stress and re-vamping february goals

So...

As I previously mentioned, my father-in-law spent some time in the hospital earlier this month and had to have a heart catheterization procedure done and a stent put in. Now I'm not using that as an excuse to abandon my goals, but, I think, due to not being on my normal depression/anxiety meds due to being pregnant, I wasn't handling the stress particularly well. In fact, I was lapsing into some old self-destructive thought patterns, although I fought like hell to keep those thought patterns from translating into self-destructive behaviors.

I did have a little labor and delivery adventure last Monday. The hospital where I will be delivering baby Marc does not allow vaginal birth after Cesarean (VBAC). Since my daughter Melanie was born via Cesarean in May 2008, baby Marc will also be born via Cesarean due to their policy (I checked out some of the VBAC-friendly providers, so called, in our area, but it seems if you're a Medicaid patient and as overweight as I am your likelihood of going VBAC is slim to none regardless, so if I was going to end up with a c-section anyway, I wanted to stick with a doctor I trusted). Therefore, the OB docs at my practice do not want their repeat c-section mommas going into labor. At all. Ever. So they give the advice beginning at 20 weeks if you have more than six Braxton-Hicks (rehearsal) contractions in an hour, to call the office, and they'll likely send you down to labor and delivery to be monitored. Well, I had what I thought were thirteen Braxton-Hicks contractions in an hour (I called the office after the eighth one, and left my accounting class) so I ended up going to L/D by ambulance. I couldn't keep the doctor's office on my cell phone because service is notoriously spotty up here on campus, so I finally ducked into one of the offices and asked a secretary to notify public safety that I could potentially be having preterm labor. I get to the hospital and the nurse asks me to tell her when I'm feeling the contractions and I do, and she kept telling me, "Oh, honey, these aren't contractions, that's just the baby moving." So I'm assuming that he's just an aggressive mover and unless I see signs of real labor beginning (mucous plug, water breaking, things of that ilk), I'm just going to assume false alarm.

So I'm keeping my household-related goals, and the goal of drinking 64 oz of water a day. Staying hydrated helps to minimize the amount of Braxton-Hicks contractions I have. But for now, I'm dropping the food journaling until next month. We'll see how the goals go for this month.

Love~
Elizabeth

overwhelm

I know that when I started this blog, I declared an intention to post weekly.

Life has intervened.

On Tuesday, January 25, my father-in-law woke up sick to his stomach. A trip to the doctor revealed a flare-up of his diverticulitis. Antibiotics helped that, and I thought we'd really dodged a bullet.

Then last Sunday, he started having chest pains. We called 911 and rushed him to the hospital. Testing revealed a blockage and a mild heart attack. He had a heart catheterization procedure on Thursday, and was finally allowed to come home yesterday.

I haven't done crap with my goals. On February 1, I evaluated my goals for January (the only real weight-loss related one being not to drink any Coke) and decided that I've effectively kicked Coke. I did have a soda last Saturday when we had pizza for dinner (we were out of Hawaiian punch, and I just have to have something with flavor when we have delivery pizza), but just the one. I went right back to my soda fast. I decided that for this month, my goals were going to be to drink 64 ounces of water every day, and journal my food. I have friends who journal and enter their stuff into SparkPeople or Fitday and record their calorie content and everything. My goal is a little simpler: just to be mind*full of what I put into my mouth. I have noticed a pattern of not having dessert lately. Not even a Hershey kiss filled with caramel, which seem to be my craving of choice this pregnancy. Tonight I found myself wanting something sweet, and I've decided to have a chocolate covered chocolate-chip granola bar. This is not the old Elizabeth's idea of dessert. Well, it is, sort of, in that it's chocolate. But my old idea of dessert is cakes, candies, cookies, ice cream. Definitely not a granola bar. So I'm improving. Gradually making healthier choices. And that's the eventual goal. Slowly transition to a healthier way of eating and moving.

On the moving front, I didn't get any strength training or yoga done this week. At all. I've been a slave to my computer, playing games on Facebook. Today, I just decided that I'd had enough. The graphics on the games are so intense, they overheat my 3-year-old laptop and make it shut down without warning. They overwhelm my tenuous wireless connection and kick me offline, and just get my blood boiling. And that is most certainly not healthy.

So that's where I am. I gratefully also meet you where you are.

Till next time...
Elizabeth