Health in pregnancy.

I love challenges.

I also love adventures and new things.

I started calling myself a "new things junkie" a few years ago because that's just how I roll. I like new projects, new goals, new recipes, new organizational systems, new decor, new room arrangements and new challenges.

Each pregnancy I've challenged myself to do the things I didn't do as well in the previous pregnancy. And it's fun, because it's a fresh start. It's a new chance.

With my first pregnancy, I did a lot of things I wish I wouldn't have in retrospect. I ate too much, gained too much, exercised too little, documented too little and didn't really educate myself much about how challenging birth was actually going to be.

Round two, I learned a little more about birth and had the experience of the previous one to help me better prepare. Even then, I went into the labor giving myself grace to get an epidural if needed, but I got through that labor without one and having a natural birth rocked my world. I ate much less (though I did still eat crap food) and gained much less and documented much more.

Round three, I wanted an even better birth experience, so we went full-fledged Earth Mama and hired a midwife who became a great friend. We had a homebirth and it was beautiful and more insanely life-changing than anything I ever could have imagined. I tried to eat better that time and did a brief stint as a vegan which totally backfired when I became severely anemic which threatened my homebirth. Once I fell off the vegan train, I spent the rest of that pregnancy eating like crap, too, and ended up gaining more weight than my second pregnancy (but at least less than my first). I got horribly depressed and didn't do enough to learn about why depression in pregnancy happens. I just popped a pill for a month until the depression subsided on its own. I did way better documenting!

Round four (still can't believe I'm saying that), I have a few more challenges for myself.

• Keep up the documenting (and make something more awesome now that I'm actually proficient in Photoshop)
• Eat healthy - whole foods almost the whole time, super rare fast food trips, way more water, big loads of veggies every day
• I'm on an awesome vitamin/supplement regimen these days that has given me a whole new outlook on life! Seriously. Natural Calm (incredible stuff) + 5000 IU/day vitamin D drops (also incredible and what I credit the very most for my shift in health),  Adrenal Health supplements because mine are shot, Green Pastures butter oil/fermented cod liver oil (finally found a way I can take these!), and some iodine drops (though doc says only safe for short periods during pregnancy) have made me feel like a new person, so I want to keep these up. For me, the starting point is always the tough part. Once I develop a routine, it becomes easy to stick to. But I have to force myself to do it for a few weeks before it becomes second nature. This little regimen is finally second nature, so I really want to keep it up! And I want to drink a cup of this Dandy Blend every day, too, to get a dose of beneficial dandelion (now I sound like a crazy person, I know). I've been drinking it for almost a week and love it. Even my cousin was a convert! 
• EXERCISE. This and laying off fast food are the two toughest challenges of pregnancy I've never been able to succeed at. We're getting ready to buy a treadmill and Lord willing, I am hoping that this is it for me! I truly despise exercising outside. I guess I have exercise-induced asthma (which could not be a more embarrassing diagnosis, am I right?!) because I always end up a wheezing, red-faced mess when I come inside. The only times I've ever maintained exercise for anything longer than a week have been when I had access to a treadmill either at the gym or when I was younger at my parents house. I want to do an hour on the treadmill 5 days a week. HUGE goal for me, but it's my #1!
• Learn more about essential oils and herbs. I've become about 86 times more crunchy since Landon was born, and dipping my toes into essential oils has been quite the experience! I've always been a little (orrrrrr....a lot) skeptical of herbs and oils. Until I got my first order from Young Living. So far I've had huge success with kicking Ben's headache, my joint pains and using Peace & Calming to relax me in the evenings (That + Natural Calm before bed equal a sleepy mama without wine! Miracle!). Plus to finally get to have a yummy smelling house again (we gave up the Scentsy and candles and air freshener awhile back)? Yes, yes, yes! Love having an essential oil diffuser. Since we've had such tremendous success with oils, herbs seem logical, too. Mother's Milk tea did always help me, even if only a little. So I'm challenging myself to learn more about beneficial herbs and oils in pregnancy and labor and use them!

I'm not setting a weight goal for myself because if I'm following the above, I don't care what I gain, because I'll know it's what my body needs to gain to create a healthy baby. I can get super obsessive about my weight in pregnancy, so another huge bonus of going the midwife/homebirth route is the choice not to be weighed. 

That's all she wrote! But for entertainment purposes, I leave you with the largest 4 week belly ever. For real though, I'm embracing it. I solemnly swear not to complain about it this time around because even though I'm a freak of nature, the pregnant body is gorg.