My Pregnancy: Week 22

Another week where I almost forgot to take any pictures, so you get bad lighting on the last day of week 22.  The weeks really seem to be flying by!  Everyone keeps asking me how I'm feeling and honestly I feel pretty normal.  I'm big and tired and sometimes my feet ache, but otherwise I feel like myself, aside from feeling lots of baby kicks!

My most exciting thing this week was completing Murph!  Our gym does a big event on Memorial Day, but since we're always down the shore, I've been doing it on the Friday before for the past few years.  I wasn't sure how much of it I was going to be able to complete, so I figured I'd at least do some version of it or a half.  But a few weeks ago we did Cindy (20 minutes of 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, and 15 squats) and I completed almost 10 rounds and felt fine afterwards, so I decided to do the whole thing, all 20 rounds (substituting the run for some time on the assault bike).  I was very relaxed leading up to it because I knew my time didn't matter and if anything felt crappy I had no problem just quitting.

I started on the bike and planned on doing about 7 minutes, so when it was around that time and I was almost at 1.5 miles I decided I'd just do that distance.  I did all the push ups on my knees (same as the past 2 years), but this year I split them up around the pull ups.  So I did 5 push ups, 5 pull ups, 5 push ups, and then 15 squats.  It made such a huge difference!  I was able to keep all the push ups in sets of 5 the whole time, instead of dropping to sets of 2, which I had done previous years.  I actually think the push ups were easier for me this year overall!  The pull ups started to get painful on my hands about halfway.  The bar was moist from the humidity and my sweat and it just didn't feel good to swing from.  But I felt strong.  The air squats went great.  I tried to warm up a lot beforehand because last year my quads ended up cramping up super early and I was really upset about it (because that's the easiest movement for me).  This year I was feeling exhausted and did use my arms to help stand up a little, but it was easy to keep moving through them.

Around round 12, I knew everyone was a few rounds ahead of me and I was feeling like I would never finish, but I knew I just had to keep chipping away.  In round 18, my palm ripped during the pull ups and it sucked!  But I knew I only had 12 pull ups left and I could deal with it.  In round 20, I ended up with an awful blood blister under the skin on the same hand and my other palm was feeling like it was about to rip too, but I was really just happy that my hands held out that long.  I was relieved to get to the bike and was trying to use my arms as much as possible since my quads were feeling pretty cooked.  I pushed hard at the end and finished my 1.5 miles at 58:11!  I was convinced that it was going to take me more than an hour so I was beyond excited with my time.

In other news, Dave signed us up for our hospital tour and a bunch of childcare classes in July and August.  We'll most likely add an infant CPR class to the list too.

• Welcoming Baby - This one-session class helps the expectant parents prepare for the new baby's arrival. A pediatrician will speak on such topics as selecting a pediatrician, the normal newborn immunization and when to call the pediatrician. You'll learn helpful hints about understanding your newborn and gain important information about car seats, infant safety, safe sleep practices, poison prevention, choke saving maneuvers, choosing baby furniture and much more.
• Happiest Baby - Based on the bestselling parenting book and DVD The Happiest Baby on the Block by pediatrician Dr. Harvey Karp, this class provides participants with the necessary tools to calm a crying baby. Long periods of crying are associated with postpartum depression, breastfeeding failure and stress in relationships. Come learn about and practice the five S’s to soothe crying so your baby—and you—can sleep longer.
• Prenatal Breastfeeding - During this program you will learn breastfeeding techniques to get you off to a good start, steps for successful breastfeeding, and information for coping with common situations or problems that can occur in the early weeks.

I also think Dave is finally convinced about hiring a doula.  One of the couples in our birth class welcomed their baby to the world last week with quite the crazy birth story and lots of pressure from the hospital staff.  When our instructor was done telling the whole 30 hour saga, I turned to Dave wide eyed and said "we're using a doula!" and he replied "ok!"  Monday is our final session of our Hynobabies class and I really want to dedicate a whole post to the class and my views on birth, so stay tuned for that.

Another big thing that happened this week was we ordered all our nursery furniture (minus a glider).  We were just going to get a crib and use some of our old furniture when Dave's mom insisted we needed a real changing table... which then turned into picking out a whole set of matching furniture for baby girl!  Gran insisted :)  I've been trying to envision the layout and plan the decor, but it will be so nice to get the furniture in the space and really see what fits where.

4 months to go, so crazy!