Pregnancy and Exercise

So I always said that if I was to ever get pregnant, I wanted to exercise throughout the pregnancy. Obviously, I don't have complete control over this, but so far, I've been blessed to be able to work out 5 times a week. The first trimester was a struggle. I was ALWAYS tired and had no motivation to work out. It was also my first trimester that I ran a half marathon (at 9 weeks) so maybe that's why I was so tired. I was running up to 6 miles on week days and 10+ miles on weekends. After that half, I slowed my running down quite a bit. The further I get in this pregnancy, the slower I get. I NEVER push myself. I run where I'm completely comfortable and if I start to feel uncomfortable, I'll stop and walk for a bit. I was running about a 9 min/mile before the pregnancy. Now I'm at a 10:30/10:45 (so that gives you an idea how much slower I've become).

These days, I've been spending a lot more time on the elliptical and bike. I typically only work out for 30 minutes a day. Weekends I'll try to get one or two 4 mile runs in. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to run outside lately...not because I don't want to but because I have to deal with the pregnancy bladder issue! As soon as I start running, I automatically have to pee (even if I literally just went). Little boy bounces around on my bladder, making it extremely uncomfortable to run. So if I run 4 miles, I'm typically stopping at 2 miles to run to the bathroom.

I completely understand that exercising will become much harder the further in the pregnancy I get, but I'm hopeful that exercising can continue. It helps with any stress issues I might have and always makes me feel 100% better.

Here's an update on recent pictures. I feel like I popped right around 21 weeks.

Half Way!

There are days that it still feels so surreal that I'm actually pregnant...that I'm actually carrying a tiny human being. We just hit the 20 week mark - half way there! We also found out at 18 weeks that we're having a baby boy. We couldn't be happier. I was positive that it was a girl so I was a bit surprised when the tech told us we were having a boy. It's been so fun starting to prepare his nursery and picking out names. I also started feeling kicks around 17 weeks. It's such an exciting feeling and makes everything so much more real. It's amazing to me how much I can love this little man already.

I've spent a little bit of time reflecting back on 2015. The beginning of the year was a bit rough. I struggled understanding what God's plans were for us. I doubted and I complained. I'm thankful that God is gracious. And I'm so thankful that He has blessed us with a little miracle when the best of the best doctors told us it wasn't possible. There were many areas that I didn't trust God in the beginning of the year. Children, finances, jobs.... Now that I look back, I'm amazed (and ashamed at my lack of trust) that God has taken every single area and blessed us beyond measure.

Here are a few baby bump pictures up to week 20. It's been fun documenting this!