I am sorry for the silence. I have been busy. Busy being heavily pregnant, busy giving birth and now busy looking after a newborn baby. It is a good busy, a busy I am really enjoying. Before I write about what I have been up to since my baby girl Frankie was born two months ago I think it is best to write first about my pregnancy.
I have been asked a few times over the last six months about why I didn't blog throughout my pregnancy about being pregnant. My blog is about health, fitness and wellbeing and being pregnant really did incorporate all three of those things so why did I decid not to share my experience.
I shared some photos on social media and I posted some work-outs that I did whilst pregnant. I also referred to my pregnancy in my blog and on my facebook page but I really didn't discuss what kind of pregnancy I had, how I felt, what training I was able to do.
When I sit back and think about the reasons why I chose not to share my pregnancy in greater detail it is not because I believe pregnancy to be a private, personal experience. Nor was I ashamed or unhappy with the obvious changes that I saw happen to my body. I really believe that everyone is entitled to their own pregnancy experience and the need to see what someone else is doing, or eating, or growing or how much they are exercising wasn't necessary.
When you fall pregnant and you start to tell the world your exciting news you very quickly realise that there are a lot of well intentioned opinions. You get very good and smiling and thanking people for their advice and you take or leave what you choose.
Many people will tell you you shouldn't be weight training when pregnant. If I heard one more person tell me I was going to "strain" something I thought I would scream. Even my very well meaning physiotherapist told me, at 14 weeks pregnant, to stop weight training and start gentle walking and swimming. I didn't listen and when the physio checked me over at 30 weeks he said my hips and pelvis were in great shape! Little did he know I had kept on training which had obviously caused no issues or injuries.
I trained as much as I could and really did listen to my body. I lowered my sets, adjusted the weight and each week worked out what felt good and what I knew I no longer could do. My aim was to try to exercise every day and an ideal week was three or four days training with walking on the other days. There were weeks when this was spot on and there were weeks when I only managed a few days.
At 31 weeks I started to experience terrible
Public Symphysis which felt like I had been kicked in between the legs and it made standing painful let alone moving around. My tummy was strapped which did nothing to help and I soon realised the only cure for this was to give birth. I managed for five weeks to continue training sitting down and did mainly upper body work with very little lower. At 35 weeks I said goodbye to the weights and swam four times a week from then until 40 weeks.
I suffered morning sickness from week six to 11 and lost my appetite completely until I was about 25 weeks pregnant. This was challenging and really frustrating; going from loving food, eating five to six meals a day to not knowing what you feel like to eat for weeks and weeks on end. It was stressful. I wanted to give my baby all the nutrient rich food I was used to eating and all I could eat was sausage rolls and toast. I couldn't stomach chicken, couldn't eat meat until the evening and the thought of cooked veggies made me gag. I drank a lot of green smoothies and veggie juices as that was all I could stomach in the way of veggies.
Looking back now I feel like I should have eaten better throughout my pregnancy but at the time you do all you can to eat whatever your body will allow. I try not to think about the sausage rolls and lack of veggies and focus on the fact that Frankie came out big, healthy and strong. I did a good job growing her.
I want to say I didn't weigh myself but I did. I was 61kg when I fell pregnant and I was 74kg when I gave birth to Frankie. This was more than I expected to put on, I thought I would be one of those women that put on 8 kilos, but I believe my body put on what it needed to put on to safely make my baby.
And this is Frankie. Born at 2.10am on Monday 14th April 2014. My 30th birthday.
She is the most amazing thing ever!
