Eat More?

Yesterday I counted the number of calories I had eaten before we went out for a run. The grand total? 700ish. Then a 3 mile run bring it down to 400. Then I had a pretty large dinner, but still, so not enough. Not that I think I'm supposed to be eating for two because I know you aren't. But a woman my age is supposed to eat about 2200 calories, then a pregnant woman should eat about 2500 calories. There is no way that I was eating 2200 calories before the nugget came along, so it's something I have to keep my eye on. I also don't eat a lot of protein in general, so that's another thing that needs to be upped.

I am not going to turn this blog into a listing of everything I eat during the day because I find that fairly annoying for readers and for myself to do it. I am going to start keeping better track of it however. Needless to say we bought a lot of meat at the grocery store last night.

So I'm past 5 weeks now, and everything is feeling good. We did go for a 3 mile run (super slow with some walking in there) yesterday and then we went straight to the grocery store. Now I have done that plenty of times but about halfway through our shopping experience I felt like my sports bra was cutting off my breathing ability. It was horrible. Then everyone bumping into me with their carts and I was about 2 seconds from total detonation. So note to self, during pregnancy..when your boobs are bigger and a bit on the sore side, DON'T KEEP THE SPORTS BRA ON LONGER THAN YOU HAVE TO! There. Lesson 1 complete.

Now We Wait

Sigh. I'm so not a patient person and I tend to think the worst so that I can be really happy when the best happens. I'm trying not to do that in this whole pregnancy situation.

I'm realizing that the only people that post on pregnancy message boards are those people that have had problems. Where is the perfect pregnancy message board where nothing went wrong and you didn't suffer a ton of symptoms. I want to join that club. I told Jason I'm going to stay off the message boards until at least I have the first ultrasound (26 days!) to make sure the nugget is where it's supposed to be, heart beating like it should and everything looks good. Otherwise I'll keep convincing myself I've killed it, or something else is wrong and there is no reason to do that. And there is really no reason to think that. About 15-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and I don't have any of the common risk factors (note..I did say *common* as I know that sometimes they just end for no reason). So I'm going to take my 80-85% chance of a normal pregnancy. All the rambling and my point is simple, no reason to think something is wrong until it is and I'm just going to enjoy growing the little human and try to not worry.

Today marks the end of Week 5, although I'm going to start counting it on Saturdays. I'm going to do the picture of my belly a week thing. A guy I work with was like, you should really do it, even if you don't want to look at them again, you might want to. So Jason is going to have to get behind the camera and I'll have to just deal with being in front of it.

Still not having a ton of symptoms, just feeling a bit tired and sleeping more at night than I think I ever have in my life. Tonight I get to tell my friend Laura and I'm SO excited to tell her as I think she'll be really excited.

Alright, well I should work now I suppose.

Hey, I'm going to be a dad!

No, really, I'm going to be a dad!

Yesterday around 11:30, the blood work came back with a confirmed positive. Congrats, it's a zygote!

In true JasonLeahRun family fashion, we had no interest waiting to tell people. So, I got on the phone to tell the family and...nobody answered. So that was cool. I mean, it's not like I had anything interesting to say. But I did eventually get a hold of one brother and a mother, both who were very excited. It's entirely possibly my mother may have shed a tear or two (hey, no crying! Everyone's supposed to be happy :)). My dad called back a bit later and I think, other than Leah, was the first to call me a dad. That was weird. I didn't really realize I was old enough to be a dad. I certainly didn't think I was mature enough to be a dad. These people still realize that my favorite section of the paper is the comics, right?

My friends at work were all very excited for me as I'm the first among any of us to have a baby (damn youngin's). Of course, the conversation eventually switched from a discussion of being a dad and being mature to a discussion of baby harvesting and how realistic the Matrix actually was in growing humans to power the robots (good point made: using dead humans to feed humans is getting dangerous close to a perpetual motion machine).

But we're just all really damn excited over here.

246 Days until baby.

POSITIVE!

My blood passed!!!! I'm officially pregnant. Jason and I are the worst; we instantly told EVERYBODY. Then I read all these sites that were like, you shouldn't tell anyone for 12 weeks...I was like..uh yeah that's not going to happen.

For those of you that were on the ball yesterday morning (hi geekgirl!) you would already know because I'm an idiot and accidentally hit "Publish Post" instead of "Save Now" and so for those people that checked their RSS readers would have known. I totally freaked out and called Jason and he was all, "This isn't a tragedy," and I was all, "THE INTERWEBS ARE GOING TO KNOW BEFORE MY PARENTS".

The doctor called around 11am with the results, and told me the next steps. I came back into my office and I was smiling like a freakin' lunatic and so I had to call my parents right then. So I did. My dad screamed really loud and my mom made a noise that I think only most dogs could hear. I told my friends and sister-in-law via chat windows (call them...make it personal and cute...so not. my. style.). Then we have this meeting at work on Wednesdays so I was able to tell most people then...everyone at work was excited. I work at a great company and everyone is friends and so I really wanted to tell them. I think if I had worked at other companies I wouldn't have told so soon, but I love those guys and so they had to know. I mean I can't sit there and be excited all damn day and smiliing like a fool and have them just start thinking I'm crazy.

My parents spread the news to other family members, who spread it on. I think my mom called everyone that she has ever met :). My dad said he is going to announce it on the VHF radio show this morning so all of Grenada will know soon.

We are talking about where to post these posts. I suppose JasonLeahRun can turn into JasonLeahHaveABaby. We are going to keep running, I just want to find out things about heart rate when exercising before I really try to start.

It's so strange because I don't feel that different. I feel a bit "off" but that's about it. So it's strange to me to think that I'm growing a human - and to tell you the truth, I'm going to have to go find a freakin' bio student and have them explain to me how the one cell organisms know how to do what they are doing. My mom didn't have morning sickness or many other of the annoying symptoms and so I'm hoping I'll be the same way and just float through this pregnancy, only 246 days left according to a due date of November 27th which the internet told me. That's a long time!

Alright, I still have to work though, so time to stop typing!

Today we find out for sure

Today's the day that the blood tests come in and we find out once and for all if Leah's pregnant (you know the old saying, 4 pee sticks and a late period do not a pregnant lady make). Should be fun waiting for Leah to give me a call this afternoon!

Ve Vant Your Blood

Yesterday I went to the doctors office to give blood so that they could confirm pregnancy. Usually I am a champion at the blood giving; I have good veins and I can fill those little tubes in a second. Yesterday however, she put the needle in the vein and NOTHING came out. I mean not even a drop. So she went to the other arm, and tried again and this one came pumped but so, so slowly. I'm guessing it was because I was so nervous and excited and I'm guessing it's good that they didn't take my blood pressure as I'm sure I would have broken the machine.

I'm thinking that if this blood test does come back positive (it will) I should sign up for prenatal yoga to try and calm down a little bit because otherwise it's going to be a loooong 8 months for everyone involved and then the baby will come out and be wired before it even breathes a breath of air.

And I'm sorry, can we talk about how creepy it is to grow a human...a human who goes from breathing water, to air.....(anyone else thinking of The Abyss?)? Cree-py!

I've been listening to Loudon Wainwright's Strange Weirdos album which was inspired by the movie Knocked Up. There are some funny songs on there including X or Y and Lullaby. I'm thinking the album with be played a lot around these parts in the next few months.

So sometime in "mid-afternoon" we'll know for sure! gotta sit tight and be patient...cause as everyone knows I'm so good at that.

Okay, that's clearly a line

This morning Leah peed on another stick and there was another line. This time, however, the pink line was pretty damn clear and left little room for interpretation. Um, yikes?

So, we've taken four tests (that's normal, right?) and have gotten two blue lines and two pink lines. So, as far as I can tell, there's still a 50-50 chance of having either a boy or girl. I'd say we could pee on one more stick (well...not we) and see what color comes up, but I think I want to find out the sex for myself when the time comes.

So now I'm just going to sit back and wait for Leah to exhibit some signs of pregnancy. I know she'd like to have some sort of sickness or soreness or something - who wouldn't want that. And some vomiting would make this pregnancy match TV more accurately. The people on TV always puke.

Today's a trip to the doctor to confirm with a blood test what we suspect from the pee tests. Here's hoping the results come back quickly so we can build a crib or something. And then it's only a month or so until we get to have an ultrasound (well, more her than me)! Yowza!

...wait, are we really having a baby?

Nah.

Wait, what?

We Have a Secret...

and I HATE IT.

I'm not a good secret keeper. I'm just not...I mean I can be if I have to be...but this is my secret and I don't want to keep it. I called my doctors office yesterday to ask them what the hell I'm supposed to do now that I have a positive pregnancy test. I laughed and told them that Jason and I might be the most fertile people on the planet, and she laughed and said, "Oh I see you did have a preconception appointment next week. Guess you won't be needing that". Guess not.

So she told me what the next steps were. First I will go in (this morning) and have a blood test to confirm pregnancy (which I'm already convinced I'm going to fail...really...REALLY...it's not a real test), then if that comes back positive I will have an appointment with a physicians assistant to go through all the do's and don'ts (don't do crack, do eat vegetables I'm guessing), then at about 8 weeks along I'll go in for the first ultra sound.

Since I'm a little bit OCD, I peed on yet another stick this morning and there is no doubt about the second line. So, according to pee sticks I'm pregnant, just gotta get the confirmation.

We've decided to tell family after we hear from the doctor on the blood test. But it's killing me right now when I talk to my parents. So what's new? Nothing, why would you think something is new. Just the same old same old. Or..How's the running going. Good. Getting better every week.

I'm guessing we'll just tell everyone next week....because....how the hell could you keep this kind of secret!

Well, that was unexpected

And, I might add, a little anti-climactic. Whenever I thought about finding out about a future son or daughter (or ewok...how cool would that be?), I figured it'd be all jumping up and down and excited, like in the commercials. Instead, it was a lot of "wait, is that a line?" and "I definitely see a line, but I need you to keep peeing until it looks like the other one". And it wasn't that I wasn't excited because I didn't want it to be true, but rather because I was afraid it would go away.

Oh, but now, three faint lines later, I'm afraid. What's the first thing I do? Read a book? Let me just say, the expecting father books are pretty damn insulting. Yes, I get that I'm supposed to be involved in the pregnancy. Let me just put my beer down and I'll get right on it. Do the expectant mother books say "Hey, you know you can't just ignore the human growing in you stomach, right?" It's just quite insulting. It's every sitcom rolled into convenient book form (with 95% less funny and 500% more terror).

So now I'm just trying to figure out what best to do. I'm thinking I should either get the baby's room ready or maybe buy a stroller. I'm pretty sure I can't grow a human, so I need to find a way to make myself useful. I also have about 9 months to learn to use a power tool. I don't want to be that dad ("Mom, Dad's trying to drill again"). Also, I need to learn to swim. I saw this episode of Who's the Boss where Tony was participating in a Father/Son swim (with his nephew) and he totally couldn't swim and the kid was embarrassed and I don't want that for my kid.

So, I don't know. Luckily I have about 9 months to figure it out.

Less Faint

Yesterday after still no period starting, AND the faint line, Jason and I walked to Borders and bought What to Expect When You are Expecting (I think I'm expecting...) and Jenny McCarthy's book Belly Laughs (which yes...made me laugh...but also freakin' terrified and grossed me out). We also bought some none generic brand pregnancy tests.

Woke up this morning at 4:55, but didn't want to get up till 6, so I laid there convinced that my period was really going to start and all of the previous day was a fun little dream. At 5:50 I had to get up as I was tired of laying there and holy hell did I have to pee.

So. I peed. On the stick. And 3 minutes later there was a line there. Still not as strong as the control line...but you didn't have to squint to see it.

So right. Now what? Being a scientist, I'm still not convinced and I gotta say, this whole weekend was very anti-climatic. I figured a few months of trying, some disappointing trips to the bathroom just to find Aunt Flow (really...they still call it that on all the message boards), then one month of, "Oh I just know I'm pregnant honey!" and then taking a test and seeing the second line. Instead this was the month we decided to stop not trying and have some fun, two weeks later and I don't feel pregnant at all, and I'm still not convinced by the line (I KNOW I KNOW....there is no way that there is a line there at all unless you are pregnant...I just wanted a wham bam thank you ma'am line).

So right. There are some cells in there. Doing some dividing. Wow. I realize as I just re-read this post I don't sound excited...I am totally excited! ... but I just want to be sure. We aren't going to tell anyone including our parents until we see a doctor, and it's kind of fun having a little secret of our own.

Let the new door open!

Wait..is that a line?

Today - March 22nd I took a second pregnancy test. I had taken one yesterday but the line was really faint. So I took one right when I woke up this morning and What the hell...is that a line? I think it's a line...but it's faint. So Jason comes into the bathroom....does he thinks it's a line...he does...but it's faint. WHAT DOES A FAINT LINE MEAN?

I haven't had any symptoms (but read online that is not totally uncommon) and so I don't know if it's just a faint fake line or just a faint line....but then I read (on the interwebs!) that even if it's faint it's a positive. My period is two days late......I'm never late.

So with that I am going to put this into draft mode and save it for a few months. Jason and I have decided that they should use us to repopulate the planet after a nuclear explosion as we tried one time and viola....a faint (what does that mean!) second line showed up!

Blogging Request...

and thus I blog.

I've been a busy little bee around these parts. The weather in Chicago seems to have taken a turn for the better and Jason and I have been taking every opportunity to be out in the warm weather that we can.

Over the weekend (...yes I realize it's Thursday and I'm writing about days that were almost a week ago, but at least I'm getting it down), Jason and I got up early and went downtown and did the following:

• Breakfast at Yolk which was one of the best breakfasts that I have ever had; the omelets had the perfect egg/filling ratio.
  
• Walked through the legs on the corner on Roosevelt and Michigan Ave. Jason and I couldn't decide if we liked the legs, but I think we both thought they were interesting. I enjoyed how they were really spaced out and then became more and more crowded.
  
• Went to the Field Museum and, using our membership, went to see the new Pirates exhibit. Did you know pirate ships were the only place where everyone was an equal unlike on land where there was, of course, the slavery problems and whatnot. Also unlike merchant ships, everyone on a pirate shop was given almost equal percentages of the loot they would take.
• From there we walked to Loopy Yarns because I was interested in starting a new project. I highly recommend this place. They have a huge selection of yarns, patterns and very very nice people to answer all of your questions.
  
• From here we walked to the Intelligensia cafe next door to the Chicago Cultural Center and learned about a new press process they have to brew the single cups of coffee. They guy next to us said that it seemed like a lot of work for a cup of coffee and, while I agreed at the time, it was a mightily good cup of Joe (and totally worth it, Jason says).
  
• After this we walked to the Millenium Park office to pick up a cell phone my cousin lost that, amazingly, they had found.
• At this point we realized that we weren't drunk, 5 years old, or parents of 5 year olds and so weren't interested in the St. Patricks Day Parade. So we walked on to the lakefront path instead.
  
• I took a ton of pictures along the way as we walked. all. the. way. home.

So in short, it was about 8 hours of outdoorsness with about 10 miles of walking. A great day.

Sunday we ran 4 miles and then went and played in Lincoln Square and walked home from there. Monday we walked home from work. Tuesday we went and ran out 3 miles.....and if you have gotten the picture...walked home.

Other business (non-walking division) is that there is some work funness going on. I've started working through some ObjectiveC & iPhone stuff and I've also started doing some more work on our company's website which I find very enjoyable. In my personal time, I'm working on knitting a blanket that has *gasp* cables in it. Turns out cables aren't that hard, just have to be careful when I get to those rows. Also getting through some more picture developing...a constant thing. I've posted every single day on my photoblog for 68 days straight!

Which is nice.

This weekend Jason and I are taking a road trip to Springfield, IL via the old Rt. 66. We've gotten the Rt 66 bug in our blood and are planning on driving the whole thing this summer. We've bought two books through Amazon on things to see along the way as well as a set of awesome maps (Dad...you'll love these) that are almost hand drawn with written directions on the page.

So that's about it in our little world. Just watching the March Madness tourney and hoping Villenova wasn't a bad choice for the final four...they are down by 10 to American University at the half. Shit. At least I didn't pick Illinois to win it all (teasing my stepmom and Aunt with that one).

And so now it's Thursday night. Happy end of week everyone!

Running! Road Trips! Exclamation Points!

Well JasonLeahRun got home this evening and were doubtful of a good run. It was raining, the wind was seeming pretty strong and well...we had worked an 11 hour day and relaxing at home was sounding oh so nice.

But Somone (and by Someone I mean LeahC) kept poking and pushing for a run and finally running clothes were on, laces were knotted, the door was locked and two pairs of feet started running down Seminary. Wow...dramatic sentance huh...well the run wasn't that dramatic, it was just great. Felt great, the rain was cooling, it was 60ish degrees outside and what's that? Sweat? WHAT?. Oh yeah, spring is coming people.

*Sidenote: Snow is Gone by Josh Ritter is a great song. And the two albums I got via iTunes are great....I might be follwing RainnWilson (Dwight Schrute) on Twitter and he tweeted about him and will +1 on the recommendation. End Sidenote*

Yesterday as I was looking at a map and thinking about some weekend road trips that Jason and I could take over some up coming weekends, I realized that old Rt. 66 goes all the way to St. Louis. Hmm...I thought...that could be fun. Then I kept thinking (like I like to do) and was like..huh...well it goes all the damn way to Los Angeles. Then I thought, hmm...I've never been to LA, and with all the road trips I have taken in my life I have never driven west. Interesting. Then I found some web sites, sent a crazy e-mail to Jason saying something to the effect of, .... you know...Rt. 66 goes all the way to LA right? It's looking more and more like these two crazy kids are going to take one hell of a road trip this summer. I have always been interested in Rt. 66 and so I'm getting way way pumped about this possibility. Our plan as it stands right now is to take our time out there and then book it like our asses are on fire via the main interstates on the way back. We don't know yet if we are going to take our car or try and rent one, but we are going to do it somehow. So stay tuned for details as we plan that trip.

I've been busy with work and with finishing up developing the roughtly one thousand photos I took in Zurich (yes really that many). http://leahcphotos.wordpress.com has been updated daily for roughly two months now (wow!) and has several pictures from Zurich over the last week or so. Here is a panoramic stitch I did of downtown Zurich :

So that's all from these crazy kids. Enjoy the rest of the week everyone!

It Always has to Slow Down

Well well well. Look up the definition of out of shape and you'll find JasonLeahRun's picture next to it. Sheesh.

We are trying to get to 12 miles a week. I KNOW it's lame. Leave me alone. So week one we did 6 miles, this week we struggled through 9 and hoping next week to get through 12. We are going to take tomorrow off since the last two days have been slow and some what painful....although as always, still a ton of fun. I miss those long runs and being able to go through a 12 mile run easy breezy. Ah well....all you can do is keep running. That's why running is so easy. It's super easy to get better at.

Not much else new in JasonLeahRun's world. We have put ourselves into Lockdown mode to take care of some bills that we have going on as well as the whole we need to get into better shape mode. Amazing how much money you can save when you delete "Sheffields" from your budget.

So that's it. Don't forget to change you clocks tomorrow everyone!

Wow, 2 Whole Days in a Row

I wonder when the last time this blog saw some love 2 days in a row. A long while I bet.

Signing up for a race is the most amazing thing ever. I don't know what shifts in my head when we do that but instantly I'm like, Ok. We are racing, gotta run no matter what. Yesterday the weather was atrocious with snow and 25 mph winds out of the north so good thing we are so out of shape that we are sticking to three mile runs for now because I don't know how much farther we could have made it.

Our Sunday in general was a great day, I feel like we did enough to fill a couple days worth. We woke up early and spent about 4 hours relaxing to some classical music and reading the Sunday papers (NY Times & Chicago Tribune), then we went for a run. When we got back from that we decided that our empty fridge and cupboard needed some love so we went to the grocery store and got a cart full of food amazingly it all fit into our fridge with room to spare.

The rest of the afternoon was spent totally relaxing and reading. We watched The Godfather which is of course just a fantastic movie and enjoyed the last fire in our fire place for the season (out of wood and optimistic about the weather...it is March you know).

Tonight is the Chirb meeting which I am going to and Jason is either going to work late on work stuff or go home and do work stuff at home.

Our running plans are going to be running Tuesday, Thursday Saturday and Sunday, and we'll be following the Hal Higdon intermediate 1/2 marathon plan starting in mid May.

5 Months + 1 Day

Well it is now exactly the first minute of March 1st. I can't seem to sleep and thus I'm up blogging at 12:00 am on a Sunday morning. Jason and I went for a run on Saturday afternoon and realized that we were in some kind of bad shape. Shocking I know after months and months and months of no training. While we were out running pretending that it was June and not the end of February and brutally cold and windy we decided to sign up for a 1/2 marathon at the beginning of August. We chose the first one we found, the Rock and Roll 1/2 marathon on August 2nd. Thus we have 5 months to get our shit together so that we can finish the race in one piece. Half marathons are always fun because the training isn't absurd like a marathon and the race itself doesn't knock you out for weeks on end following the race. Right now our tentative plan is to run 4 days a week and try and hit the gym 2 or 3 times a week. I figure March 1st is as good a time as any for some resolutions/goals.

So right. We went to Zurich which was awesomely fun and there will be more details following as I'm also setting a goal to write more here. You know the only way to become a better writer is to do it everyday...shocking, it's just like everything else in life...practice makes you better. I'm still working on getting all of the photos developed, but until they are all ready here are a few of the city of Zurich. I'll be updating my photoblog (http://leahcphotos.wordpress.com) daily with photos from the trip and will have a full smugmug account full within the next week or so. Enjoy!