Run Her Out?

Jason and I just went for a nice little walk in some cold weather. Feels like winter is almost upon us, which is perfect timing since we got our firewood supply delivered yesterday.

So on this walk it was a little chilly and I was like hey, I'm wearing running pants and running shoes let's see what happens if I run a little. So I started running, and might have started yelling, "I'M WINNING". Winning what? The crazy pregnant lady race? Yeah.

So I ran from about Racine to Ashland, about 1/2 mile. Aside from shin splints felt good. It would be funny if it worked and my water broke in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, right? If anything else, just to see my Dad and Jason's reaction. I think so too.

We are very much enjoying Jason having the day off. Watching some Indiana Jones this morning, and now watching some Turkey day football. Leaving in about 2 hours to go pick up my Dad and Sue to then head to Downers Grove for yummy dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Baby Shower! Lockdown! Big Belly! Oh My!

Well here I sit at 30 weeks....ok almost 30 weeks which is why this post isn't titled 10 WEEKS TO GO. The flip over date for my appointments is on Fridays. So I'm *in* the 30th week. Hey...kinda like I'm in my 30th year so I won't really be turning 30 next week as that really happened last year. Yes. I know it doesn't make sense...but if you were in LeahC's head it just might.

So right...I'm sitting here checking in some code at work, and thought I'd throw out a blog post. This past weekend I had my first baby shower which was a total blast. The theme was 'I Love Lucy' which was one of my favorite shows when I was little (hell it still is...that Lucy, she's so wacky!). A good time was had by all and Little Lu got some cute clothes and jumping contraptions and clothes and I got some cute diaper bags. We got a nice black messenger bag type one so that Jason and I can share that duty. I also got an *awesome* Vera Bradley one from my Aunt in a new pattern that I love. Oh ... and more clothes.

Jason and I are going to be putting ourselves on Lockdown. We have been so overly booked and busy the past, well I'd like to say few weeks but I think it's more more like 6 weeks. With the baby coming I really want to make sure Jason and I enjoy some alone downtime together. Next week is my birthday and we are going to Wildfire (my favorite restaurant in the world) and I think that's about the only plans we have. So if you ask us to do something and we say no, it's not because we hate you, it's because we are really big losers. :) Fall is also coming and is my favorite season of all time. Just walking around the city with the air a little crisper is just about the best time I think you can have.

My belly continues to expand which now apparently gives strangers, coworkers and random office people the right to say things to the effect of, "WOW YOU'RE HUGE!!!!" To which I say, do you want me to stick this pen in your eye? No? Then shut the hell up. I'm growing a baby! I've been doing some more walking and that feels great. No more running because when I tried to run the other day (for like 3 minutes :( ), I had a pretty hard time with it. Poor Bridgette was out with me and was like...um, are you ok? It wasn't the best. But walking is good, and so Jason is making sure we do that together most nights. I really really miss running, and not running like a 3 mile run but getting out there and cruising through 9 or 10 miles. It'll take some time to get back there and I know I have to patient...good thing I'm so good at being patient!

So right. 10ish weeks to go, which should seem like nothing and yet it seems oh so far away. Dad and Sue move out on Friday so then we can really get rolling on the baby's room which is going to be really really exciting. We totally redid our closet and threw out *tons* of stuff which is a good step and we have to do more and more of that as the closet in the baby's room became a "put stuff here for now" place. Which is always a little scary.

We are all more and more excited to meet Lucy. This weekend we are taking the Great Expectations baby class at Prentice hospital which should be a lot of good information and I'm looking forward to getting a tour of the hospital.

Checked in code worked! On the branch, but unfortunately the trunk line build is broken so can't check in there yet. One more bug to look at ... if I can even find the text field that the tester is referring to. OH yeah and today is my last day at the client site and I'm looking forward to rejoining the Studio crew tomorrow.

Ok I Broke a Sweat Alright

*note* I'm not that concerned about my weight gain....just frustrated at the doc a bit...this will come out in the following post.

So all good at the docs yesterday except my apparent elephantness. Even though when I look at myself in the mirror all I see is baby belly bump. No nothing anywhere else. In fact I would say my arms have gotten a bit thinner. ANYWAYS.

TheDoc apparently doesn't agree and so I took her advice and went for a 45 minute cardivascular workout yesterday. Does anyone else think it's strange that she is telling me that I should be doing that much working out every day WHILE I am also dealing with some high blood pressure issues at 28 weeks pregnant. Not that I think 45 minutes of working out is hard by any means, but I just think it's strange.

SO FINE. I'll break a fucking sweat alright. So I walked to the lake front path in about 14 minutes (quickly!) and then ran for about 10 minutes and then quickly walked back home for a total of about 50 minutes. No problems except some pretty bad round ligament pains which is just more uncomfort than something to worry about. I'm going to try and do the same tonight although might cut it down to just a 30 minute brisk walk since we are going to meet a possible pediatrician at 5pm and then Mrs. Bridgette is getting here at about 7:30. But I think we can do both.

I'm going to keep eating healthy and just see what happens at the next appointment. I also should have a plan of what our birth plan is...I think its a positive plan. I plan on having a baby. I bet that doesn't cut it. My plan right now is to go as naturally as possible. I'm going to hold out on the epidural if I can, but if I get one I won't be super dissapointed. I'm going to try and not be induced unless the doctor thinks it's the way to go and has a good reason...other than, well we need to schedule it so it fits into our schedule. So yeah, that's my plan right now. As always I'm guessing this will change as time goes along.

How Did That Happen?

So I've kept up running throughout this pregnancy but you have probably noticed my posting about said running has gone down. That's because most of the running has really been "running". My usual course of action is to walk to the lakefront path and then run two miles and walk home. But the running part has been filed with leg pain, back aches and this fun pregnancy thing called ligament stretching (or something like that). So it hasn't been fun and more just pisses me off that actually being able to enjoy the time on the path.

On Sunday my Dad, Jason and I all laced up our shoes for a run together. We did the same thing that we usually do, but at the one mile turn around I realized I hadn't stopped to walk yet, nothing hurt, I wasn't laboring for breathing and so I said let's go out for another 1/2 mile and make this a 3 mile run. So we did and I continued to feel good. Still no pain, breathing was good. At the end of the run I realized that I could even pass a group of runners and that always feels good and so I did.

I'm pretty sure we were running about 11 min/mile (I haven't been starting my watch because my runs have been so worthless) and felt really solid. We are also working on gearing my Dad up for some training. His goal is to run the Indy Mini 1/2 marathon in May (so that we have to train through the winter) and then of course the Chicago Marathon in the fall. He's at a perfect place to start training and so we (and by we I mean I) just have to get him a training plan so he can get into a nice rhythm.

The rest of the weekend was great. I'm working on knitting a little sweater thing for Lucy which is making some progress. This picture is from Saturday night and I did a bunch more yesterday:

(Lucy is trying it on....she likes it I think). The bottom part of the sweater and the arms will be in a simple lace pattern and will continue in that purple color.

I'm hoping that I'm done with the body of it by the end of the weekend. Then I can go to Loopy Yarns on Monday when they have a sweater workshop to help me with the arms. After that I will have even more questions about the edging and this little tie thing that I have to make...plus these pom-pom things that have to go on the end of said ties. The good thing is that baby clothes are tiny and so none of it should take that long. Just so so so many questions! It's a great way to learn about sweater construction though because again, they clothes are teeny and so I can learn all the parts of a sweater in a short amount of time. This is a kimono style sweater so it should be nice for a baby.

This is short week because Jason and I are driving up to Michigan on Friday to hang out with Jake, Laura and Jake's Dad on the Artdeck. We are going to leave very very early on Friday morning and take our time driving up there. Hoping to find some small highways for part of the drive anyways.

Oh when I woke up this morning Lucy woke up too. It was funny. Hopefully she keeps that same behavior out of the womb. Up when Mom's up. A good rule I think!

A Bit Short

So I have been a bit short of breath these days. According to my pregnancy book this is totally normal, but no less annoying. It's nothing crazy either like I'm gasping for breath. I'll mention it when I see my doctor tomorrow. Tomorrow is our 24 week appointment where I will do this glucose screening test. I have to drink some orange drink (the doctor said it tastes kind of like Fanta...I say she's not telling the full truth) and then they will draw blood within 1 hour of that. If that comes back negative I'm good to go. If it comes back positive I'll have to do some other kind of 3 hour test where I have to stay there and they'll pull my blood every so often during that 3 hour period. I'm hoping I pass with flying colors on the first round.

My Dad and stepmom are safely in town and already being put on lots of little odd jobs around my apartment. Although they both start real jobs in the next few weeks so they'll be a little busy with that (and a little anxious these days ...not that I'm talking about anyone specific...not you Dad ;) ).

With them here and all the stuff that still has to get done I'm thinking time will start to fly by. They are staying with us for the next couple weeks and then will move down the street to their awesome place on Addison and Sheridan. After they move out we can start getting the baby's room in order (it's very fun calling it the baby's room). We are getting rid of our guest bed and moving a desk into our room and thus need to rearrage our bedroom as well. We are going to paint in the room and we have a lot of things to hang on the wall, and we want to figure out some clever lighting solutions. We thought about keeping the desk in the room and making it a joint nursery/office, but decided that we want that room to be for baby only and a nice room that we can hang with them in if we want to.

Baby showers galore coming up and so we've been working on our registry. Thankfully my friend Jean is about 9 weeks ahead of me and has taken a lot of classes and knows a lot about things I should really make sure I have and things I hadn't thought about.

Jason and I went "running" yesterday. I use the word running fairly loosly these days. We walk to the lakefront path (1 mile) then run out a mile and back a mile and then walk the 1 mile back home for a total of 4 miles of activity. The running isn't easy (for obvious) reasons so I'm just doing my best and walk if I feel like I need to. I figure I ran about 1.5 miles of the 2 yesterday. Since I haven't been as consistant with the running as I would have liked I'm having non-pregnancy issues like sore legs and some shin splints. It really helps to have someone to run with me though as I can make sure I'm not going to hard and I just feel more comfortable knowing if something were to happen someone is there. So we'll go again Wednesday. Now that Jason is done with his training for the 1/2 he is free to run with me full time. And I want to try and run 3-4 times a week and see how that goes.

24 weeks means 16 to go. That's the amount of time from when I found out I was pregnant till the 20 week untra sound. Which went pretty fast....although this time I'm going to be much more whale like and slow so I'm guessing time won't be moving as fast. Good thing there is so much to do before Little Lu gets here!

Running and Weekend Update

Well this is still by definition a running blog. And so perhaps one of us should talk about running instead of baby things.

Jason is running the Rock and Roll 1/2 marathon on Sunday. We both signed up for this race back in April when we were trying to get pregnant but didn't want to not do things or sign up for things just because I *could* be pregnant at the time. This goes for the super cute super skinny jeans that I bought too. Yeah, I got like 3 weeks of wear out of those guys. ANYWAYS. I am obviously not running the 1/2 marathon on Sunday but Jason is.

His training has been....eh...well yeah. eh. He has a pretty loose time goal and we have been busy this summer and he has been enjoying running with me, even though I'm slow and so probably didn't do all of his runs at the paces he should have done them at. He's missed some training runs but has consistently gotten in the important speed workouts and long runs. His 12 mile run on Sunday went really well coming in at about 9:30 min/miles which should translate to about a 2hr 1/2 marathon. Hopefully it's not too hot this weekend and he can go out there at a quick but comfortable pace and enjoy himself. This is the first time that he has raced without me and I'm sad that I won't be running with him.

As far as my running goes, I've been enjoying these lower ligament stretching pains which seem to come out more when I'm running. They annoy me to no end. And I miss running far and easy so much. I now walk quickly to the lakefront path. I think it helps to get my heart rate up and moving before I start running, then I just run a mile out and a mile back. I think I could go three on the path but it was really warm on Sunday morning and I get worried that something could go wrong and I would be out there without any support. Jason will be able to run with me more starting next week when he doesn't have training runs to do and so that should help a bit.

I was super busy last week and so I didn't run at all during the week, and so just ran on Sunday. Hoping to do better this week. We are walking home from work today, tomorrow we have dinner out, Wednesday I have a knitting class....SO maybe I'll do Thursday and Saturday. Then I have to get ready to cheer and chase Jason around the course on Sunday.

Had a great weekend. Got to see friends on Friday, stayed up till 2:30am (!!!!!!) but I still got up at 6:30 in the morning. After breakfast we went and checked out the Newberry Library Book fair, stumbled home because guess what.....I can't get 4 hours of sleep anymore! My cousin came by and picked up some stuff, and then when they left I tipped over on the couch and slept for 3-4 hours. Jason and I realized we hadn't seen each other for most of the week and so decided to stay home and be lazy for the rest of Saturday night. I got a ton of knitting done on a fair isle stocking I'm making (fair isle knitting is really fun and tons easier than I thought it would be). Pictures of the finished product to be featured.

Sunday we went to Indiana to visit with my mom who is in town for the week and her husband's family. His son lives on a farm near Fowler, IN and wow, is it funny when the city mice visit the country mice. They have a ton of animals and I am hoping that next summer when I'm not pregnant they could teach Jason and I how to ride horses.

And thus it is Monday. Happy start of the week.

Well...that was Busy!

With a capital 'B'.

This weekend was chock full of all kinds of crazy things. On Friday I went to loopy yarns for their Friday night knit along. My cousin is having a baby *any* day now and the baby blanket I'm making for them has to be done by the time I head down to their area for the holiday weekend. So I got a ton done on that on Friday and actually just finished it up last night. Just have to bind off, weave in that last end and it'll be done. And by it being done it means my biggest project to date will be done.

Saturday morning we woke up at 5am because I wanted to go downtown to take some pictures in the early morning light. The photoblog is in the process of being revived, although with the holiday weekend I'll probably miss some more days this weekend. This weekend postings, if you missed them, were these two:

Modern Wing

Tiny & Swiss

Ok, so before we went downtown we were sitting in our living room contemplating actually going downtown at 5am when someone started tring to get into our apartment. We were like...um...hello? A girl was like, yeah I need to go to the bathroom. I was like...well OK, but we can't really help you with that. She said she was looking for the bacherlette party, and I told her that our apartment wasn't it. She started to go upstairs were I knew there wasn't going to be that kind of party either. I asked her if she was in the right building she said she was and went back downstairs. Turns out she was just confused as our downstairs neighbor came and apologized last night. Kinda funny though.

OK, so then downtown. Pictures and breakfast at Yolk and then I was suddenly inspired to finally rearrange our living room with some ideas I had awhile back. So it was back home and, since we got up at 5am, it was only like 8:30am. So we moved all the furniture around and took things off shelves and found a *great great* arrangement for everything. Giving us more space even though we added a desk unit to the room. We did, however, have to run out and get some things from Home Depot and Best Buy, so back to the red line, south a few stops. Walk all over there. Then back home. Then finishing putting things away, and then whew it was all done at about 3pm. At which point the Cubs were on, so I layed down to watch them and was out instantly for like 2 hours. Wow! Saturday night we watched a movie and just relaxed in what seemed like a new apartment.

On Sunday we got up early again. Jason had a 9 mile long run and I had my usual 4 miles. I don't know if it was all the walking/working/moving on Saturday but my run did not go well. I kept looking at all these couples running together and all these girls that were really thin and fit, and since my run wasn't going so well I just felt like a big fat whale out there. I know I know, I'm pregnant and this time is so "magical" but I wasn't feeling the magic. I miss running with Jason and I miss running fast and I miss being able to fit into my clothes. Maybe if the baby was moving more or something I would all, "ooooh being pregnant is magical". It IS moving I think.....but I want it to move like all the time and that doesn't happen. Plus I move so damn much and walk so much it probably isn't getting a chance to move or at least let me know it's moving. I did feel a lot of something when I was reading a Lee Child book last night...maybe the baby just likes Jack Reacher...just like the rest of it's family.

Anyways. I was done before Jason and he came over and was like, "OOOOH YOU LOOK SO CUTE" He thinks it's funny because when I face him when he's running towards me I don't look pregnant at all, and then I'll turn to the side and he says my stomach is like a door opening. He came up to me and was like, how'd it go? And then I started crying. Just a little crying though and then he gave me a hug and we walked back home.

Sunday was the Gay Pride parade and we went to our usual place to watch it. It's a bar that we used to hang out at *a lot* when we were 21-22 years old. Everyone that went there then comes back for the parade so it's always a fun day with a lot of, "HEY, so how was your last year?". We watched the Parade but holy hell is it long. Doesn't seem so long when you're a few vodka lemonades into the day. We saw all of our favorite floats, but missed the school that was marching this year for the first time. I was surprised that they weren't towards the front of the parade. From the parade we walked to the lake to sit for a few minutes. Then, realizing how hot and exhausted we were, decided to walk back home - first going another 1/2 mile or so North to hit a grocery store. So we got some foods and then walked back through all the crowds. We got home at about 4pm. I layed down on the couch...and what do you know. Fell asleep for about an hour.

So whew. I'm kind of exhausted just writing that post. Time for me to get ready for work, and Jason to proof read this (ed note: done). Then work time! Short week this week because of the holiday and the 4 days (!!!!) at my Aunt's lake house! I can't wait!

Heartbeat! Running! No Moving :(

So yes as you saw in our last post we amazingly got to hear the heart beating. It was so great to hear it right away and not have a problem finding it. Makes me calm down *a little*. Not a lot mind you, but just a little. I am really looking forward to the 20 week ultrasound where we can make sure that everything in on track development wise as well as find out the gender. I care more about the first part of that, and the gender will just be a nice little bonus.

I haven't felt the baby move yet. I know I know, it's early and why would I assume that something is wrong when everything else looks good. It's not that I think that something is wrong, I would just like to be assured that everything is fine. Plus it might be moving at night and I am a really really hard sleeper and so I might not wake up when the thing is most active. But where are the damn "bubbles" I'm supposed to have. GRR.

Even if the baby is lacking on the active, I've continued to be active however. I ran 4 miles 3 times last week and ran about 42 minutes on Saturday which is the best it has gone for me since the pregnancy started. I wonder if it's like training. I'm mean I'm not "training" but I'm running about the same distance and so I would think that the training and the weight gain will offset each other for awhile and so I'll be able to keep on running well and feel more comfortable as time goes on. Eventually of course this will not be the case and my mileage will probably be cutting back/I'm going to slow down a bit. But until I feel really bad I'm going to keep on keepin' on with the 3-4 miles, 3-4 days a week.

Jason's training is going pretty well. Since it's not a race he particularly cares about he's not as strict about runs as he would be if the race mattered (needed it to qualify, working for a PR). That way he can drop some of his run and run with me if he wants to. I like when he runs with me, especially with the weather getting warmer I feel better having him next to me. Plus it's more fun.

It looks like summer has finally come to Chicago with degrees in the 80s for the next 10 days. I love summer in this city and so I welcome it and the heat with open arms.

Sweat it Out...Really?

I must be an athlete from the 80s because after having a horrible day at work feeling like crud, and ending up really cranky I decided to go running when we got home thinking I could maybe sweat the sick out. And actually....I feel a ton better. I don't know if it was just a week of laying around feeling crappy and staying indoors was making it worse, but I think that the sweat it out might actually do something.

So Jason and I ran together for the first 2 miles and then he went ahead of me and did another 2 miles at faster than a snails pace and I kept nice and slow for my last mile or so. I went a bit over three miles though, probably around 3.5 or so. We won't run tonight because we are getting our hair cut. But we'll be back on it tomorrow. I'll probably do an *exciting* three or so miles and Jason has a 7 x 400m speed workout going on.

So I'm 15 weeks + some number of days pregnant and I have been doing the belly photos after our runs on Sunday. I only started doing it at 13 weeks because really there wasn't anything to show before then. So you can check out my smugmug gallery to see the pictures so far. And I'll make sure to post them here in the future.

Here's the Lot of Them

Like I mentioned in the post yesterday Jason and I have been writing secret blog posts for the past 12 weeks and as now everything is out in the open we are publishing them tonight. To get to just the posts about the pregnancy you can go to this link:

http://jasonleahrun.blogspot.com/search/label/pregnancy

And for them to make sense I would read them from the oldest to the newest, although you can do whatever you like...I mean if you like to do things out of order and it doesn't make the little vein in your head pulsate like mine would, that's your choice. :). I like order, leave me alone. ...and yes, you even have to click for older posts because there are too many for one page!

We went for a 3 mile run today and I didn't feel as good as I have in the past. I think that I have a really hard time running two days in a row and so I just have to try and do my best to avoid that in the future. So that's all from here. Enjoy the posts!

We Got a New Running Partner

Why has Jason had to start training alone for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon?

How come Leah can't beat Jason in a sprint anymore?

Is that Leah wearing two sports bras?

The answer to all these questions is yes! Wait. The answer to the last question is yes. The answer to the first two questions is

Because Leah's Pregnant! YAY!
(pause for effect)

Yep, for the last 12 weeks, Leah has been running for two and at a much slower pace (gotta take it easy, you know). About, oh, 14 weeks ago we decided to try for a baby and 2 weeks later - well, you've seen Look Who's Talking - and two weeks after that: pink line! Holy Crap! Didn't really expect it to happen so fast (that's what she said).

As so now we are taking a new turn in life as we try to deal with bringing a baby into this world and not ruining it once it gets here. So answers to questions you might have:

• Yes, Leah's already starting to show a bit, although it's the kind of show that's much more visible in the evening than in the morning (which we don't understand at all, but over the past few days even that's starting to change)
• Yep, she's still running. The doctor cleared her for 30-45 minutes of easy running. The rule is that she has to be able to talk. So she's been doing 3 miles 3 times a week and 4 on Sunday at about 11 min/mile or as Leah likes to say a lot slower than her normal comfy pace of 9 or less.
  
• No, Leah isn't runnning the 1/2, but Jason is. And, while he's sad to be training alone, he's surviving. Luckily it's only a half. Leah is now just Coach Leah and tells Jason what to do (insert joke here).
• Is the baby a boy or girl: yes
  
• We are in the 12th week of pregnancy and so just getting out of the first trimester, which is awesome.
• At 8 weeks we got pictures from the ultrasound when the baby was only 1.87cm long. Now the baby is the size of a lime. That little guy (or gal) grows fast! We think it looks like a gummy bear at this point. Which is good cause we know how much we love our gummy bears. Here are some blobular photos (there will be way cooler photos in the future...I can't help how blob like it is at 8 weeks!):
  

So yeah. Baby. Should be fun.
-----------------------------------

Leah speaking now:

Yep, we are oh so excited about this new turn in life. When we got back from our trip to Zurich we thought well we could start trying to have a baby because you know it's going to take a few months to get things going and by that point we'll really be ready and so on. Turns out it didn't take quite that long and 4 weeks later we had a positive pregnancy test. So yeah, we were a little shocked with the pink line (I might have taken 4 home pregnancy tests).

Jason and I have been writing secret posts (which I accidentally published a few of over the past 8 weeks or so, so you might have gotten a sneak peak if you were on your google reader on time). I am going to publish all of those in a day or so and you can read them all, by filtering on pregnancy, and I'll include a link when I let those out. Of course these are going to be in reverse order of when things were happening and we highly recommend you read the earliest post first and work your way to the most recent. There is a lot of them, but they are pretty funny (at least we think so). There will also be a lot more posting in the future, it's hard to not talk about something this fantastic and so that's why there was such a slow down in our posting.

We hope you enjoy the posts, and we hope you enjoy reading about this next challenge in our lives. I am going to continue running for as long as I can, so that should be an interesting experience and I know I'll be looking for tips from any women out there that are currently pregnant and running or have been pregnant and running.

Enjoy!

Fun Things For You To Know

Hey there Baby. Well I'm feeling better which I'm excited about. Thank you for not making me feel like I'm coming down with a flu every day, it's the small improvements.

We went for a 3 mile run without your Dad last night. Dad is starting to train for a 1/2 marathon that's on August 2nd and he can't be running 11ish minute miles with us if he wants to finish the race in any kind of reasonable time. So we three ran together for 5 minutes and then your Dad took off. This was fine except without him next to me, I wasn't sure if I could have a conversation and hence I didn't know if I was going too fast. I think I finished a bit faster than usual, at about 31:30 instead of closer to 33:00, but still not too bad.

I've decided that I'm going to train with your grandpa for the 2010 Chicago marathon. I'm guessing you'll be going on a lot of those runs with us, hope you like your baby jogger!

So I thought I was over the tired, and into the feel better phase, but after the run last night and a yummy dinner (that's right! you get to eat dinner cause my evening nausea has passed) I thought I would pick up some knitting and work on a blanket I'm trying to finish. Instead I was curious as to what would happen if I tipped over on the couch and it turns out I would fall asleep. 8pm Baby. You made me fall asleep at 8pm. At about 9pm, your Dad suggested we go to bed so I stumbled into the bathroom, brushed my teeth and feel asleep in bed in about 5 seconds flat. Yeah. Then I slept till 6:30. I hope that this sleeping pattern continues for you after you arrive.

We are currently in our 12th week, which I think marks that we are exiting the danger zone. We have a doctors appointment in a week where your dad and I are hoping to hear your heart beating.

I'm feeding you some coffee this morning. Don't freak out, it's going to be a bit more than you are used to. That's because as you'll find out that "small" doesn't really mean small, it means 12oz and that's the edge of the edge of my limit for coffee. Yeah that's right...I'm drinking coffee after sleeping 10 hours. I just find the taste to be delicious!

Running Long...or should I say "Long"

Hey there Baby.

Today I decided that we were ready to attack a 4 mile run. I was told by the doctors (you'll be meeting them in a short 30 weeks) that I could run for 30-45 minutes. Given how slow I've gotten lately, 4 miles should take me between 40 and 44 minutes, so given that it's Sunday (your Dad and I's usual long run day), I thought we should give 4 miles a try.

So off we went. I wore shorts and a white tank top and I'm noticing the belly you are giving me more and more. I especially notice it when I'm running. I'm wondering if you expand when I'm running...I don't know but it's weird for me for sure. I *might* look at myself in windows when I'm running and these days I'm like holy hell what is that below my chest...oh that's you!

Anyways. off we went. The test for if I'm running too fast is if I can keep a conversation going. Your dad has been great in slowing me down when he notices that I'm laboring a bit to tell some super boring story so he lags back a bit and forces me to slow down. I got a bit of a side stitch and so I had to walk for about 5 minute, but finished up the 4 miles in 44 minutes. SO our goal is to run 3 miles Monday, Wednesday and Friday and then 4 miles on Sunday.

Well that's my plan. Your dad is going to start training for a half marathon next week and so I'll just be running on my own, which makes me worry about the talking test as it will just look like I'm a crazy person talking to myself, but ah well, I'll just be one of the many in this great city. I'm going to miss training with your Dad, as I'm realizing this will be the first race we won't run together. I'll be coaching him though and making sure that he sticks to the plan. And I'm guessing I'll be making him some running mixes to put on his iPod during the speed workouts which I suspect will be more difficult for him to do on his own. Your Dad's really tough though and so he'll be fine.

Alright, well I didn't let you take a nap yesterday and so we'll say that it's you who got really cranky last night and as we don't want that happen again, I should probably go get in a nap.