Treading Softly

                Tomorrow will mark the first day of my 37^th week of pregnancy, and I’m excited that I’m to the point where I can have a baby at home.  The last two weeks I have been acutely aware of the fact that if I were to go into labor no one would stop me.  I also would be unable to have a home birth, so I have been slightly more cautious than usual.  I have also noticed in the past two weeks that I have a ton more contractions.  I sometimes wake up from them in the middle of the night. This past week, I began drinking raspberry tea (for uterine toning).  I love it!  I also started drinking Shepherd’s purse tea.  I don’t love it, but it is supposed to help with hemorrhaging after the baby is born.  There are many days that I don’t feel like running too, and still I continue to do that because of how much easier my pregnancy has been so far.  I guess drinking this tea is similar to that.  My oldest smelled the tea a few days ago, and said, “It smells just like asparagus!”  I’m not a huge fan of asparagus, but I don’t mind having it fresh from the garden.  Now I think of asparagus while I drink the tea.  My next oldest smelled it yesterday and said, “It doesn’t smell like asparagus; it smells just like a squished caterpillar.”  I refuse to think about squashed bugs while I drink my tea.  Asparagus is as far as I will go.  If you are reading this blog and know any tricks to making the tea more palatable please leave me a comment.  I have found that adding lemon to it tastes really horrible (I love lemon with my asparagus, so I thought why not try adding it to my “asparagus tea”).  Trust me…don’t try it!

                I have continued running, but during week 35 of my pregnancy I became a little discouraged.  I usually run 30 minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  On Wednesday of that week, I had back to back contractions after 20 minutes of running.  I chose to walk till I hit 30 minutes.  That was the first time I had that many contractions during running.  I wasn’t too worried though because all of the issues that have caused me to stop running during pregnancy (which has happened 3 or 4 times) resolve before the next time I run.  However, when I started running on Friday, it didn’t feel right.  I felt out of breath which is clearly not good for the baby, and I stopped after just five minutes.  I felt a little defeated.  My original midwife instructed me that instead of just looking at the heart rate I had during exercise that I should look at how I was feeling.  If I was able to easily talk during running, then it was fine to continue running.  That Friday, I wondered if I had just reached the point in my pregnanc y where I just wouldn’t be able to run anymore.  I pondered it all weekend, and this Monday I tried something a little different.  I tried slowing my pace down, and guess what?  It worked.  I can still run, and sing my heart out.  Small adjustments can make all the difference.

                I don’t love running.  However, this is what I’ve learned in this pregnancy.  I didn’t feel tired my first trimester at all--save one or two days. I’m not anywhere near as fatigued at the end of my pregnancy as I was with the other four pregnancies.  I can still make my weekly trip to Wal-mart without losing my breath or feeling like I have to sit down afterward.  I used to feel exhausted just going from side to side while putting clean sheets on my bed.  I can even still run up my stairs. I’ve also noticed the swelling that I sometimes have in my ankles completely disappears after I run.  This makes running totally worth it to me; so I will continue to run on my treadmill, just a little slower and softer than I started out.