expressions completely unintentionally but really darn cute nonetheless, these are the expected activities of a three week old and she does them like a champ. I'll alert you when things get more interesting:) But for now, I'll leave you with some pictures:

Back from week 1.

Week 3: Crazy face Zooey!

Week 3: The Monkey Burp pose with Grandpa Nelson

Week 3: Zooey's first Chicago style hot dog and visit to the Bean.

Week 3: Babybison with a bison. We'll keep taking this for size reference until she goes to
college,  she'll love it...well, we'll love it and that's all that matters. Ha!

Hard to believe my next requisite post will be 1 month! 

Turns Out I'm Just Like Everyone Else.....

Yesterday marked three weeks since Zooey made her grand entrance via c section. Initially I was quite pleased with my surgical recovery. I was out of bed within 12 hours (mostly because those hours were overnight, I imagine I would have been up even sooner otherwise), and I finished a walking mile within 20 hours of the delivery, ensuring I did not miss a single dailymile. Eating and normal bodily functions resumed on day one. I was up and about spending very minimal time in bed. Sure I had some pain but a very occasional norco and around the clock ibuprofen took care of it enough that I could carefully function. However I quickly became impatient with my recovery after leaving the hospital. I assumed my recovery over the first few days was a sign that I'd be almost good as new in a week or so. I assumed that since I exercised throughout my pregnancy, I'd have a leg up and recovery at the speed of light. Not true. Apparently being an exerciser doesn't have any particular skin healing benefits becuse my incision site continued to cause some pain for about 10 days. Not bad pain, but enough that I knew I needed to be careful. I decided that c-section recovery is a bit of a cruel joke. I felt fine energy wise, I really felt great overall, except for the incisional (and a bit of uterine) pain. And the very simple daily activities required to take care of a new baby are the exact ones that I couldn't do comfortably (and would jeopardize my long term recovery). Picking up baby from a low position (think day bed or pack and play), no can do. Getting up from couch or bed without using hands (i.e. while holding baby), no can do. Picking up items (ex burp cloth) from the floor, impossible. I learned how to use my toes to pick stuff up but even this was painful for a couple days. Honestly, I could have returned to work by day 5- sit at a computer and type? No problem. Walk from patient room to patient room? Fine. Sit in a hard backed chair with armrests to push off of to get up? A-okay. But taking care of baby? Painful. Thank god for Adam and my Mom. I felt RIDICULOUS sitting on the couch, a totally usually able bodied person, asking others to get me a glass of water or a bottle just out of reach. I would be a terrible sick person, let's hope I stay healthy.

Me vs The Walking Man

And walking continued to hurt for way longer than I anticipated. Again, the pain wasn't bad. It was totally bearable, so I tried to avoid taking pain medicine except at night because to me the pain was a reminder to take it easy. I knew my tendency would be to overdo activity without the physical reminder (i.e. pain) that I needed to heal. But my walking speed was a bit of a joke. For example, one week after delivery, I had a pre-existing hair cut appointment. I decided to keep it because I don't want to let having a baby destroy my attempts at maintaining personal upkeep (mani/pedi is on the agenda for this weekend, and a day hasn't gone by where I don't put on make-up, even if it's just for my own sake). So I walked the 1.3 miles to the salon. I'm glad I did but man was I walking slow. Embarrassingly slow. Like, I almost didn't make it across some of the streets in time even though I started walking right when the light turned green. I felt ridiculous. One day I walked my mile on the treadmill at 1.8 mph. One point eight! I told myself that the people in the gym must remember that I was just pregnant a few days ago hence my pace. Not that it matters what they think, but still, I have some pride and it was wounded!

Now I'm three weeks out and have been pain free for well over a week. The incision is healing nicely though still with small areas with scabbing so I agree with my very cautious husband that I shouldn't run yet. The last thing I want is to re-open the incision and set myself back. I have the Chicago Triathlon in August to train for! But I sure do wish I could run- beautiful spring days, I've lost all of the baby weight so my joints should be thrilled- I have 9 months of pent up motivation just aching to be released!

Another irony of the whole c-section thing: while pregnant I had virtually no activity limitations- I could run, spin, lift weights, swim- and did up until the day of delivery (I was at a spinning class the night before her birthday and I never missed a running mile). The limitations were regarding intensity, not type of activity. So I was careful to not be short of breath for too long and to never "go anaerobic". Now, post c-section, the restrictions are the exact opposite! I can get as short of breath as I want- there are no specific limitations on how hard I push myself cardiovascularly- but my activity limitations are so restrictive that it's really hard to get in a solid work-out. I can't lift weights, I can't run, I can't spin or swim. I'd be happy to take up a new activity, but basically all of them are verboten until after 6 weeks. Now I'm certainly not one to follow rules just to follow them, but since my incision is still not completely healed I agree I need to continue to be cautions. I'm hoping 4 weeks will be the day I test out running. Everyone says walking is fine, but I can speed walk a 15 minute mile and feel like I'm on the couch exertion wise so that's not super helpful. So I'm hill walking. Aggressively. On the treadmill. 10-12 grade and increasing daily. As far as I can tell, that's the only activity I'm "allowed to do". But even with that, I'm being cautions because I do start to feel a little pulling on the incision if I go past 20 minutes or so. So frustrating.

This is my blog, so from time to time (like today) I take the opportunity to vent and usually feel better afterwards. But I do want to say that I know I'm lucky I didn't have any complications (thus far) surrounding my c-section. No infections, no blood loss, I didn't have to labor first so I'm not dealing with the consequences of both. And Zooey is wonderful and healthy and I'm so happy to have her. So I know not being able to train yet is not the end of the world. But I also know myself and soon it will start to feel like the end of the world emotionally and physically even if rationally I know it's just a small amount of time in a whole lifetime of training and fitness. So, yes, I'm feeling a little sorry for myself but know that I do realize how lucky I really am. Let's just say I will be so, so grateful when I can run again. A 20 miler sounds like an absolute dream!