Pregnancy is such a great journey but it's a tough one as well. I wanted to share my journey with you. Things have been crazy so I'm kind of playing catch up. I'm currently in week 14 of my pregnancy but wanted to go ahead and post the weeks leading up to now. I would love to hear from all of you.
Weeks 4-7
Also known as the longest weeks of my life. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I was so excited. I found out earlier than most women- four weeks! I called my doctor to get an appointment and they told me I would have to wait until I was closer to 7 or 8 weeks to come in for my first prenatal visit. Those three weeks crawled by with every fear imaginable in my head. Everyone kept telling me stories of how they knew someone who had a chemical pregnancy or someone who miscarried in the time between when they found out and when they had their first visit. I felt like I had to hide my excitement until I knew it was real. It sure didn't feel real because I was feeling great but it was obvious with the almost instant bloating and disappearance of any semblance of abs. I swear they went poof the moment the test said positive. But I was ok with that. More than ok! It was great. I continued working out like usual until my doctors appointment.
Weeks 7-12
Week 7 was the week I had my first ultrasound. As soon as I saw the little bean I was in love but I waited for the sound...there it was-the heartbeat. Whew, what a relief. Little did I realize at the time that I would come to hold my breath until I heard that little sound each time. All of the stories apparently took a toll on my nerves. Ok great, so I can be relax, right? Ya not so fast- "so and so's sister or cousin ( I can't keep it straight) miscarried just before she hit the 12 week mark so be careful." I heard so many of these stories that again, even though reassured, had to wait until the 12 week mark. By this time, my boobs were killing me, I was so tired that it was hard to put my shoes on (ok maybe not that bad but it was bad), and I had just started getting morning sickness (which didn't go away until week 13). I was fortunate though, I was only nauseous and never threw up even though sometimes I wanted to. I also kept up all of my workouts which made me feel so much better. Weeks 8-12 flew by even though I was completely exhausted. Maybe I napped it away!
As soon as I hit the 12 week mark, I went in for my next visit and we got a super strong heartbeat. Knowing I was over the hurdle I was ready to announce and then she said it- "well you know anything can still happen." Ugh I swear a woman can't catch a break. Why am I telling you this? Because I didn't realize that after the excitement of pregnancy comes the worry you will have throughout it and boy do I mean worry. Thankfully I have some pretty amazing friends that have had similar symptoms and feelings as I, so when something happens and I don't know what it is, typically it's something that happened to them. You want to make sure everything is ok all the time and the worry that has already been instilled in me (thanks to all these stories) certainly hasn't helped, but at some point you have to sit back and relax and enjoy the wild ride.
Due to the fact that I was physically fit and active prior to pregnancy, I was given the green light by my doctors to continue at the same level I was currently training at. I modified my workouts to accommodate my little bean by lowering the weight I was using ( I was just starting to set some awesome PR's on squats and deadlifts but that changed quickly). Instead, I focused on staying toned and healthy. I was able to do most exercises without too much modification but I was amazed at how quickly I lost strength. There was no such thing as overdoing it at the gym because my body was so much weaker than normal. I have been in the gym 5 days a week and sometimes add in a yoga dvd at home. My nutrition has slightly changed. Since you really don't need to increase Cals by 200-300 until your second trimester, the whole eating for two thing really isn't a thing. However, before I got pregnant I wasn't operating on a calorie maintenance so I bumped my calories up to maintenance levels from week 4-13 especially since I continued to workout at the same level.
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