Doing the math and Getting crazy

Breakfast is not getting any more exciting, with the exception of adding fruit. Two organic eggs, primal breakfast sausage, organic greens and veggies, an organic banana, vitamins and water. The amount of food might be getting a little bigger than necessary. Although I woke up pretty hungry.

Doing the math
Last night we discovered that I am 5 weeks along. I wasn't happy with just guessing that I was 4 weeks because that was the last time I had a period. So, I decided to look it up online. Turns out that all medical professionals count from the first day of the last period and conception is about two weeks into the "pregnancy." According to the Pregnancy Association, it is counted this way because that is when the body begins to prepare for pregnancy.
I also downloaded the app Sprout to follow along with the process. It's a cool app that shows you where you are weekly and what parts of the fetus are forming as well as allowing you to log doctor's appointments, your weight and other things.

For lunch we (not the fetus and I - my husband and I) had a salad, some leftover roast from the other night (grass-fed with organic greens) and split an organic peach and nectarine. I am so excited to be eating fruit! Stone fruits have always been my favorite and I can't wait for organic apricots!

Getting crazy
Today we drove out of the city to some state parks to take the doggies on a hike and have a beautiful day outdoors. While we were driving, I was talking with my husband and trying to get him to understand something from my perspective. The fact that he was not understanding me properly got me so worked up. In a matter of seconds I was feeling like I had been so betrayed and I could feel my heart starting to beat faster. I was one thread of sanity away from going into a bawling fit. Luckily, I was so surprised by my own reaction that I saw I was having a hormonal freak-out. I quietly talked myself down inside my head. Is this really what I have to look forward to? I feel sorry for my husband.
Thinking back, it makes me laugh when I compare it to a scene in 30rock. Hilarious!

For dinner, my husband and I had wild mahi-mahi and roasted organic veggies with a tahini based asian-type sauce all over it. We had left-over hot and sour soup broth and for dessert, dark chocolate coconut ice-cream with fresh sliced organic strawberries. Heavenly!

Sweets and Snacks

This morning I had breakfast sausage, 2 eggs and a warm kale salad: some sauteed red onions, kale and tomato slices cooked in the grease from the sausage. I thought the kale was going to be bitter, but it actually turned out a little sweet. I'm not sure if it's because the red onions are sweet or if it gets that way when cooked a little longer. It actually tasted good. The vitamins I have there are the same ones I have every morning: 3 fish oil, 1 vitamin D, 1 big prenatal and a little multivitamin. 

Ah yes, and a banana. This is the first banana I've had in possibly over a year. It was good, but not mind-blowing and thankfully I didn't have a sugar crash afterward.

Sweets
We've been making coconut milk ice-cream and ices. They don't last long because my husband likes to plow through the whole container in one sitting. The last batch we made was chocolate cherry. We use coconut milk from the can for ice-cream and coconut milk from the carton for ices. This is all done with the Cuisinart ice-cream maker we paid $30 for at Costco. Great deal and endless hours of fun! Actually it only takes minutes to whip up a batch.

Snacks
I just need crunchy things. It has always been this way since chips fell off the primal food list... not that I ate that many chips to begin with. You do always miss the things you never cared about before, just because you can't have them. So, I eat nuts. We've tried to cut down on the nut intake because it can be overdone. It's a tough one. I was very pleased to see that almonds are on the 100's list for the first trimester and Trader Joe's has organic dry-roasted ones. It's the pistachios that are hard to get away from. TJ's also has a bag of shelled lightly salted pistachios and we never fail to go through the bag in a couple days.
I've bought two huge organic yams so I can make this chip recipe. I do not have a dehydrator, so I will be doing it in the oven. It seems like a bunch of work for something I may devour in 20 minutes... but we shall see.
Still searching for good snacks...

For lunch today I had a frankfurter from our meat CSA with a little organic ketchup, organic mustard and homemade sauerkraut. I wasn't that hungry and ate late in the day. Probably because of the banana I added to breakfast and the tons of ginger/lemon water I was drinking.
For dinner we ate wild salmon with organic baby broccoli and caesar salad with organic kale added in.
I also had a mug of homemade pork broth from pork bones we got from our meat guy. Bone broth is extremely good for you. It is full of amazing nutrients and helps with the immune system. More on this later.

Losing weight and Telling our Parents (Almost)

Today's breakfast was 2 organic eggs, 2 slices of Trader Joe's bacon (anti-biotic/hormone free), and some wilted organic kale and spinach greens. The bitterness of the kale was masked by the bacon grease I cooked it in. I drank ginger and orange-juice infused water and took the usual vitamins.

Losing weight
After the "last supper" of sushi for lunch on Thursday, I became 100% primal to the best of my ability.
For the next 8 or so months of pregnancy and 2 or less years of breast-feeding, I will be eating no dairy, drinking no coffee, or alcohol, and eating only natural sugars from fruits. There will be only organic, grass-fed, pastured, anti-biotic/hormone free and sweetened with stevia or xylitol. It has been 4 days and I am optimistic about getting through it all without a hitch. We shall see what happens when the hormones really take over.
The last time I ate this way was when we first started trying and I thought that if there could be something inside me, I should not take any chances. Flash forward a couple months to me vowing to love cheese and coffee until the pee-stick told me my time had come. During that time, I did see a significant change in my body. The crossfit workouts were twice as effective because I was eating the perfect diet. Every single day I did a workout, the next morning would be like Christmas morning with me running to the bathroom mirror to see what new smaller body I was in. It was glorious!
This was the time that I knew, if I truly wanted to get the body I wished for, I had already found the combination. Primal diet and crossfit.... where were you when I was in high-school?
SO..... I am working the combination. Not to lose weight but to be as close to 100% perfect health for my little zygote. The side-effect seems to be a better body (in both ways).
Now, people may think... this is unhealthy behavior, talking about losing weight when you are trying to grow a life. Well, the fact is, women only gain about 3-5 pounds in the first trimester and if I only lose 5 or 10 pounds of fat I will have enough left to do the job.

Telling our parents
I'd been trying to come up with creative ways to break the news to my parents for a while now (before there was any news). We ended up buying two boxes that looked like books and I made new covers for them. We then included a pee-stick in each box. Yes, it may be a little weird... but trust me I can think of weirder. I was going to make my dad a paperweight pee-stick cast in resin. It was just a little too much work since I'm dying to tell them.
My in-laws already have 2 grandchildren, but for my parents this is a first. I know it's gonna be emotional even though they know we've been trying. I still get elated when I really think about a little life growing inside me. It seems a little unreal. My father-in-laws birthday is on Saturday and he is getting a pee-stick as his present. My dad's birthday was in the beginning of June, so his is a "belated birthday gift." I told my mom to call me when they get the package... hoping to get them on video chat opening the box. We shall see......

Lunch today was leftover hot and sour seafood soup and dinner was grass-fed top-round beef roast (from our CSA) with organic collard greens and chard. We also had sweet potato fries I made from organic sweet potatoes. I ate too much.... but it was so tasty.

*I also take a probiotic with my dinner every night.

Symptoms, Waiting Room and Working out

For breakfast I had more organic spinach, 2 eggs scrambled with various organic veggies and a breakfast sausage patty. The new prenatal vitamin, a multi, vitamin D and fish oil were washed down with ginger infused water.

Symptoms
I'm really trying to make a point of listening to my body. Given that I am pretty much a housewife, I have the luxury of doing whatever my body needs me to do.
    Cramping- This started the day before I found out I was pregnant and has continued ever since. Unable to get into a doctor (because I don't have one here yet) to find out why this was happening, I decided to look online. I found a forum conversation of women who were just finding out about their own pregnancies and experiencing the same thing. It's not a consistent pain. It comes and goes, and if I stand up maybe it will come again or rolling over might set it off. The pain is also not extreme. For the most part, it is a dull feeling like muscle-soreness. Every once in a while it gets strong enough to make me stop moving altogether until it subsides. This, as I found from reading the exchanges in the forum, is completely normal and is explained by the stretching of the uterus.
    Headaches- I have only had a couple of very mild headaches starting in the morning and tapering off throughout the day.
    Fatigue- I find myself having moments where I feel like I need to just lay down and take a nap. It usually happens a couple hours after I have been up and doing things. I don't really take a full-on nap most of the time. It does feel nice just to lay down for a bit and close my eyes. I also find myself pretty wiped out by the end of the day.
    Sleep- There have been changes in my sleep for sure. A couple of weeks ago I decided that I was going to start waking up at 8:30 am every day, just to get more use of my time. I also felt a little guilty about sleeping-in seeing as my husband was waking up to go to work at either 5 am or 7 am. It was pretty hard the first couple days, but then I found myself waking up 30 - 45 minutes before my alarm was to go off. These times I woke up naturally and didn't feel groggy or like I missed out on that extra time. It seems to be getting earlier and earlier that I am waking up without an alarm and feeling ready to start my day. I usually complain about sleep because my husband and I need different things to be super comfortable and I rarely say "I had a really good night of sleep." I tend to get colder and don't like when my side of the bed starts to get too soft. If only I could afford a sleep-number! But now, my sleep feels so much more restful. I am dreaming vividly enough to remember the dreams when I wake up.
I don't know if it's because the author of this book said vivid dreams are common with pregnancy, and I am paying more attention to them, or if she's just right.
    Breasts- Getting larger and annoyingly sore.... need I say more. For women who didn't have much to begin with, this may be a blessing... but for the previously "blessed" this is a curse. As if it wasn't hard enough to find a comfortable bra, now I have to find something to jam these balloons into that will not add to their increasing size. They don't really seem to make bras without padding somewhere in it. Yeah, like it's really possible to "push-up" double D's.
    Urination- This is way more than I expected for a first trimester thing. I totally expected that it was gonna happen when the baby got big and started lounging on my bladder. I really don't pee this often... but maybe I'm just hyper-aware of it? Could be my imagination, but it seems much more frequent.

Waiting Room
So we, my husband and I, sat in a walk-in medical center waiting room for 2 and a half hours this morning. I don't know if he was just protecting his zygote, but my husband just about lost it with the number of morons hacking and coughing all over themselves. One lady came in that most certainly had tuberculosis. I'm pretty sure even the physician's assistants (I'm really being generous with the credentials of the girls in the back) sent her away. Later he kept referring to one guy who was clearly overweight and saying to his likewise overweight daughter that they could go eat at Wendy's. The guy literally sounded like he had so much fat that it was in his throat while he was talking. If that doesn't deter people from fast-food.... I don't know what will.
All in all, we waited and eventually I peed in a cup for someone with some sort of medical degree to tell me I am indeed pregnant. The whole lovely process cost us $95. I had been hoping to get a blood-test to find out how far along I am, but the doc said I could just do it when I see an obstetrician and save myself the money. He said to assume I am 4 weeks along because it was 4 weeks since my last period. I don't know about you... but that math seems weird, especially since ovulation is somewhere in the middle. But hey, I'm a pregnant lady, not a doctor.
The most helpful part of the visit was that we found out how to remedy the whole "no insurance" thing. I have an appointment with an OB at 2:15 pm on July 30th. They make the appointment for after a woman is 8 weeks along (or as I'd like to say - 2 months). Turns out, they will take care of all the insurance paperwork at the time of the appointment and it is done and in full effect. Woohoo! This is how it works in this state- get pregnant = get insured.
I am grateful.

Working Out
Today's CrossFit WOD:

1 K row for time (4 minutes 8 seconds... NICE!)

Bench Press

5 - 5 - 5 (I did 75 - 85 - 95)
__________

5 Muscle-Up (I did 15 pull-ups and 15 ring-dips)

10 Front Squat (I used 85, the Rx was 95)

30 Double-Under (got my personal record of 12 unbroken)

4 rounds for time (I did 3 because I thought it was 3.... oops!)

This felt good and I just wanted to get through it. I didn't really hustle that much and made sure my breath never really got away from me.

Prenatal Vitamins

Today's breakfast: 2 eggs from a friend's hens, homemade pork breakfast sausage, wilted organic spinach and some organic avocado slices.... washed down with a little apple cider vinegar and orange juice zinger (this is my own name for this drink).

The thing about eating greens to get more iron, is that you have to eat it with vitamin C for maximum absorption. Obviously with this meal there is no problem there. The spinach itself has a good amount of vitamin C along with the splash of orange juice in this drink.

Vitamins (and Minerals)
One of the helpful things in my 100's book is the list of vitamins he has included for the first trimester.
We took this information to the store for prenatal vitamins. Knowing that iron was a key vitamin, we looked for that amount first. The one we liked the most had no weird and unnecessary ingredients like excess soy, wheat, sugar.... etc. except for a tiny bit of soy lecithin probably used to keep it all together in pill form. This was Prenatal One Multivitamin, which came with 150 servings and was pretty fairly priced (no more than $35).
When compared to the list in the book, most of the vitamins and minerals were included in the perfect amount or well over the daily value. There were a couple differences that will need to be supplemented in other ways.
Choline in the pill was 10mg and the recommended daily value is 450mg. That's a huge difference for such an important vitamin. Choline is a huge contributor to helping the brain develop and luckily 2 eggs fullfil about half the daily requirement.
Potassium was lacking by about 2,290 mg and the calcium level was under by about 800 mg as well as slight deficiencies in Vitamin K, chloride, phosphorus, magnesium, iodine and fluoride.
Again, these are things we can supplement in other ways and this prenatal vitamin still seemed like a great choice.

For lunch I had leftover cabbage shell tacos from last night. So good!

No workout today.

For dinner we had an organic salad and I re-created hot and sour seafood soup from our sushi lunch the other day. I used zucchini as noodles, shrimp, cod, mushrooms and onions. This was a recipe that I will definitely have to record one of these days. It is also an excellent meal for a person who is sick.

Iron, Working out and Apple Cider Vinegar

Iron
The book I mentioned in the last post, The 100 Healthiest Foods to Eat During Pregnancy by Jonny Bowden Ph.D. C.N.S. and Allison Tannis MS, has a great list of what vitamins you should be taking in your first trimester. One of the major supplements a pregnant woman needs is iron. It not only keeps your energy levels up but it is obviously needed for red blood cells and circulation. Apparently I will create 4 more pounds of blood throughout this endeavor. May not sound crazy to some, but I picture 4 lbs. of blood in bags on a counter and think that it seems a little surprising.
So spinach, according to this book, is a great source of iron. I am also reading that pretty soon I may want to vomit when I look at food or smell it or think about it or hear about it.....
I decided to take advantage and eat what I can, while I still can.
This morning for breakfast I had my 2 eggs and 2 pieces of bacon as usual and a handful of spinach wilted with sauteed red onion on the side. It was good and I will try to get it in every morning as long as I can stand it.

Working Out
Todays CrossFit WOD:
Scaled down - more because of 95 degree heat than anything and a little headache

10 min.
EMOTM (every minute on the minute)
2 clean and jerks 85 lbs. (rx was 105 for me)

Row
Jumping air squat
1 arm kettlebell clean and jerk 1/2 pood (rx was 1 pood)
Thruster 55 lbs. (rx was 65)
Flying push-ups
Rest

1 minute of each for 3 rounds
total rep score: 176

Apple Cider Vinegar and lunch
Today's lunch will be 2 hot dogs from our meat CSA (always pastured pork) with organic ketchup and organic mustard and an organic salad with organic balsamic and olive oil that is also, you guessed it, organic. I will be drinking water and doing extra peeing today as seems to be the trend. I will also be making an apple cider beverage that I am addicted to.
This apple cider beverage contains about 1/2 tbsp Braggs organic and unfiltered apple cider vinegar, a splash of organic orange juice (any fruit juice is amazing) and a little bit of stevia sweetened to taste. It is the most refreshing and amazing, sweet tart beverage! I recently became addicted to this over my usual several cups of iced coffee. What great timing too. I have been trying to read up on ACV to see if it's possible to overdo it, especially when pregnant.
After reading this article saying that the majority of the health claims and cures made about ACV are unsupported, I looked for others that would report the damage it causes. The biggest concern about drinking it is for contact with bacteria in the unfiltered and unpasteurized vinegar. I have been drinking fermented drinks for a while with no problem and believe that I am healthy enough to not have to worry about it. As long as it's not hurting me or my zygote, I am okay with it. I found nothing addressing it in my 100's book either.
The following info came from the Bragg Live Foods website:

10 - Is Apple Cider Vinegar safe to take during pregnancy?

Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar is safe to take during and after pregnancy. It helps to rid the body of toxins and may even help with any complications that may arise or have arisen with the pregnancy. It supports regularity and promotes digestion.

11 - Is it possible to take too much Apple Cider Vinegar?

There is no clear limit as to how much Apple Cider Vinegar an individual can or should ingest. However, one should remember that, as with anything in life, one can have "too much of a good thing". It is recommended that an individual take the ACV cocktail three times a day for maximum results. The cocktail consists of 1 to 2 tsps. organic raw ACV mixed with 1 to 2 tsps. raw honey in a glass of distilled water.

INTERNAL BENEFITS/EXTERNAL BENEFITS:

Rich in enzymes & potassium
Support a healthy immune system
Helps control weight
Promotes digestion & ph Balance
Helps soothe dry throats
Helps remove body sludge toxins
Helps maintain healthy skin
Helps promote youthful, healthy bodies
Soothes irritated skin
Relieves muscle pain from exercise

Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar
pH = 3.075
Concentration/Strength = 63 grain
Acetic Acid = 5.14 %
Potassium = 11mg/Tbsp. <2% DRV / RD



Naturally Gluten Free

Dinner
We ate grass-fed beef tacos on organic cabbage with all the other organic fixings (except cheese). I also made a spanish rice out of cauliflower which turned out awesome!

Here we go....

Okay. So I was expecting a period and just had some cramping instead, all day Thursday. I even said to one of the girls at the crossfit gym that if I did the day's workout, it would probably make me start my period. Nothing happened all day and I was continuously checking every time I wiped when I peed. I completely was unaware of the fact that I had peed way more times that day than normal. So when my husband got home at around 11pm, we ate dinner... watched some tv shows and then started to clean up for bedtime. I had to pee again, so I went upstairs thinking "Maybe I'll just pee on a stick." I truly did not expect any difference from the other 20 or so I'd wasted money on.
I decided to turn it over so I couldn't see and set it down while I went into the bedroom for a few minutes. When I came back and looked, I was disappointed because I just saw two lines and no plus sign. Then I glanced over to the key and saw that two lines meant "pregnant." Instead of skipping a heartbeat, I had a really big one that sent extra blood flowing into my head and I'm pretty sure my eyes bugged out for a second. I don't know what I said afterward, but I came running down the stairs to my husband (who was zombie-like tired at this point) and he thought something was really wrong. I showed him the stick and he seemed to think I had doctored the stick somehow or that it was broken. In all fairness, it was past midnight at this point.
It was very exciting and I wasn't able to go to sleep for some time that night. I was thinking and planning and fantasizing.

So, yesterday became day one of diet strictness. I will have to relinquish that block of raw gruyere in the fridge that I was almost done with. Gonna have to dump the half-n-half and say goodbye to coffee, which I did about a week ago when I ran out of my favorite espresso beans. Sadly, I will also not be enjoying the pork potstickers I have been gazing at and saving for a designated "cheat" moment. "Wah Wahhhhhhhh....."

For breakfast I had 2 eggs and 2 pieces of bacon as usual (always organic eggs and anti-biotic/hormone free bacon- at the very least). My husband cooked my eggs with a bunch of veggies thrown in as a scramble, which I don't really like but of course I ate it. He says "you're gonna have to have greens every day with your breakfast" and I said, "I will find a better way." I took my standard vitamins which have included folic acid since we started trying in November, fish oil, a multi and vitamin D. For the most part there have been a couple others in there and I think we must be low on some.
Obviously the number of vitamins will be beefed up soon.

We went and had sushi for lunch. We enjoyed some hot and sour soup, seaweed salad, a sashimi sampler and a roll (which had very little rice) with what seemed like 7 different types of fish on it. It was a little bit of a celebratory meal. Afterward we went to Barnes and Nobles and picked up two books which I am already a huge fan of:

Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?: The Surprising Science of Pregnancy by Jena Pincott

and

The 100 Healthiest Foods to Eat During Pregnancy by Jonny Bowden Ph.D. C.N.S. and Allison Tannis MS

I've already started both of them and am very excited.

For dinner we ate pastured pork spareribs that came in our meat CSA and caesar salad with the husband's homemade dressing. Homemade sugar and dairy-free vanilla-chip cream ices (it's a new york thing) for dessert and then we called it a night.

I was still a little crampy all day. It was mainly a tightening feeling inside. I also had some seriously lethal gas and was peeing all day. I also peed on another stick and the second line was a little more faint than the last one, but I'm not worried. Going to sign up for insurance on Monday morning and try to get into a doctor's office if only to confirm that I am indeed pregnant and hopefully find out how on earth this could have happened? (just kidding)