Birth Story: August 11, 2014

This is one glimpse of my life I do not want to forget either. I had decided that I was going to do the whole natural birth thing. I didn't think it would be a spiritual experience, or take any classes. My husband and I just decided I was hard core enough that I could do it. It was totally a pride issue thing for me, I will admit it.

I was a week and a day over due. I was so over being pregnant. My last appointment I almost cried when he told me I had to wait until Sunday August 10th (it was Wednesday). That Sunday we woke up, and were just hanging out. They told me it would be around 7 o'clock. We were planning on going to my aunt's house for my cousin's birthday dinner, and to pass the time. I was actually really nervous but calm. We were just chillin' and around 4:00 p.m. the hospital called me and said that I could come whenever. And we were all packed and ready, hopped in the car and were there in within twenty minutes. The car ride there was so crazy! I couldn't stop smiling, but was trembling inside at the same time. I had no idea what to expect.

We rode the elevator upstairs with our bags in tow. Registered and got our bracelets. They took me back to the room. It was actually a huge room with comfy couches, a stability ball, squat bar, and the regular hospital room stuff. The nurse struggled to get an IV in place... It took about 5 stabs and 2 nurses to get us there. It was about 5 o'clock and the nurses changed. I loved our delivery nurse. She was so sweet and helpful.

They gave me a dose of Sydatec to start me. They had to wait 3 hours before they would check me again. Bryce went and got dinner, we watched The Croods, and relaxed. I was having some contractions but nothing too bad. The nurse came in about 9:00 pm and checked up on how we were doing. I was effaced enough that the decided to give the doc a call. He came about 10:00 and broke my water. That was the most disgusting feeling ever... EVER. Haha, I felt really bad for everyone who had to clean up after me. Because I was contracting well enough they decided to not give me Pitocin unless I needed it. Which I am so grateful!

The contractions started coming on strong. We walked the hall once, tried to sit on the stability ball. I have never hated a stability ball so much. That is saying a lot because I have done a ton of stability ball workouts. I started getting the labor shakes bad and had to stay sitting down. I kept contemplating how I would love to have an epidural. At one point I told Bryce I couldn't keep going and to call the nurse. I was thinking about getting an epidural. He told me that I had to make the call myself. As I stared at the call button I talked myself out of it. I was hard core and I could do it.

The nurse came in to check on me. I had dilated from a 5-7 in 30 minutes. I was chugging right along. Bryce was so helpful, and encouraging as I was "gruting/screaming" through the contractions.. He held my hand the whole way and kept my spirits up. After another half an hour the nurse came again and I had only dilated to and 8. She was worried that I was going to plateau, she laid me on my side with my right leg bent over my left. I clung to the side of the bed and screamed. It was the most painful thing I have ever experience. That contraction was the most painful experience of my life. I rolled back on my back, where the nurse check me again. 10. I had dilated from an 8 to a 10 in one contraction. No wonder I wanted to die. I was surprised that I wasn't swearing or mean. Instead I was very apologetic. I felt bad for what everyone else had to do for me. And the messes they had to clean up. lol

She called the doctor to tell him I was going to be ready soon. Everyone was surprised at how fast I was moving along. They originally told me that he would be born sometime Monday evening. It was barely Monday morning 1:30 am. She hurried and prepped the room, called all the important people and my world was spinning. I pushed through one contraction and the doctor showed up. The baby's heart rate dropped and they put me on oxygen and made me wait to push. The doctor was still getting dressed as I was ready to push again. He finally was ready and I was ready to push.

I pushed through another 2 contractions and he was out. 2:18 am, four hours of labor. Not to shabby ehhh? It was amazing how your body does what is supposed to do. The doctor pulled him out and he stretched out. Dr. Fowers couldn't believe how big he was. Everyone had be nervous that he was going to be small, but then he stretched out... that little guy had a wingspan! Bryce's first words were, "He's going to be a discus thrower!" As I held him for the first time the first thing I told him was that I was sorry but he was going to be an only child. Haha

The took him and cleaned him off. Bryce was snapping pictures. He weighed 8 lbs. 8 oz, measured 21 inches long (2 days later... he was 21.8 inches, I don't think he grew that much in 2 days...). He was perfect. He cried for a few minutes and then calmed down. I never felt so relieved and happy holding a baby.

We decided to name him Brooks Wayne Hall. Holly (my youngest sister) found the name online. And we loved it! Bryce was sold when we googled the name and most of the famous people were NHL and MLB players. He I think he wants a buddy to watch and play sports with him. :) We decided on Wayne, because that is my dad's middle name. My dad has been the greatest dad, and he never had a son. He is a great example for Bryce and I. My dad is going to be the best grandpa and an awesome example for Brooks. 

The next 2 days were a blur at the hosptial. People in and out bringing gifts (the bike was the best! haha), hospital food, nursing, sleeping when we could, trying to figure out the whole postpartum thing. Bryce changed his diaper, I knew he was going to be the most perfect dad. He got peed on once or twice. But it was great! We loaded him up Tuesday (after being taught how to use the car seat) and drove home! It was the best/hardest few days of my life. I do not ever want to forget them.

That time I was pregnant.

It has been a long time since I have posted. Life has been crazy crazy! I woke up this morning and thought to myself how grateful I am to be Brooks' mom. My sister is the best journaler (is that a word??) and I want to be able to look back at this time when Brooks is so small, so I am back blogging about our happy healthy life with a new addition.

To start out from the beginning, last November everything was seeming perfect. I was running well, school was great, I had the best jobs. All the sudden my body was feeling weird. I kept telling Bryce that something was off... finally after a couple weeks I decided to take a test... at work. Dumb idea. There I sat in the restroom of my work starting at that test. I called Bryce and told him. Of course his class was about to start (last class before finals week) so he said, "well my class is going to start, we will figure this out later." I was so overwhelmed! I left work and had to give a presentation for a class on multiple sclerosis, needless to say I was not completely focused during that presentation. Looking back now I probably did not handle that situation the best. Haha... I was so mad at Bryce, I didn't talk to him for 2ish weeks.

Christmas Eve was when we decided to tell our families. Before that point my sister knew, and Bryce's brother knew. In my family it is a Christmas Eve we all open pajamas. I made this little plaque for my dad and put in a little sleeper to announce to my dad, his then fiance, and my sister. This video is priceless.

January 3 was our 10 week ultrasound. We got to see the little guy! (after I got a full on exam with Bryce in the room, the best way to get you ready for pregnancy. You lose all your modesty). I didn't cry... I just stared at the monitor. It was finally real. The best was when the doctor looked around to see if there was twins. And luckily there was just one! That was a relief.

We asked our families to not tell anyone until we were in the second trimester. I did not want to be the lady who was pregnant for an eternity. I honestly I was embarrassed. My dad was so excited he asked that at his wedding (January 26th....I think) he could announce it.  Bryce was also very excited to start telling everyone. At the wedding Bryce blabbed to my cousin (who is a loud mouth hahaha) and he told his mom. My dad's sisters are very vocal and before I knew it. I was not sure I was ready for all the attention. My favorite is how everyone all the sudden "knew I was pregnant", or "I though you had gained weight" (btw don't ever say that to a pregnant woman). To add to it during the wedding lunch he announced it over lunch to everyone. Talk about everyone staring at you.

I stayed pretty active through my pregnancy, I ran the Moab 1/2 marathon with my sister, and cousin Ray-ray! I finished in 2.00:07. It was a bummer that for my first 1/2 to not come in under 2 hours. But considering the circumstances and it was my first ever half., I can't complain. That was a great weekend with friends and family. It was also the week before we found out the gender of our baby!

The ultrasound was so fun! I realized then that I really did love this little guy. And I was starting to get excited for our future family. When the ultrasound tech said he was a boy, Bryce exclaimed I knew it, and gave me a high five. He was already bashful during the ultrasound and was hiding his face from us!

May 3rd Bryce graduated from USU! I am still so proud! :) I didn't announce anywhere publicly that I was pregnant, and I didn't want any pictures.So I used his diploma to hide the baby bump. We started new adventures, I worked in Ogden at a Cardiac Rehab Center. It was an amazing experience and made time fly by that last trimester! We found a great schedule: wake up, go to work, come home, have a healthy dinner, and go to the gym. I ran up until 36 weeks, and then I walked on a super high incline. Hours and hours on that incline, luckily Gold's has a cardio room to watch movies while I walked.

In June, Bryce took my spot in Ragnar. That was his punishment for me being pregnant (I know realize that living with a pregnant lady would be enough of a punishment). He ran so well! Our van fell apart...It was very stressful to not be able to help and run. Needless to say we are signed up next year! (Bryce won't admit it, but he secretly loves to run, and I love it!)

At 35 weeks I was measuring small so the doctor decided to do a size check (I didn't mind though.... I got to see him again!) After seeing this picture I was worried that he was going to have unproportional lips! But he was measuring great. I just am tall and didn't gain a ton of weight. As August ticked closer I was really getting sick of being pregnant. I was so ready to get back to working out and to meet our little guy. I kept going to the doctor and he would say... it could be anytime now. I got to the appointment three days before my due date and we finally started talking about inducing. We made another appointment for the next Wednesday to check up, and if he had not come yet we would then schedule to induce labor.

Of course the appointment came, and we didn't have the baby. So Bryce and I decided that we would go have a great weekend with my sister and her boyfriend. We hiked to the top of the wind-caves, and had an awesome fire with tinfoil dinners. They got to hang out in the hammock and I sat there very very pregnant. I will tell the birth story in another post!

Overall I was really lucky, the pregnancy was so easy. I was able to teach spin, run, lift, hike and basically do whatever I wanted. I wasn't ever sick really (except the food poisoning episode). And I gained the appropriate amount of weight. It couldn't have been an easier pregnancy. :)

Day 2 and Graduate School

So last nights ride didn't actually happen. Sometimes life just happens instead right..? So I have pictures to post from TONIGHT's Brick...

12 mile ride and then a tough 3 miles. Right now in Logan there is like a freaking ton of construction.. awful... and what do they put on the roads.. chip and seal... horrible to bike on. Yuck.

I took it upside down... oops. lol 

It was a great ride though.. Brooke and I talked about our favorite Grey's anatomy characters and how we are excited for the new season :)

For dinner tonight we had Mango Chicken Stir Fry. Yumm!! I chopped everything up after work before my grad school orientation. That way when Bryce go home he just had to plop it in the pan a stir it around. (That is why there is a lack of cooking pictures.) It was super delicious though!

As I mentioned earlier I went to a Graduate School Orientation... super duper boring. Slightly informative but mostly boring. After that I went to go pick up my books. Crazy thing they only had ONE of my books. I was slightly upset. I guess the reason that they don't have the books for my other class is because only 3 people are taking it and that is including me. (My mind was blown a little... definitely going to get a lot of attention in that class ehh?)

As for my Abs of the day I did Medball sit-ups, Side crunches, pillars on the med ball and around the worlds. Hopefully this is gonna pay off... ehh?

Do you like fruit in your stir-fry's?

New challenge... 60 days to a 6 pack

Lately I have been feeling the urge to really polish my nutrition and add a lot of core work to my workouts. It sounds really vain (and it is). Oh well. I talked to my husband last night and formulated a plan. He is going to give me
ab workouts. I am going to plan out my meals and try and get in more high protein snacks. We went to the gym last night to start with my ab workouts... he is brutal I literally almost cried.

So here we go for my nutrition plan for today:

Breakfast 7:30 am: 1/2 cup old fashion oatmeal, 2 scoops of Larry Scott strawberry protein powder, 4 strawberries, banana, 2 egg whites and 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk. (CHECK)
Snack 10:00 am: Protein Shake
Lunch 1:00 pm: Chicken Salad Sandwiches (older post recipe)
Snack 4:00 pm: Greek yogurt
Dinner 7:30-8:00ish pm: Shrimp taco salad :)

As for today's work out. I will post about it after.. maybe have some picture. I have lifting, abs (that Bryce gave me.... ouch) and a BRICK (bike/run). Brooke and I are headed out at 6:30 tonight to do a 12 mile bike and then an interval workout. I really hope that Bryce didn't decide to unplug my Garmen again or I will totally flip out. Maximus should be excited though He is going to get to play with his BFF/Girlfriend Mia (Brooke's Dog) while we are doing our brick tonight.

For the abs I am going to do 100 leg lifts, 200 Russian Twists, Medball boat hold 1 min, 1 min plank each direction and 10 superman's (each way)


This week I have been teaching a Stability Ball Class on Monday they did a full body circuit and were totally loving it hahahahaha Today I am thinking that we are going to do a lower body circuit... I swear SB makes you more sore than anything else.

Have you guys every really worked with a Stability ball?

What is your least favorite ab workout? and your Favorite?

Speed work, sweating and shopping.

Today is a day just full off "s's". It started out with an awesome day of speed work for our tri. Brooke and I met up at the track at 8:30 and did 2x400/1200/400. The goal was to run the 400's at 5k pace and the 1200's about 15 seconds slower than 5k pace. It was a quick to the point workout. I didn't waste anytime because the doors to the bathroom were locked and I had to go. Needless to say I hit the times I was looking for.

I hoped into the car and picked up my bountiful basket. It was awesome. I love love love getting them. It makes it so easy because then I don't have to pick what is for dinner, I just base all of our meals off what we get in the basket. This week we got:

- kale

- lettuce 

- 4 tomatoes

- cabbage 

- cauliflower 

- bananas

- blue berries

- plums (like 8 of them)

- 2 bags of cherries 

- cantaloupe 

- huge purple grapes (I will post pictures later) 

I got home and did 25 minutes of yoga for runners on YouTube. I think Maximus was a little confused at what I was doing; but he did find it entertaining to lay on his back underneath me and paw at me while I was doing downward dog. 

As I finished up Bryce came home from selling more protein we wrote out our meals for the week (based on the bountiful basket) and headed to the grocery store. While we were there we found a new favorite treat. Little frozen yogurts made by healthy choice. The literally tasted like strawberry ice cream. Delicious! And yes we did smile...

I slacked off and didn't cook anything really for lunch, unless Papa Murphy's counts? We tried a new flavor Thai chicken... Mmmmmmhmmmm. So good. I guess I did throw together Bryce's favorite salad that is adapted from Our Best Bites: 

Spinach Walnut Salad with Citrus

Ingredients:

-bag of baby spinach

- 1/4 cup of red onion

- 1/3 cup of raisins 

- 1/2 cup of toasted chopped walnuts 

- 2 oranges (peeled and chopped up) 

Directions 

- Toss all ingredients together and top with your favorite dressing (I always love balsamic vinaigrette). 

Bikes and Boo Boos

I am a day late on this one... But here we go anyway. Yesterday.. Haha I had my first encounter with the tar on my bike. We had gone on a 15 mile bike ride and were headed back to campus... (Why all college campuses are on a hill beats me). The last mile is a straight uphill shot to campus. As Brooke and I cursed our way up the hill I downshifted a little too hard and my chain fell off. I tried to clip out but I haven't had a ton of experience. Just picture a cow tipping over in slow motion. That was me... In front of all the construction workers. Haha luckily I just scuffed up my elbow... And yes Melanie I was wearing my helmet! Haha the best part is my husband Bryce went mountain biking last night up green canyon with a friend and totally ate it and scrapped up his knee, back, ear and helmet pretty good! Thank goodness for ibuprofen. We are quite the pair...

Enough about us eating gravel lets get to what we ate for dinner. It is one our favorites adapted from blog.naturebox.com/post/35207819367/harvest-chicken-salad.  I just changed it a little bit. We didn't have any apple so to give it a crunch and add some veggies I put in two stocks of celery. (I have to hide celery in food so Bryce will eat it. If not he will only touch it if it is smothered in peanut butter). Along with our sandwiches cooked some carrots because Maximus loves to chomp on them. But he leaves a mess of carrots all over the floor. #firstworldproblems

Harvest Chicken Salad Sandwiches

Serves 4 

Ingredients 

- 1 pound of cooked chicken breast

- 1/2 cup diced red onion

- 1/2 cup diced celery

- 2/3 cup grapes, halved

- 1/4 cup sliced almonds 

- 1/2 cup Greek yogurt 

- 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice 

- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

- Salt and pepper to taste

- whole wheat bread 

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients (except bread). Mix together and then serve on wheat bread. 

*you can also serve over spinach for a salad 

Failed at Blogging.

So I have not done as well at this blogging thing as I really would like to! So here I am recommitting.
What has happened in the last 3 months:

-I graduated with my B.S. in Exercise Science

-I got to go to Texas and see an old friend and watch my Husband kick some booty throwing far!

-I celebrated my birthday with my family! They know me so well! I LOVE LOVE LOVE watermelon. Nothing is better. EVER.

-I started training for my first sprint triathlon. I have never been so excited about training in my whole life (today I am doing mile repeats and a little less than a mile swim... and I cannot wait to get off work to do it!)

-Bryce and I adopted a new member of our family!! Meet Maximus... my future running buddy! I took him on a 15 minute run. He loved it... but was so so so tired after. Haha We love him.

-I had the awesome chance to run Ragnar with my whole family and some great friends. We laughed, ran, sweat, got really ornery, ate and ended up having so so so much fun.

-Last update is I finally took the ACSM Health Fitness Specialist test and passed. Pretty excited that I don't have to pay membership dues for another 3 years.. haha as they would say on twitter #expensive.

Random side note it is my 7 month anniversary!! It has been crazy with ups and downs... and I need to be better at writing down our adventures. I am publicly posting my goal of blogging (they say if you write down your goals and have support from friends and family you are more likely to be successful. This is a double wammy).