Appreciation, it does a body good...

Today I've decided to take a look back and congratulate my body's journey this year. Through pregnancy, delivering a baby, feeding my little one, and dropping the baby weight, my body has had quite a ride.

Five weeks after I had Asher, I signed myself up for a half marathon and little did I know what I was going to put myself through for the next 5 months to accomplish that. All I knew was that it was going to be a perfect way to drop the extra pounds fast and I was excited to cross that 13.1 mile finish line. Let me tell you, I hate running. I loathe it with every fiber of my being. Everything inside of me screams with hate with every step I take. So imagine how training went for me... I hated every minute of it. But if anybody else hates exercise like I do, you'll understand that if we don't make a goal for ourselves, then we flat out. wont. exercise. I battled my will to stop and trained my heart out including early mornings after sleep deprivation, late nights after watching the boys all day, and squeezing in runs whenever Josh got home. My goal was met and I crossed the finish line in October with my amazing running buddy who kept me motivated at whatever the cost.

To my surprise, all the weight didn't all come off. I was still 5 pounds over. How could that be????? I killed myself after hours of running for months and months! To anyone but me it probably sounds ridiculous to be upset over 5 pounds but for doing something I hated for that long ...come on!!! So what I do is pick up the scale and move it to a different part of the bathroom where gravity is apparently lighter so it reads that I'm only 1 pound away from my goal. Also take off socks.

But I did lose 40 pounds in 8 months and that is no small feat my friend. Let's take a walk down memory lane shall we and peek at what my body looked like exactly 1 month after I had Asher...now the key to a great "before" picture is to make yourself look as hideous as possible. That means no makeup, nasty looking hair, and don't pick up the area around you for the picture. Leave it there to make you look even more like a slob. Also use your paint software skills to camouflage the fact that you chose to wear your undies for the picture and not a swimsuit. And since I am so skilled at paint, you can't even tell!

                  Sorry friends, no thigh gap or 6 pack abs to show off. Disappointed aren't you?



Its been two months since my race and those last couple of pounds are still there despite calorie counting, carefully selecting my food, and exercising 3-4 days a week. So for my mental sanity, I've decided to take a weight loss hiatus and start again in the spring. Nine months on and nine months off won't be applying to this mama but I'm okay with that. It just seems silly to not appreciate how far I've gone because of a few silly pounds.

I congratulate my body for a job well done this year! Well done body! You grew a beautiful human being inside of me, amazing work! You endured painful labor all so I could finally meet my son, thank you! You stayed strong all while enduring months of little sleep and much stress, splendid! You fed my little boy into a chunky little beefcake, wonderful job! You ran me all over the countryside to train for a 13 mile race, way to go! And a big thank you to our amazing God who made this all possible and my kiddos who are my motivation to keep up with them =)

Rediscovering My Femininity

A few weeks ago I was in Walmart scanning the aisle to find a bottle of lotion (you know, because I had no life) and I was faced with a dilemma.  On one hand I could get the cheap big bottle of lotion that reminded me of potpourri that had been sitting out for 3 years or I could get the expensive little bottle that smelled like warm vanilla sugar and sunshine. You see, the problem was that I was fighting back and forth between an economical, practical, more bang for your buck choice and the "I want to feel and smell like a fancy girl" choice. Sounds silly and yes there bigger things in this world to be concerned about but, for the moment, I missed my femininity.

 It had left somewhere between 2011 and 2013. Not even because I have a few marriage years behind me and I popped out a couple of kids (okay maybe a little).  But because I've finally came to a point in my life where I'm comfortable with myself ,which is not a bad place to be. So all the years I spent plastering my face with makeup in hopes it would hide my insecurity, they were gone. I no longer make a beeline for the cosmetic aisle to find the next new product that would all of a sudden change everything about the way I looked.

Some days I do pretty well and make an extra effort to do my hair and pick out a cute outfit. But most days I'm trying to find a t-shirt that matches my jammie pants in case someone comes over in the middle of the day. That way I won't look completely ridiculous....

It's the small things that can make a huge difference. For me, it was paying more for an ultra girly smelling lotion. For some women, it means buying underwear that doesn't come in a pack of 8. We all need that little something that makes us feel a little extra "wowza!". So on the rare occasions when we get to go out on a date or a night with the girls, we'll be ready...

 

The 5 Stages of My Martial Arguements.

I keep discovering how ridiculous I am when it comes to arguments or disagreements, more specifically with my husband. In fact I have developed stages of the post-argument that I would like to share....

The 1st Stage involves me leaving the area of the argument so I don't go all rage-a-holic crazy on the man and say something that I might seriously regret later. The place of choice is usually the bedroom or the bathroom. My options are pretty limited with kids.

Stage 2 is where I analyze the argument and imagine how I could have done better. If I got a second chance, I would have said this or done this and so on. It also gives me an opportunity to process what was said by both parties and decide whether to let it go or move onto stage 3.

Stage 3 is used to build up my confidence and get myself prepared for round two because at some point your going to have to face the music and revisit the argument. I usually use this stage to come up with about 5 strong zingers such as "Well I guess our discussion is over because your just a perfect human being" or  "It's too bad that you don't appreciate me because I've ALWAYS appreciated you". The point of  this is that when you start to feel like your losing the argument, you pull out a zinger and it's supposed to shut them right up because of the powerful and direct honesty of the statement. But you only have a few seconds so once you say it, you have to hightail it out of the room in case he comes up with something better. *bow* and *scene*.

At Stage 4 you can just use your imagination and pretend that you came up with the perfect zinger, the husband was left in the room feeling totally disgusted with himself and full of conviction, and you sit and wait until he finds you ready to apologize for his behavior.

At Stage 5 after all that processing, I am locked and loaded. Got my zinger tucked away in my holster and I am ready for action. So I usually weave my way around the house avoiding any area he might be in but always armed and ready. This is a good excuse to do those chores that need done. You see, if I keep myself busy then I don't have to be the one to initiate anything. Plus I'm always "in the area" in case he decides he wants to apologize.


Lastly we come to the conclusion which is usually connected straight to Stage 1. After all that time spent stewing and coming up with a plan, it never happens how I imagined. I don't get a second chance to redo the argument, I never used my perfect zinger, and we both end up feeling convicted for our behavior. When we've recollected ourselves, we come together and discuss our misunderstanding. And that's almost always what it is. A simple misunderstanding.

Slowly coming to a close...

I've started the slow process of weaning Asher and soon I'll be hanging up my flanges for the 2nd last time. I'm ready for some uninterrupted time with my boys but with it comes a great sadness as this chapter of a mother's life is ending. After months of feeling like a failure for not being able to nurse, I've made my peace with it. I felt like a failure, which was in reality, grief. I have since made my peace with it, continued to exclusively pump, and will soon bring out a can of formula with the cute little scoop. Breastfeeding with a bottle has been a precious gift that I was able to give both  my babies that some women were not able to do. I hear a lot of nursing mothers talk about the loss of bonding if you don't breastfeed but I don't find that to be true. Maybe holding a bottle is a little less natural looking than nursing. But as I hold a bottle to his hungry lips, I cradle my baby tightly to my body with his chubby legs draped over my lap. He stares deep into my eyes and my heart practically screams of love. It is a fierce bond and I soak it in every moment I can.

The "Ideal Weight" Lie

I am very excited to say that I am only a handful of pounds away from my goal weight! It's not my pre-pregnancy weight but it's a number that I decided I was satisfied with and it puts me in the "healthy weight range".

One of the problems with having an "ideal weight" is if you can even achieve this number (which is usually unrealistic and too low), you spend countless amounts of energy trying to maintain it when your body is practically screaming "I'm not supposed to look this way!". The big lie the "ideal weight" tells is that once we get down to that magical number, that we'll be happy or at least satisfied. But once I got there once but it was no longer good enough so the number kept getting lower. I remember I was over 10 pounds underweight before Hezekiah was born and I decided to really look in the mirror. I undressed, stepped in front of the full length mirror, and stared at myself. I didn't recognize the person staring back at me and although I was skinny, I was disappointed to find out that I didn't like how I looked. My womanly curves? Gone. My sense of self-worth? Gone. Obviously losing weight wasn't the answer I was looking for. There was something deeper going on here. I had bought the lie. In my head, I convinced myself that I was losing weight to "be healthier". But healthy people don't constantly carry guilt around with them because they missed a day of exercise or they ate one too many brownies that day. My subscription to magazines like Shape and Fitness were my motivators. Not because of the articles on eating clean or the monthly exercise plan, but because I would stare at the skinny fit women on the pages and wished I looked like that. My husband hated those magazines because he knew it was poisoning my self worth so I would run to the post office before he did so I could hide them and read in private. Healthy? I don't think so.

Not only did being pregnant liberate me from guilty eating but after I gave birth, I grew to appreciate my body and what it can do. I knew I needed to drop some pregnancy pounds but there was a big difference. My body didn't look the same way it had before and it still doesn't. Everything is a bit softer and curvier. Weaning left my "two ladies" looking quite a bit smaller and sad. Stretch marks have made their way into what seems almost every part of my body. And a tiny bulge of fat sits across my stomach that keeps me looking like I'm constantly 3 months pregnant. But now when I look in the mirror, I'm okay with looking like me. It's like once I came to realize that my body will never look perfect, I can be free to accept the flaws. I've never felt more myself.

My belly 5 months postpartum

Not to say that I don't have my moments. Embracing my ever changing body in a world that says "you will never look good enough", is hard. One night while I was struggling to accept the changes my body took after having a baby, my wise husband said "You were never meant to look like your 25 years old forever!". That is so true. I could kill myself everyday to have a 6 pack but how long am I going to do that for? The next 50 years? There is a reason you don't see many older people in a nursing home lifting weights and doing the Insanity workout after craft time.  Our bodies are meant to get older and the sooner we can accept the changes that take place in every season of our lives, the happier we'll be. Wrinkles, fat rolls, blemishes, and all.

I browse Pinterest and I see images like these and I think "these are young women's motivators!?!?".

So now not only are we supposed to strive to be skinny and sexy but we also have to look like we're on steroids! It makes me really sad to be honest. I never want my boys to grow up thinking that that's what women should look like. And if I ever have a daughter I would not want to her to waste one minute thinking that she should strive to look like this or she won't be good enough. Who are we doing all this for anyway? If you were the only one who could see your 6 pack abs or your round tight butt, would you still do your 1,000 crunches everyday or your Brazilian Butt Lift video? I doubt it. I'm all for exercise and eating right but it's a lot easier for me to accept my imperfections than to kill myself to look like the ladies above.

Someone Has Got To Be First

If you have been someone within the past 4 months that has asked me when I was going to have another baby, you would have heard this answer from me "I don't even want to think about having any more kids for a looooong time". But I woke up one morning last week and I felt different A shift had taken place. It started when I saw a friend of mine walking into work with her bulging belly and a glowing essence around her that screamed "I have new life growing inside me!". You can hear the excitement in her voice as she gushes about her new pregnancy symptoms and how tight her pants feel that day. As I listened to her, I felt my face burning and a rising emotion that I have come to know as jealousy. Having had 2 babies in 2 years, I can relate to every sensation that comes with being pregnant with clear familiarity. Just 3 weeks ago I could barely even process the idea of wanting another baby but now I long to experience it all again. The excitement, anticipation, counting down the days, day dreaming of the perfect labor and delivery, being able to savor the moment my baby and I lock eyes. Life is so short and moments like having children is even shorter. I toss and turn in bed fearing that I didn't savor the moments enough or at the time I didn't soak it all in.

There was another time that I wish I could relive as well. It was the day I married Josh. Amongst all the chaos of planning a wedding in 3 months then the blur of the actual day, I don't remember much and I hate that. All I have are pictures that tell me that it actually happened. It's moments like these that need to be appreciated to the fullest because in a blink of an eye, it's over and you have to move on.

There in lies my dilemma. Moving on. I was in a lot of ways I was the first of my friends to get married and start having kids. Now as the years have gone by, more and more of my friends have/or are going to start their own life experiences such as these. As I watch it happening, the jealousy and longing grows with every pregnant belly picture on Facebook or a rundown of all the wedding preparation from an expectant bride. I suppose I find part of my identity in being a wife and a mother and letting go of moments passed is always sad. But the truth is, you can't relive them. Instead you have to try to appreciate the here and now and remember that certain memories are more special than the rest because they are once in a lifetime. So for now, I'll smile and join in on the excitement my friends feel and appreciate the here and now. Lord knows I have so much to be thankful for. As we speak, my 23 month old is running around trying to blow bubbles with a pink bottle brush and it's little memories like these that are uniquely mine.

Tips for Pumping

There has been so much more information for exclusive pumpers than there was even just two years ago. I wish I had known all this with my first little one!

1) Pump at least 7-8 times a day or every 2-3 hours for the first 12 weeks to establish a good milk supply. Make sure to pump at least 25-30 minutes each time to prevent a clogged duct or mastitis.

2) After 12 weeks, you can thankfully start dropping pumps by extending the time in between such as pumping every 4 hours instead of every 2 or 3. You can continue to drop pumps as the months go by, by cutting out the middle of the night pump or once again extending the time in between.

3) One of the worst parts about pumping is all the equipment that needs cleaning! Bottles, tubes, flanges, argh!!!! Call me lazy but I hate cleaning them every time I'm finished pumping.  So instead I put the flanges and bottles in the fridge after I'm done (with the idea that any residue will stay fresh) until the end of the day when I clean them all and sanitize.

4) A hands free bra is a must!!! Before I found out this idea, I just sat on the couch and held the stupid flanges to my chest for 30 minutes but with the bra, I can browse Pinterest or Facebook and the 30 minutes flies by! The cheapest way is to buy a sports bra or an underwire and cut little holes out to stick the flanges in. Easy!

5) I own a Medela Pump In Style Advanced and the battery pack takes 8 double A batteries which btw only lasts about 2 hours worth of pumping! I swear its a conspiracy concocted by the battery companies. For some reason I end up pumping in the car a lot because it always runs into my schedule so I invested in a car lighter adapter (for only $7!) and my life has changed! Hey anything to make life easier is ok with me.

6) An awesome piece of advice is to NEVER GIVE UP ON A BAD DAY!!! There have been so many days that I've maxed out and overwhelmed with being a wife/mother/ministry/work/lack of sleep that I've wanted to quit so bad. But the day passes and I find the strength to keep going and I am always glad I did.

7) There are a ton of ways to increase your milk supply but different things work for different women. Here's a few to try...
-Fenugreek caplets: take 3 pills 3 times a day....This has been the ONLY thing that has worked for me.
-Almond milk
-Oatmeal (not the instant kind)
-tons of water! (I notice a huge decrease if I'm dehydrated)
-flax seed (you can add it to just about anything you bake)
-Power Pumping: Take one of your pumping sessions and pump on for 10 mins and off for 10 mins for an hour

8) Start your freezer stash early! The sooner you can start freezer extra, the better because as baby grows and eats more, the harder it is.

So proud of my stash! Thats 1,071 oz of pure gold.

9) And last but not least....Find the Exclusively Pumping Group on Facebook. These ladies are the most helpful and understanding group of gals you will ever need to keep yourself encouraged every day.

Happy Pumping!!!

My Exclusively Pumping Journey

My story takes place over a course of almost 2 years ago starting with the birth of my son, Hezekiah. As he grew in my belly everyday, I spent every bit of those 9 months fantasizing what it was going to be like having a natural birth, being able to nurse, and enjoying every single beautiful moment watching him grow up. I wish somebody would have told me that I was walking on dangerous ground by romanticizing too much. The natural birth I wanted, didn't happen. I was no where near prepared for what a hard contraction felt like. Next thing I knew, my husband and me were walking into the hospital on October 18th, 2011 and I was getting my much needed relief from an epidural along with a concoction of other drugs. Heavily sedated, the nurses immediately took my son away after I delivered and after what felt like a lifetime, I was finally able to hold him. The nurse shooed everyone away so I could nurse him and I thought "Yes! This is what I've been waiting for! That amazing beautiful bond that is created between mother and baby all wrapped up in this beautiful package called nursing!" I didn't get the natural birth experience that I so badly wanted but at least I would get to nurse my beautiful boy. The nurse helped me try to latch Hezekiah and I spent the next 10 minutes unsuccessful. Darn. They wheeled me into another room that I would remain for the next 2 days trying to get him to latch on and eat. Nurses came in and out trying to help with different positions and techniques but Hez would just scream and rear his head back like my boob was on fire. Hand expressing was the only way I knew that he was actually getting something in his tiny tummy. The nurse who came in to release us told me to keep working at it and that Hez seemed to be doing just fine. I knew better.

The next 5 days were a blur as my little one screamed in hunger and frustration and would literally push me away whenever I tried to nurse. My nipples were a bloody mess, I was exhausted, broken-hearted, and beat down. I hauled out the pump that my sister in law gave me and began my pumping journey. Unfortunately I knew next to nothing about exclusively pumping so I researched as best I could. There was next to no information about exclusively pumping so trial and error was my teacher. After 2 bouts of mastitis, I learned that I needed to pump longer than 25 minutes. I also learned that I could make just as much at the end of the day pumping every 3 hours as I could every 2 hours. Eight long months later, I hung up my flanges and got my sanity back. No more middle of the night pumps, no more tears from the pressure of barely making enough, no more precious moments interrupted from being a slave to the machine. My freezer stash lasted until Hezekiah was 9 months before I switched to formula and I swore that I would never again exclusively pump. The next child would directly nurse even if it killed me....or so I thought.

Asher is mama's pumpin buddy =)

Asher was born on April 12 this past Spring and after 9 months of preparing myself mentally, I got the natural birth I so longed for. It was a perfect labor and delivery. When the midwife pulled him out and placed his wet pink body in my arms, I was in love. Oddly enough I don't remember much about those 2 days in the hospital except that I knew that he wasn't latching well. It was extremely painful and nothing seemed to be working. When we arrived back at home, I would sit on the bed every hour for 45 minutes latching and re-latching, latching and re-latching, determined that I was going to make it work. He was very patient but very hungry. His suction wasn't tight enough, his top lip wouldn't flip out, he kept slipping off, and the list grew. Three days after Asher was born, my nipples were bloody scabs. I called a nurse practically hysterical from guilt and exhaustion but desperate to know what I was supposed to do since it had become impossible to nurse now. I had to resort to bottle feeding him my milk which lead to horrible nipple confusion. But after a visit from a lactation consultant, several attempts with a nipple shield, hours of online research about breastfeeding, and finally a diagnosis of an upper lip tie which prevented him from being able to flip his top lip out, I once again became a slave to the machine.

 In that 9 months that I was pregnant, never in a million years did I ever think that I wouldn't be able to nurse my 2nd child. Days, weeks, and months were spent mourning over the loss of that unique bonding relationship.  Still determined, I spent over a month trying to get him to re-latch and when Asher was 3 months old, we finally had our first nursing session. I remember looking down at him with a lump in my throat because I got to finally experience nursing one of my children for the first time ever. Unfortunately for reasons unknown, he has never been able to eat enough and instead has become my little snacker. I pump 5 times a day and meet well over his needs and I nurse for comfort. Sometimes it is the only thing that will stop his tears and soothe him to sleep. I will mourn once again when I hang up my flanges for the second last time because I have been so thankful to be able to feed my baby. Coming to terms with pumping for both of my babies has been a process. I still feel jealousy and sadness in the pit of my stomach whenever I see a woman nursing her baby.  And although I may not be able to say I nursed, I can proudly say that I breastfeed for my children.