Pregnancy (so far): The good, the bad, and the strange

Besides taking weekly(ish) belly photos, I haven't done much in terms of documenting pregnancy. However, it occurred to me that at some point, someone might ask me a question or I might be pregnant again. If that time does come, I'll be mad at myself for not writing these things down! So the function of this blog post is simply to document some of the things that I have been thinking and experiencing (so far)! Most of these thoughts are random, but I don't think any of them are "TMI". Either way, I put the bump pic at the top for those who aren't into my random thoughts. :)

Here is the bump at 33 weeks, 2 days:

The good: 

- I actually really like having a pregnant belly. I haven't had a need to don a 2-piece swimsuit (duh, winter in Minnesota!), but if I did, I think I would feel pretty comfortable doing so! The reservations I normally feel ("I look bloated from lunch," or, "Man I need to do crunches more") aren't an issue because those things just don't show through my belly. Thanks, baby and uterus!

- Running (exercising in general) has (for the most part) felt really good! My running pace has gone from a 9:00-10:00 pace to about an 11:00 pace at 33 weeks, and I am running about 4 miles each time. I have been running 3 times a week consistently since I have gotten pregnant (didn't hurt that I was training for a 10-mile race when I got pregnant). This may not sound like much to some, but this is more consistent than I usually am!
- I was never *super* tired in the first trimester. I started laying down around 9:00 pm and was always asleep by 10:00 pm during the first 12-13 weeks, but I never felt the need to crawl under my desk and take a nap in the middle of the day! BUT, I completely feel for those who do feel that way!
- I was never *super* nauseous in the first trimester either. Again, I completely feel for those who have this unfortunate experience!
- I love to feel the baby move!! So cool. Since about 30 weeks, I have been able to feel body parts, and it is so fun to guess what they are ("Is that a butt or a foot??").
- Bella Band is the best $10 or $15 investment ever!
- I love baby gear, I could browse Amazon all day. Can't wait to start using all of this great stuff!! Amazon's registry works really well, and it is universal.
- I feel like I won the lottery getting to ask for a bunch of maternity clothes for Christmas. I haven't had to buy more than a couple of shirts and a Bella Band (best investment ever!). I also don't think you need that many maternity clothes. I don't have or need a huge wardrobe to begin with, but I have been OK with 1 pair of jeans (still wearing my regular jeans with a Bella Band as well), 3 pairs of work pants, 2 sweaters, 5 long sleeve shirts, 3 tank tops, 2 blouses, 4 t-shirts (maybe that is a lot?). At 33 weeks, I still wear regular pants (with Bella Band) and regular shirts on occasion. Once I can no longer mix in regular clothes, I am OK with wearing the same outfits over and over!
- Lululemon's cool racerback tanks have been perfect for working out and still fit awesome now. Tighter, stretchy tanks have been best for working out for me... t-shirts are not flattering and don't stay put. Workout capris have been fine the whole time. No need to plop down a ton of money on maternity workout gear... if anything, just use it as an excuse to buy another tank top from Lulu!!

The bad:
- Thankfully, not much in this category!
- I have to say, I do miss having a beer every now and again. I think I will partake in a few Leinenkugel's this summer, if I had to guess!
- I wish I hadn't been so stinkin' busy during this pregnancy! In addition to a full-time job, I have written the lion's share of a dissertation, taught my first class, and am still working on various graduate school projects. By the end of the pregnancy, I will (hopefully) have secured a job for next year and graduated with my PhD! It'll all be worth it when Charlie gets here, but I haven't been able to think about being pregnant as much as I'd like!
- Heartburn, from about week 30 on. Not all the time and not insurmountable, but not fun!
- Finding a daycare. They are expensive, and there is no hope that any daycare will ever meet all of my criteria!

The strange: 

- I no longer trust the guidelines of "about a pound per week" of weight gain from week 20 or so on. My experience was that I was on the low end of weight gain right at first, gained a ton from weeks 20-26 (I was NOT happy about this!), and for the last few weeks, I haven't gained hardly anything. Overall, I am on track for total gain right in the middle of the average range (30 pounds), so my advice to others would be that any guideline is rough at best and to not freak out if your doctor/midwife isn't telling you to be worried.
- Finding a doctor is usually a very easy experience for me, as I am pretty easy-to please and laid back. However, I am kind of picky about doctors all of a sudden (which I think is warranted!). Derek and I changed from our group of doctors to a group of midwives late in the game (around 30 weeks), and I am so glad we did! Worth it.
- I never expected how much the "girls" would hurt! This has been fairly consistent throughout pregnancy, although it was worse during the first trimester. They only hurt while running, though. Could be worse!
- For awhile, I peed a little when I coughed, sneezed, laughed, etc. (I noticed it around 22 weeks) This stopped though when I started doing kegel exercises. These exercises have also helped with pelvic soreness I was feeling after running as I started the 3rd trimester. After taking a week off of running and being more reliable about doing these apparently very important exercises, I have not had either of these issues!
- I'm not freaked out about getting the baby out (yet). So far, I feel really good about where I am at mentally and physically, how Derek will be as a coach/cheerleader/caretaker, and how the midwives will support us. I totally thought I would be flipping out!
- I have had a bit of swelling in my feet/ankles, which started earlier this week. The weird part -- running seems to be the thing which has the quickest impact in terms of reducing swelling. I'm sure staying well-hydrated also helps, in addition to other things.
- Cloth diapers -- way more complicated than I thought they would be! So many types, brands, accessories! Still, now that I think I have a good plan together, so fun to shop for them!
- Maternity clothes aren't very high quality, no matter where you get them from. I love my stuff from A Pea in the Pod (on sale around Thanksgiving), but most of it is not awesome quality (e.g., dress pants not lined, sweaters pilling a bit). This has been consistent across the Destination Maternity brands, Gap Maternity, Old Navy, all of the brands I have tried.
- Gap brands keep their maternity stuff with the baby clothes. I get it but still think it's weird. And some department stores (like JC Penney) don't even carry maternity or don't carry very much (Kohl's).


Anyway, just some random thoughts that I don't want to forget later! Can't wait to see what the next 6.5 (more? less?) will be like... who knows -- maybe I will have to completely change my list!

Cooking for a Month, Take 3

Hello everyone! I thought that I would document and post my third adventure of "cooking for a month"... I tried to take more pictures of the actual process! Yes, it got a little messy! As I was taking pictures at one point, Derek asked if I was actually going to post the picture with the mess in the background. I hadn't really thought about it, but I guess it's an important part of keeping it real, right??

 First of all, this time took 6.5 or so hours in all, although this time it was spread out across the day. I also felt more tired this time because I did nearly all of the cooking and cleaning (Derek was busy with baby-related projects) and because my bump is getting a bit bigger all the time!

I started out by making pizza dough... 

...and chopping vegetables until we had to go to our hospital tour. When we got home, I finished chopping and made a sauce for the lasagna.

While on the other side of the stove I was boiling water for lasagna noodles and sauteing onions for I can't remember what. 

I used the pizza dough to make frozen mushroom and olive pizzas. (I tried one last night and today for lunch... it was great!)

Then I took Layla to the vet. She was NOT happy! Here she is plotting an escape. (She is fine but had a bladder infection! Poor girl.)

When I returned home I assembled mushroom and eggplant parmesan (I had previously dunked the sliced eggplant and mushroom into egg and breadcrumbs and roasted the slices). This was one of our faves from last month! 

I also assembled 2 pans of lasagna...

At this point I had to go BACK to the vet to pick Layla up. (They didn't have enough urine to test at first... I know, TMI!) This was basically "halftime"... I was about halfway done as I had finished enchiladas (no pic... sorry!), lasagna, eggplant and mushroom parmesan, and frozen pizzas.

When I got home, I started on an asparagus risotto (vegan, no butter!) that was super delicious when I sampled it! It has asparagus puree as well as steamed asparagus in it.

I also made Pad Thai (the real thing, I even bought tamarind paste), and chili was going on in back.

On the front burner is onion and asparagus for the asparagus puree. In the back is chili.

While this was going on, I started the batter for zucchini muffins. The pumpkin muffins from last month were very convenient to have around (the quiches were so-so), so I wanted to make some type of muffin that would also be delicious as well as go well with peanut butter. They are so yummy!

There is the cooled off Pad Thai in bags, with rice noodles.

This is the asparagus risotto, all stirred up.

Here is a bunch, not quite all, of the food. From left to right, I see enchiladas (foil covered in the back), frozen pizzas, probably sitting on top of lasagna, in the back middle is the eggplant and mushroom parm, then the Pad Thai, and chili in the containers on the right.

Individual servings of chili, and we also have a few larger containers with 2-4 servings.

Same pile of food, this time with muffins and one of the two risottos. (I made another one with farro and millet, this one with peas, not quite as excited about it but my taste test was promising!)

At this point I was a) tired and b) having trouble operating in the kitchen because there were so many dirty dishes!! I started moving food downstairs, complained to Derek, took Maggie for a walk while he cleaned, and when I got back I had just enough energy left to make this roasted red pepper and artichoke tomato sauce.

Wow! Even the replay makes me exhausted. However, I have already been reaping the benefits through the quick breakfasts I have been enjoying as well as the super easy frozen pizza. Even though I made all this food 5 days ago now, we have just started using it since we were still finishing up everything we looked last month! All in all, the food I cooked last month lasted about 5 weeks and four days!! 

Total grocery bill was under $300, I believe. Let's say $300, give or take. We had a bunch of extra arborio rice and farro... that stuff was super pricey!!

Some things I learned this month: 

- I can make this work with my own recipes (enchiladas this month)... I'll confirm this once we've actually tried the enchiladas. 

- It would be much less annoying if I didn't have a bunch of other things going on in addition to cooking. Need to pick a freed up Saturday! 

- While I am still good with cooking 8 main dishes (8 servings of each), a breakfast (about 24 servings), and a soup in one day, I can also envision a "light" version where you might just do muffins, a soup, and maybe a dinner or two and freeze all of it. That would be enough to just get you through those days when prepping for any one meal is just too time consuming or tiring.

Cooking for a month: Take 2

Well, it has been awhile since I've documented anything here, so I figured I would document my second try at cooking food for an entire month in one day. I first tried this in January, thanks to a friend who piqued my interest through her various Facebook posts about it. I chose a weekend when Derek was gone (he thought/thinks it was/is crazy!), and spent a couple hours shopping and 6-7 hours cooking. It went well and definitely paid off in more free time during the week, so this month I tried it again. This time, Derek helped, I made more food, and I tried to plan it out a bit better! So, here is how it went: 

First, I downloaded a bunch of free monthly recipe plans from onceamonthmom.com. I used the vegetarian menus. Last month, I randomly made the November 2011 menu (closest month to the one we were in of the ones that are free on the website). Well, given my love of Excel, I figured I would venture off the beaten path and make my own plan this month (with all of the recipes still coming from the same website). So I picked and chose recipes from a few different months (including our favorites from last month) to make a plan. I made a grocery list from said plan. 

Then I went grocery shopping. I went to three different grocery stores in about 2.5 hours (door to door) and spent about $250 on food. (I spend about $80/week on food normally.) Just to give an idea, I bought 7 pounds of different cheeses, 11+ pounds of beans, 36 eggs, 15 bell peppers, 4 pounds of onions, 3 bunches of asparagus...

Here are the groceries on the kitchen counter:

And here is what the fridge looked like after:

Canned/pantry items:

Then today, Derek and I cooked! We started at 9 and were all cleaned up a bit before 4. So once again it took between 6 and 7 hours, closer to 7. I thought that two of us might make it quicker, but Derek is infinitely more organized and careful about these things, which probably slowed us down during the actual cooking but will probably help later.

We started by chopping a ton of veggies: bell peppers, carrots (sliced and shredded), broccoli, cauliflower, shallots, asparagus, mushrooms, eggplant, zucchini (sliced and shredded), and onion. 

Then we cooked! I didn't do a great job taking photos of the prepared food (everything from preparing it to letting it cool to moving it down to the freezer happened in many stages), but here is a list with photos for whatever I had photos of. 

Breakfast: assuming we each eat 1 piece per breakfast (should be fine with maybe a bit of supplementing with toast, peanut butter, etc.), we should have breakfast for both of us for 21.5 days

- Pumpkin muffins (with CREAM CHEESE in the middle): 24

- Mini quiches: 19

Lunches: That was one thing I did differently this time... I made twice as much dinner (4 servings) so that we each have lunch the next day. I did make one dedicated lunch (for weekends, for instance), which was one of our favorites from last month: vegetable chowder! (I'm sure the reason it's our favorite has very little to do with all of the cheese in it. :))

- Vegetable chowder (about 10 servings) 

Dinners: each dinner has 2 batches, 4 servings per batch... since we made 9 dinners, all weekday dinners and lunches are planned except 2 (I can just make something small since we will have the soup to eat for lunch the next day).

- Eggplant and mushroom parmesan casserole (sorry so fuzzy)

- Squash wontons (a favorite from last month)

- Black bean and lentil burgers

- Fire roasted vegetables with pasta (ended up being quinoa instead of pasta because I made wwayyyy too much for the next recipe -- they should really specify whether the amounts in the recipe represent cooked or raw amounts!!)

- Roasted balsamic vegetables with quinoa

- Quesadillas (I just sorted out the ingredients... will make these on the day of)

- Chickpea wraps (kind of a Mediterranean vibe... like it should be eaten with tzatziki sauce and a pita or something): pic of what goes IN the wrap below

- Chickpea cutlets (NO IDEA what these will be like... more of an Indian take on chickpeas this time)

- Cheesy chickpeas with broccoli

... And there you have it! We will have to see what I get back in time over the course of the month from not having to cook (all you have to do is reheat, which sometimes takes awhile, but very little active effort). While it is very tiring on the day that you cook, it was well worth it last month, and I'm sure it will be this month too! All of this effort should hopefully provide more time during weekdays to... relax and work on dissertation stuff. I also have a few late nights at work this month, so it gives Derek something to make that doesn't take too much time or effort. I am hoping to get really good at this by the time baby comes it will also save us some time during the first few crazy months of parenthood!

Speaking of parenthood, here is a bump pic at 22w1d. I am currently 23w4d, and I take these photos weekly, however the most recent photo is just not the best. I need to learn that at this point there are some workout shirts that do NOT look good on my anymore!!