I joined Stroller Strong moms back in March. They were just finishing a fitness challenge around the time I started. Participants did weigh ins and assessments, they even gave prizes to the top 3 improved. Pretty neat idea, and I was bummed I had missed it. A few weeks ago I made a suggestion to Kelli that we do something similar, except monthly (and keep the results private). My assessment was Tuesday. I did 2 min of step-ups, 1 min of push ups, planking for as long as I could hold it, 100m dash, and an 800m run.
Now, let me tell you, back in highschool and college:
My 100m time was 13.7
I never ran an 800 timed, but my 400 was 60sec, I imagine my 800 would have been 2:30 or 3min (that's not fast, I was never good for more than 400m)
People didn't plank when I was in school, at least not normally. In college we did "benches" which were planks without the arm support. someone sat on your legs and you suspended yourself off the edge of a bench, even that was only twice a week, on weight days. We did crunches.
We also did stadiums, not step ups. And as for push-ups - I have no idea my numbers. In highschool, I was the amazing wonder kid who lead the pack, but in college I was more in the middle. It's hard to compete with those strong specialized sprinters!
Anyway, the point of all that tangent was that I used to be very athletic and it was something I was proud of. Tuesday was a wakeup call.
54 seconds of planks... 121 step ups, 18 push-ups, my 100m time was 18 seconds, and my 800m was 5m39s. Are you kidding me? What was worse is that I woke up the next day and was so incredibly sore!
My ankle is finally better, so now is the time, I'm going to SSM at Forsythe park in addition to Gregory. I'm stressing about the gas, but I inflated my FJ tires last night. I had a very low tire, but even the "full ones" were 23-27 psi. The max pressure is 44psi so I inflated to 37. I will ask Andrew if he thinks 40 would be better since we only do road driving. Hopefully my mileage will improve. I will still cycle on the off days, and lift my weights at home. Since I have nowhere to go but up, I want to go WAY up. Wish me luck!
First off, I weighed 150 when I got pregnant, and 190 when I had 80 back in November. I lost 20 of those pounds without doing any work, it was nice but I plateaued at 170. Before I joined SSM in March, I had started a pretty strict 1800 calorie diet (1200 with 500 added for breastfeeding) I was walking before SSM, and then when I started SSM I started running on my off days. Here I am in my rolly glory. It's not bad, at 6' tall I'm still within my normal BMI, but let's face it, it's a far cry from my ideal. My goal weight is 150, and my icing weight would be 140.
Ok, I am mentally wrestling with myself to even post these pictures, but here goes.
Fast forward a bit, I turned my ankle in April, and dropped the runs between workouts. I also severely cut back what I was doing at SSM since a lot of the exercises required jumping and twisting.
So the result is that after 2 and half months I'm the same weight. Though I think I'm wearing it a little tighter. I blame a combo of age and breastfeeding. I've since added cycling between SSM classes, but have only been doing that for 2 weeks, and it's only for ~3.5 miles around my neighborhood. Hardly a stressful workout though I am pulling 80 in his bike trailer!
I have been using MapMyFitness app on my android phone to track my route, it tells me my average speeds and elevation, and it obviously maps my route via live GPS. I am not too thrilled with its analysis feature though, it has consistently told me that I am, at times, travelling 500mph. I chose it because you can switch between a variety of workouts and it tracks them all, cycling, running, walking, hiking, even swimming. My second reason for choosing it was that my cell phone is due for upgrade mid July and I fully intend to replace my POS android phone with an iphone, so I wanted a program that was cross platform.
I took photography as a sophomore and junior in high school, it was a wonderful class. We used the old black and white canons, learned about metering, exposure, fstops etc. We developed our film in darkrooms and processed our photographs in trays of chemicals and hung them from wires... Oh the nostalgia. It awakened a love of photography in me. Truthfully I like almost everything artistic so enjoying photography wasn't a huge surprise. I took photography again in college, 3 classes in fact. I still have the film camera I bought for that class. For some reason, all the things I'd learned in high school seemed to escape me. Truthfully, I'm not sure what I was thinking or doing those first 2 years of college. I'm not entirely sure that I wasn't being remotely controlled by aliens, I was such a different person then.
I digress--
Melony Farrar of Sweet Wink rekindled my interest in photography. I worked with her for 2 years doing hair and makeup for her business. There was a plan for me to branch into Savannah, expanding Sweet Wink, but that did not end up working out (yet). I bought a Nikon D90, and started tinkering with it. I had never used a digital SLR before, having only used black and white film. Basically, while I had some previous experience I was starting over. Color and white balance has been a major issue.
What I ended up with was a expansive collection of well composed photographs that were crap. There were a few Photoshop-salvageable images but the quality was so variable, it was embarrassing.
my secret love of bird photography.. if I had a few spare Ks laying around I would love to get my hands on a telephoto lens.
my pretty ex-puppy, Sumo
Bacon
My sisters house
and then sometimes you end up with a picture of a polar bear sodomizing your firstborn son. Go ahead and laugh at the color *sigh*
Since then I have cracked open my D90 book, I wish I could say I have read it cover to cover, it's a work in progress. I *made* a greycard for myself and it's made an enormous difference. I can only imagine what a real one would do, lol. I've also figured out the white balance settings for my photographs, so as long as the lighting temperature isn't wonky (like trying to take a photograph in my coral pink parlor, see above) I can get pretty consistent results. A true trial by error.
We started the month out with 80 hospitalized, running through the last few days of his antibiotics run. My dad drove down on the 3rd, 80 was released on the 4th, and my parents flew to Denmark on the 7th. They were gone for not quite 2 weeks. During that time, 80 and I ran/walked another 5k. This time it was for Girls on the Run, a local program that encourages young girls to get out and exercise, stay fit, make good life choices, and build self esteem. I felt like I did pretty well, but I ended up running it in 42 minutes or something ridiculous. So... needs improvement. It was a fun run though,
2 of the other troop wives, Jessika and Kati
I always end up carrying him at some point.
When my parents came home, it was almost 80s 6 month birthday! To celebrate we packed up and went to Hilton Head, we parked at Coligny beach and made our way past the EXCELLENT facilities and beach access to the beach and water. We were not dressed for the beach, nor had we any plans of swimming or sunbathing, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to dip 80s toes in the Atlantic for the first time!
Sadly, mom and dad had to go home a few days later. I'd had mom with me for almost a month and it was wonderful but she has this whole life in St Louis she has to go back to or whatever. We had been invited to the beach the same day they left so 80 and I went to Tybee for the first time. We met up with Kelli and Jessika who are troop wives who are also in SSM.
napping in the beach wagon
80, Lani and Tristin: beach babies!!!
Neither of us ended up sun burnt, but I did get a parking ticket.. late by 10 minutes! Such a bummer. We also went down with a handful of other SSM moms to St Simons island in GA, to Neptune Park which is just a public pool. It was a beautiful day and 80 had a good time sleeping on me while we sat along the wall of the zero entry part of the pool. I don't think I'll be making the hour and a half hour drive back down there just for the pool any time soon, but hanging out with other SSM moms in a setting where I wasn't sweating or out of breath was a treat.
I had made the decision back in February that I was going to start meeting new people. Actually my mom had harassed me since we moved for not going out and making connections. My first step was attending a meetup with other wives of Andrews troop. There I heard about Stroller Strong Moms (SSM) from my FRG leader Kelli, which I had decided to join in March. I did and it has been great. I had been walking on my own before I joined, and once I joined I also started the couch to 5k running plan again. I had done it last year before I found out I was pregnant and really liked it. My goal was to be able to run a 5k by my birthday. Since the c25k plan is 9 weeks it would be perfect.
80 continued to improve, he started smiling, cooing, and this cute little "inside out" laugh where he breathes in instead of out. I call it his Nerd Laugh because it reminds me of the tall guy with glasses from Revenge of the Nerds.
Smiling!
Chatting
I have been wrestling with Babies Cant Wait, the GA early intervention program, since January. Basically 80s caseworker is irresponsible, unprofessional, and has no business working in her field. If you want to be in public service and ignore the needs of your clients, go work at the DMV or the county tax commissioner!
My mom came from St Louis to stay with me with 80 since Andrew left on the 9th. She came rolling in at 8pm on the 8th, and stayed home with 80 when Andrew and I left at midnight to take him to the staging area.
Granny sees 80 for the first time out of the hospital
first walk
first bath
taking a nap while momma plays on the ipad
cat torture, it starts early
She stayed with me for about 3 weeks before my dad came. They stayed for a few days and then went home.
Dad: holding 80, eating a sandwich, playing on the computer, and balancing trash on the cat.. what multi-tasking!
A few days later 80s Mema (Andrews mother, Irma) stayed with me and helped out with 80 for a week. When she left I was on my own! And it was February!
I spent Thanksgiving holiday alone. Andrew had left to visit his family in "The Valley" (Edinburg TX) and I had made the decision that it was too risky for me to travel that far. At the time it seemed overcautious, but I didn't feel 80 kick all of Thanskgiving day, and had mentally decided that if he didn't kick at all that night I would go to the hospital first thing in the morning. Now, Tricare is very specific that military wives with the type of insurance we use, must deliver at the hospital on base. So I woke up, called the hospital to let them know I was coming and why (they said fine come on down) took a quick shower, packed a light bag just in case, and drove 45 minutes to the Winn Army Hospital. While I was driving I had a vision blackout. Not a true blackout but my vision went all spinny and I couldn't focus on anything. It lasted about 20 seconds and then was fine.
When I got to the hospital, they put me on monitors, had me drink juice, buzzed 80 with a vibrator, etc trying to get him to "wake up" except for a few very mild spikes he remained inactive. I had called my parents and was telling Andrew that I was in the hospital when the nurses came in, had me quickly sign some papers and change into hospital robes. I had just enough time to text my two sisters to tell them they were getting ready to be aunts before they walked me down into the OR.
Now, up until now I had been as cool as a cucumber. Even as they gave me the epidural that didn't work, and the doctors poked my legs and watched me wiggle my toes over and over before deciding that I needed general anesthesia, my heart was calm. When one of the nurses, as I was laying on the table and they were strapping me down, said in a very urgent voice that Adrians heartrate had been 70.. when they took me off the monitor 10 minutes ago, I started to panic and cry. It hadn't struck me until that point that 80 could be in danger and might not live. 70 is a VERY low heart rate for a fetus, it normally hangs in the 150s. So I sobbed on the table despite their urging me that I needed to stay still. It's such a blessing that they put me under, because I would not have been able to suppress the racking sobs had I been awake. 80 was born at 12:08pm Nov 23, Black Friday. He weighed 3lbs 15oz or 1808g. His APGAR at 1 min was 3, at 5 min 5, and 10 min 7. He required immediate resuscitation at birth I was told.
They waited until I was awake to "see" him (I had to have a nurse take pictures on my phone because the anesthesia wouldn't let me focus my eyes) before whisking him 3 hours away to MCG in Augusta GA. The doctors determined that I had had a placental abruption on the interior of the placenta, so a pool of blood was collecting between my uterine wall and the placenta but I never experienced bleeding because the perimeter of the placenta was still attached.
80 in the transport incubator, the photo a nurse took for me on my cellphone
Now, my experience from here on out was pretty trivial. Normal C-section post-partum momma stuff so I'll skip it.
Andrew had his flight moved up a day and flew into Savannah the next day (Saturday) My mom picked him up and they drove to Augusta while my dad stayed at Winn with me.
Andrews first time meeting 80, love at first sight!
poor little guy! he was writhing the whole time
I was released from the hospital 2 days later. It was probably a little early for me to be released but the staff at Winn didn't think 80 would live and were anxious to get me up there so I could spend time with him.
Our first family portrait
80 had suffered a grade 3 and grade 4 IVH, he had DIC, his blood pH was 6.77 which is incompatible with life, only a few nurses had ever seen such Acidosis, and none had heard of a baby who had survived it, he also had Hypotension, a partially collapsed lung, and Sepsis to name a few things.
Our first times holding 80, about a week and a half after he was born. Still in Augusta
We were told after 48 hours that 80 would probably survive. We were also told to *expect* such things as ROP, Cerebral Palsy, developmental delays, and other heartbreaking diagnosis that I can't recall at the moment. I spent an entire day crying in the snack room at MCG after a particularly grim meeting with the doctor we nicknamed "Dr House".
His first preemie outfit.
His last night before the shunt was installed. He didn't like being held facing forward, he still prefers to be snuggled.
It was later discovered that he had hydrocephalus, we were transferred back to Savannah, at Memorial hospital and had a VP shunt placed on his 3 week birthday by Dr Thompson (whom we adore).
80 snuggles with his daddy. You can see the shunt and shunt tubing very well in this picture.
We rode the NICU roller coaster, Intubation, cannulas, room air, gradual feed increases, then cutoffs, bottle feeding, PICC lines, plasma infusion, pain management... We were fortunate that he never had any serious issues with As and Bs (apnea and bradycardia) and after they sucked all the gunk out of his collapsed lung, he never had an issue breathing or with oxygen saturation. He did battle abnormally high heart rates until his shunt was installed. He also went anemic towards the end of his NICU stay. His hematocrit level was 20.9 to anyone know knows what that means. The nurses told us that it was pretty damn low and that he should have had a transfusion way before he actually got one. Andrew and I thought his shunt had failed because his behavior had changed so drastically.
I made this video of the first week of his life
Even as a preemie it was obvious which of us he was going to favor!
Someone looks like his daddy!
We stayed in the NICU about a week longer than we probably had to because of his poor feeding. The policy with discharging babies is that they must either be breastfeeding (which he was not, though I was pumping) or be able to drink 40mL in 20 minutes.
milk drunk
When I think back to how much 40mLs is now, its such a small amount! And in 20 minutes? It feels like it can evaporate faster than that! But the truth is we struggled to get him to drink even 10mLs some days. In fact he never actually made that milestone, we were fortunate to get a nurse who thought we had been there too long and put us in a different program called "Rooming In" where we basically stay for 2 days in a room at hospital with 80, pretending we are at home. We are the only caregivers for 2 days, they weigh him on the first night, and if he has gained weight we go to the second night, if he has gained weight the second night... we get to go home! Everything went swimmingly (except he was circumcised the second night.. that is a whole other story) and we went home on the 7th of January. 37 days in the NICU 6 weeks and 3 days.
Going home! Just barely 5 lbs
He was due on the 13th so we were very lucky to take him home before his due date! Even more lucky because Andew left for Afghanistan at 3am on the 9th, so we had a little over 24 hours home as a family before he shipped off. Better one day home than none!
Everyone asks why I call Adrian "80", at least those who see it written. Phonetically it sounds like "Aydee" which is the first part of AdyBob, a nickname he got from his cousin NatyBob (Nathan Robert). The Adrian of Adrian Robert came from my husbands great grandfather. The Robert is my now deceased FIL's middle name (he was John Robert). My niece Catherine noticed that ADY sounded like the number 80. I thought it was so clever I adopted it.
When 80 was born we hadn't picked out a name yet, we were both on the fence about Adrian, we both liked it but neither of us were wild about it. 80 was such a surprise that we both more concerned with his health than his name. Andrew went with my mother directly to the NICU hospital from the airport (he had been visiting TX for Thanksgiving) while I stayed in the birth hospital. The doctors asked him at the NICU what his name was, he said Adrian Robert. I didn't have any objections and thus it became his name.
There was a bit of confusion when it came to filling out the birth forms. I wanted to make sure that Robert was the middle name Andrew had chosen, and wasn't a product of playing grade school Telephone through Andrew, my parents, and me. If you ask my dad he will tell you this conversation:
Me: I don't know what to put for middle name
Dad: I thought it was Robert?
Me: Um, says WHO?
Which is more or less how it happened.
So, I'm starting this blog for the benefit of my friends and family. If you've read back this far then congratulations, but you don't get an award. A little background information relevant to this blog: My name is Kathleen, I am 30 years old. I was married in 2006 to an Army pilot, Andrew. We lived in Clarksville TN, where I graduated beauty school, and then worked at Lyndons Salon and Spa. I also worked with a photographer and good friend Melony Farrar doing hair and makeup for her business, Sweet Wink Photography, a pinup themed photography studio.
In July 2012 we moved to Savannah GA.
In November 2012 I gave birth to my son, Adrian Robert (whom we call 80) at 32 weeks and 5 days. He spent 7 weeks in the NICU, and we brought him home January 7th. My husband left for Afghanistan on Jan 9th... at 3am.
The rest shall be extrapolated in this blog. That's what it's here for!
I hope that this blog will focus on parenting a preemie, photography, crafts, exercise, home improvement, and I'm sure some random tomfoolery.
