How big is the baby: Your baby’s growing steadily, having gained about 4 ounces since last week. That puts him at just over a pound. Since he’s almost a foot long (picture an ear of corn), he cuts a pretty lean figure at this point, but his body is filling out proportionally and he’ll soon start to plump up. His brain is also growing quickly now, and his taste buds are continuing to develop. His lungs are developing “branches” of the respiratory “tree” as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help his air sacs inflate once he hits the outside world. His skin is still thin and translucent, but that will start to change soon. (source)
Baby’s Gender: We don’t know but I think it’s a boy
Baby’s Name: We have decided on a boys name and have narrowed the girls names down to two and have decided on a middle name if it is a girl.
Weight Gained: 16-17 lbs. Today I feel massive.
Clothes: I bought a new maternity skirt yesterday at Baby Gap for $1.97 and shortly I will need to buy some new workout bottoms because mine although they fit are getting more and more uncomfortable around the waist.
How are you feeling: I am feeling great! I was feeling under the weather this past weekend due to sinus congestion but that has passed and I’m feeling good!
What do you miss: Running. Sprouts. Sleeping on my back.
Symptoms: Lots of indigestion due to bananas.
Cravings: Fruit Salad! I actually went out last night and bought three bags of fruit so I could make a fruit salad. I also have been craving veggie burgers, avocado and salad.
How are you sleeping: This week I have been doing okay minus when I was sick.
Workouts: This week I rocked the workouts! Lots of walks and I went to pre-natal yoga yesterday- more on this tomorrow.
Next Midwife Appointment: March 28th.
Other News: We have been on a mission to find a birth class that fits our needs, a natural pregnancy with as little intervention as possible, unfortunately we were having a hard time finding a non-hospital class. Well I finally found a doula who teaches private natural birth classes and we are now in the process of setting up our classes with her, as well as, a natural baby class where we will learn about using cloth diapers, breastfeeding, baby wearing, sleeping options and more.
When North Atlantic Books provided me with an advanced copy of Sacred Pregnancy by Anni Daulter I was thrilled. Although I was 20 weeks when I started reading this book I started at the beginning and I fell in love instantly with the style of writing, the tips and as I read through each week and reflected on my own experience I began to feel more connected to my own pregnancy. I have been using this wonderful book, resource and journal ever since and plan to continue doing so for the next 16 weeks.
Below I am providing a short reflection on each week from 1-14 and next week I will reflect on weeks 15-25 based on the topic of the week in Sacred Pregnancy. I will continue to write reflections based on the topic of the week in Sacred Pregnancy each week in my Thursday pregnancy updates until I give birth.
For those of you who are pregnant, are planning to get pregnant or have friends that are you’ll be happy to know that this wonderful guide and journal for expectant moms will be released on May 1, 2012. You can pre-order your copy today on Amazon, now I just need my girlfriends to get pregnant so I can buy them copies!
First Trimester
Week 1-4: The first four weeks discuss Journaling, Sacred Space, Due Date and Meditation. I didn’t know I was pregnant until I was just over 4 weeks so I didn’t find these weeks quite as inspiring so I will start my reflection with Week 5: Cravings!
Week 5: Cravings- This week you will learn about paying attention to cravings, finding balance in your meals and lastly indulging (just a little). I loved the ideas in this week for making own potato chips, a craving that many women have during their first trimester. I also loved that the suggestion to sit back and relax and watch Eat, Pray, Love.
Week 6: Womb- Much of this week discusses your bodies preparation for your growing baby. One thing that suggested in this topic is to eat smaller meals throughout the day to help combat morning sickness. I didn’t learn this until around week 9 in my pregnancy and I wish I had known back at week 6!
Week 7: Expectations- This has been one week that I consistently go back to whenever I get wrapped up with others birth and pregnancy experiences. The more stories that you hear the more that we set up good or bad expectations for ourselves; instead we need to slow down, reflect on our own expectations and look for support.
Week 8: Body Image- This week gets into the nitty gritty of the challenging transition that you take on as a pregnant woman, a new body, a growing body and a new look. This is something that was a bit and continues to be a bit of a struggle for me to deal with. After years of maintaining a weight loss it is a challenge to feel comfortable gaining weight especially when you can’t control it and it is necessary. One thing that has helped me is to budget for new maternity clothes, and not just any clothes ones that make me feel good.
Week 9: Romance- The topic of the week is all about making quality time with your partner. This could be as simple as a hug, holding hands, and if you are feeling into it hitting the sheets. Finding time for romance can help reduce the stress and anxiety that comes with pregnancy. To help keep the romance going my husband and I have weekly date nights, even more now than pre-pregnancy and it has been wonderful.
Week 10: Birth Art Expression- Although the suggestion was to get artistic during week 10 we did this during week 23. We have been working on art for the nursery and will continue until the baby arrives.
Week 11: Exercise- During week 11 I was still feeling pretty nauseous so my workouts were lacking back then but increased around week 14. Currently my favorite exercises to do are nice long walks with my husband and prenatal yoga.
Week 12: Mindful Eating- This week reminds you of how essential it is to really focus on what you are eating because what you eat the baby eats.
Week 13: Radiant Glow- This is the week when you really start feeling more connected to your pregnancy. Once the nausea has calmed down it is really easier to enjoy being pregnant. This week one of the ideas was to start taking belly photos to document your progress. We started taking our photos around week 14 and it has been a lot of fun.
Week 14: Bonding- This week is about preventing uncomfortable symptoms before they happen such as drinking lots of water, eating a high fiber and high protein diet. Additionally, one of the ideas is to talk to you belly and this feels weird at first but the more you do it the more connected you feel to you baby.
Hail Merry’s Meyer Lemon Miracle Tart…along with a chocolate almond butter, chocolate mint and a Persian lime <–all eaten in the last week by my husband and I and our friend Laura. These tarts are A-MAZING.
What are you favorite meals, snacks or desserts of the week?
If you’re like me Monday through Friday our lunches usually always consists of leftovers from the previous nights dinner, however sometimes there are no leftovers to be found. When this happens it would be so easy to grab lunch out which is going to cost you more and isn’t as healthy as creating your own meals at home.
So rather than spend $6-8 on a sandwich at the local deli or hitting up the the vending machine at work for your afternoon snack keep a well stocked pantry and refrigerator to create a healthy and delicious lunch.
Condiments (oil and vinegar, vegenaise, hummus, ect.)
Fresh Fruit
Dried fruit and nuts
Nut Butter
Lunch Ideas (including snacks):
Mega Green Salad with veggies, chickpeas and salad dressing of your choice, an apple and 1 oz walnuts
Greens topped with veggies, veggie burger and condiment of your choice (fruit or agave sweetened BBQ sauce is great), a 1/2 cup of baby carrots and 2 tablespoons of hummus
Brown rice wrap filled with quinoa, black beans and salsa, small green salad with dressing of your choice, 1/4 cup of homemade fruit and nut trail mix
Quinoa bowl with beans, sauteed kale and condiment of choice (love a little shoyu or tamari and sriracha), a medium banana and 1 tablespoon almond butter
Brown rice wrap with hummus and veggies, 1 apple sliced and 1 tablespoon organic peanut butter
As you can see it can take less than 20 minutes in the morning to put together a quick, easy, inexpensive and healthy lunch! All you need is to keep your pantry/fridge stocked and you can throw something together in a pinch without having to sacrifice you health or your budget.
What do you usually eat or lunch? Do you bring your lunch or buy out? Are you a fan of leftovers for lunch?
Today I have decided to keep the recipe of the week quick, easy and delicious. Lately I have been addicted to asparagus, no seriously, addicted. Last shopping trip I even caught my husband giving me a sideways glance as I picked up two bunches of asparagus after already eating three bunches earlier in the week. Blame it on pregnancy cravings or maybe just the fact that they have been plentiful and beautiful at the market, either way they are currently my go to vegetable.
In the past 10 days we have had them roasted, sauteed and placed on top of a homemade whole wheat pizza crust with mushrooms and onions, roasted again to top a giant green salad and then lastly stir-fried up with leftover rice, veggies and tofu. I have to say I enjoyed them in each dish but my absolute favorite way to eat asparagus is oven roasted.
Oven Roasted Asparagus
When making these it is important to choose asparagus that are on the thinner side; they are going to be much tender and more enjoyable to eat.
Serves 4 (or if you are at my house only 2)
Ingredients:
1 bunch of asparagus (about 20-25 spears), washed and ends removed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400F. Toss the asparagus with the olive oil, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. Spread the asparagus onto a large rimmed baking sheet in one layer. Place in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the spears start to brown and the stalks have softened.
How easy was that?
Now you can serve this with your favorite grain and protein, top a salad, put them in a wrap, eat them as as snack, the possibilities are almost endless.
This weekend I was hopping to be doing a lot of this:
Cooking that is, not the camping part.
I was also hoping to
to catch up on my blog reading
work on some new blog posts
take a trip to the farmers market to get a vegan cupcake <–attempted this but we arrived too late and she was sold out!
Instead I have spent most of the weekend doing this:
I woke up Saturday morning feeling tired out and ridiculously congested. Neil and I got out of the house for a little bit yesterday but after lunch and a few errands I needed to go home and take a nap aka sleep for 2 hours, eat dinner and go back to bed.
This morning I was hoping after resting, hydrating, and neti potting yesterday that I would magically be feeling better today but well I think I’m actually more congested!! I was planning on going to yoga today but since I can’t breath out of my nose I think I will put it off until Tuesday and spend today again resting, hydrating, and neti potting. That being said there may not be a Recipe of the Week this Monday but I will hopefully have one to you later in the week!
What do you do when your weekend plans go south? Do you have any pregnancy safe holistic methods to combat allergies/congestion?
This week I didn’t accomplish all my fitness goals. It happens. On Saturday we flew back from Raleigh to Boston and then had to drive home from Boston so by the time we got home we were exhausted-hence the scheduled off day. In addition to being exhausted I was feeling a lot of round ligament pain which was probably brought on by all of the walking and activity during our vacation so I decided that I need to take a full on rest day Sunday to see if that would help, and it did! As for why I missed pre-natal yoga this week…well no (good) excuses but I do plan on going this Sunday!
Goals for Week of 3/9-15:
Th: 1.5 mile walk
F: 2 mile walk
S: OFF
Su: 2 mile walk
M: 2 mile walk and/or workout DVD
T: Pre-natal Yoga
W: 2 mile walk and/or workout DVD
Actual for Week of 3/9-15:
Th: 1.5 mile walk
F: 2 mile walk
S: OFF
Su: REST
M: <–nothing. I don’t know what happened here.
T: 45 min strength
W: 20 Min Prenatal Fitness Fix DVD and 10 minutes yoga
When I first found out we were pregnant I was preparing to train for my first half marathon, had canceled by gym membership since I wasn’t using it and was overall pretty active. My goal was to keep up with this my entire pregnancy and to help me do so I decided to purchase a few prenatal DVD’s to do at home workouts. After looking over reviews of a number of prenatal fitness and yoga DVD’s on Amazon I finally settled on three- one yoga and two fitness. One of the fitness DVD’s I chose was Prenatal Fitness Fix with Erin O’Brien which received 4.5 stars and 134 reviews on Amazon, making you think that it was a a great workout DVD.
Well boy was I surprised when I first turned it on and it was nothing like what you would expect from the reviews or the cover. The DVD is first of so out dated. I felt like I was watching an old 80’s workout DVD with awful music. The picture quality was awful, the set up was dim and looked like it had been tapped in her living room one afternoon. I also felt like the whole workout was something similar to what my mom used to do in our living room when I was a child.
Well I did the workout a few times and just couldn’t get into it at all, it was pretty awful. Having apparently not learned my lesson this week I decided to try one more time but this time do the partner workout with my husband. Well let me tell you it was worse than the regular workout. Calling it a “partner workout” is stretching it a bit or at least it wasn’t what my husband and I were expecting. We were both expecting to get a workout, but instead the partner part of it was basically me using him as support or resistance while I worked out. Honestly my husband was just about as thrilled to participate as her husband seemed to be in the DVD. The partner workout really could have been done on your own using bands and a table or chair for needed assistance; it was actually more awkward to have my husband help me than anything.
Overall this receives a 0 star rating for me. I would not recommend this to anyone. I however would recommend the other two prenatal DVD’s that I have been using and I’ll post reviews of those in the upcoming weeks.
How far along are you: 24 Weeks
When
Oven Roasted Asparagus
When I first found out we were pregnant I was preparing to train for my first half marathon, had canceled by gym membership since I wasn’t using it and was overall pretty active. My goal was to keep up with this my entire pregnancy and to help me do so I decided to purchase a few prenatal DVD’s to do at home workouts. After looking over reviews of a number of prenatal fitness and yoga DVD’s on Amazon I finally settled on three- one yoga and two fitness. One of the fitness DVD’s I chose was 
