Tag: momlife

Some news…

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So I’ve been pretty absent over the past couple of months. I can’t believe it’s almost the end of June already!

The past few months have crawled and gone at lightning speed at the same time. Our big news is that we are expecting a new addition to our family. We are obviously delighted and it’ll make for an extra special Christmas for us.

Now, when I was pregnant with Michael I was very sick. 24/7 nausea. This time has been even worse with full blown Hyperemesis. I’ve been medicated since 7 weeks because if I’m not I’ll throw up 10+ plus a day. Which has happened lots of days even with the medication. It’s been a long road and it’s only now at 17 weeks that I have some relief from the constant nausea. Although I’m still likely to throw up at any time. More than once I’ve been sick on the side of the road.  I’ve also been suffering with headaches a lot. With Michael I was hospitalized with migraines but much later in the pregnancy so I’m hoping it’s not a bad sign of things to come.

IMG_0182My sanity has most definitely been tested over the past couple of months and it’s been difficult to look after an active toddler and to try and stay active myself when I can but fingers crossed the worst of it is now over.

In terms of prenatal care I have even shocked myself with this news. Waiting times for hospital appointments here can take all day. The minimum hospital stay for giving birth is three nights… so I’ve decided to try for a home birth. This also means that all my prenatal appointments take place at my house. This saves hours of waiting around in a waiting room. So far so good. I get a scan at every appointment, have had all my bloods and tests done and I have also had Harmony testing and everything is great. A home birth means no drugs of course for labour but I’ve started practicing gentle birthing and I’m hoping this and the birthing pool will get me through. For the actual birth I’ll have a doctor, a doula and a midwife. This is far more hands on care than I would have in a hospital setting so unless there’s an emergency situation this bump will be making its way into the world at home. Any advice for this is welcome!!

I’ve tried to work out as much as I can and have taken up yoga to help with my back. So far so good and weight gain has been minimal in comparison to my first pregnancy.

So other than all of that it’s only 10 days until we fly home to Ireland for our summer trip. It’s the first time Michael has understood the notion of going on a plane so he’s very excited. Maybe not so excited about the change in temperature!!

Im really looking forward to a month in Ireland as we will be staying in Puerto Rico for Christmas again this year with a newborn. There will be a lot of catching up with family and friends and we have a wedding too so I’ll be trying to cover the bump for that.

Worlds Best 10K

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So after a month of nights out and shenanigans with visitors and St Patricks Day in 2016 I decided that it was time to get back running. I had done a bit before I had Michael and had found it hard to get into a routine here in Puerto Rico for getting out for one. It is so hot it turned me off exercising outdoors.

Anyway, during a few drinks.. (of course!!), myself and one of the Irish girls decided we would give it a go and do it together for motivation. So we downloaded the couch25k app and off we went. It was amazing to see how you could push yourself each week and slowly build it up. It wasn’t exactly easy and our husbands joked about how slow we were going and how it was taking us 52 weeks instead of 10 but we got there! We did a 5k together in November in San Juan and were really happy with our time of under 30 minutes considering it was our first one post babies.

So running on adrenaline that day we decided the next step was to do a 1ok. We looked online and seen a race called the Worlds Best 1oK was in San Juan on February 26th and decided to go for it. http://www.wb10ksanjuan.org

We did not take into consideration that between Thanksgiving, Christmas and visitors that we wouldn’t have sufficient time to get out running.

5 weeks out we decided lets do it and give it a shot. I researched online and condensed the 5-10k programme from 10 to 5 weeks and we gave it our all. After a pretty comfortable 9k two weeks ago we thought we were on track and ready. The reality is that we were under trained in terms of fitness but over trained in terms of effort and had tired legs on the day.

Usually after about 15 minutes into a run I find my stride and comfort pace and can continue for another 30 minutes comfortably before the last slog is a bit of a chore but yesterday that comfort never came. I felt tired all the way. The race was organised poorly with runners and walkers going at the same time – no mile markers at the start or during the race. We were trying to pass walkers and people with buggys. We were jumping over water bottles, no idea at what point of the race we were at and the route was different on the day to what was advertised on their website. My trusty Garmin watch wouldn’t pick up a satellite signal and I couldn’t see our mile pace. We felt every step. We finished but we were exhausted and feeling like we never wanted to run again at the end.

I’m now determined to rest for a couple of weeks with some short runs and go for a 10k in a few weeks to see if we can improve on the time just for myself. My stubbornness is kicking in. Next step then is another 5k to improve on our time.

Any advice from any seasoned runners?