weight loss journey during pregnancy | Im happy to be pregnant but I dont want to talk about it

weight loss journey during pregnancy

This week, I got together with several women from church for a tea party for our preschooler girls. I was asked many times about my pregnancy and how Im feeling. Which was very thoughtful. But Im sure I came off as so rude in return. Im uncomfortable talking about my pregnancy and I imagine the other women thought I was being terse and cold. I just cant small talk about pregnancy anymore. But for most moms, thats probably a hard concept to grasp. After all, I am currently pregnant and everything seems to be going well. Whats the harm in talking about it?

For other women chatting about where theyre going to give birth might be a casual conversation, but it requires me to assume that I will indeed be giving birth to a child at the end of this pregnancy and I cant go there quite yet. At times, its a stretch to even think of myself as still pregnant come next week, never mind six months from now. Its also those kinds of conversations that haunt me after a loss. The conversations about whether were going to find out the sex come flooding back when we reach 20 weeks and imagine us going in for our anatomy scan, urgently telling the ultrasound tech, "We dont want to know! Please dont give it away!" And when were facing down the due date that will never be, I cant help but remember the conversations about the birth center or midwife weve chosen, the carefully crafted plans we made to bring our baby into this world in a gentle and natural way.

As a mom who has experienced many more losses than live births, I find it easier to take everything one day at a time, to live in the present and not plan ahead more than is absolutely necessary. Acting as if only the present exists makes it possible for me to find a bit of excitement and joy in my pregnancy. I think this is because I need to treat the pregnancy as an end of its own. When pregnancy is treated as only the means to a end (a living child), then the vast majority of my pregnancies lose all purpose. And if I need anything right now, I need this pregnancy to mean something, to have value today even if it might end tomorrow.

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end of pregnancy weight loss | My Love Language is Coffee

end of pregnancy weight loss

 

If my cupboards are any indication, my love language is definitely coffee (the picture below shows about 24 mugs – a fraction of the coffee cups we own). I suppose coffee would fall under Gary Chapmans described language of quality time. I want to savor a good cup of coffee in the company of someone close to me.

Over the last month-and-a-half, I have been leading a Wednesday night class at my church on the topic of hospitality. We are following the SheReadsTruth study and each week I have asked different women to share personal experiences. In addition I also include supplemental content that I run across – mostly from the blogs I read.

Last night I shared a little from the blog Fellowship Kitchen. The author, Alyssa Passage, writes about the faux pas of sharing personal pain during the holiday season, and that in keeping those struggles to ourselves we do a disservice to those who might be able to love on us.

She says:

Silence costs us…

The silence, about what effects our hearts, leads to loneliness and isolation even while we sit at packed holiday tables, elbow in the mashed potatoes.

Silence costs listening ears, comfort, camaraderie, and the plethora of hugs you need. No, gestures like that won’t cure the hurt but at least we’ll be surrounded by love and the voice of truth, “You’re not alone.”

And as a final thought — let’s dually hold sadness and peace in our hearts, not because everything is alright, but because Jesus is a bringer of gifts. And those gifts often arrive in the arms of friends and family. - See more at: http://kitchenfellowship.com/if-the-holidays-hurt-your-heart/#sthash.dRDnvKiO.dpuf

 

So if you are hurting in some way this holiday season, whether from anxiety, difficulty parenting, aging parents, infertility, miscarriage, death, job situations, or whatever your heartache is, I hope you will chose to share that burden with someone close to you, perhaps over coffee. 

 

And if you know someone who may be having a difficult time right now, I hope you will choose to show hospitality to that person by offering a listening ear, a hug, or a note to let that person know they are not alone. In this season we are reminded that Jesus was the ultimate gift giver and those gifts can arrive in the form of friends and loved ones.

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weight loss during pregnancy overweight | Thanksgiving 2015 My Menu

weight loss during pregnancy overweight

The first time I hosted a Thanksgiving dinner was five years ago for my in-laws. It was our first time to use our china, though not my first time meal planning for a crowd (I had previously planned and shopped for 35+ people for weekend family reunions). So I guess you can say I have a little experience in this arena.

Five years ago I felt rushed and somewhat stressed – probably because I planned too many dishes and had trouble allowing others to fully help me. Daniels family all stepped in as wonderful sous chefs, but my own character flaws made it more stressful than it had to be.

This time around, I am older and hopefully wiser. I planned out my menu the week before. Knocked out the shopping on the Sunday before Thanksgiving (by myself!) and felt ready to go.

Along with my recipes, I had a plan of how long items took to cook and at what temps. This made it tremendously easy to get everything done without being stressed. Though the last 30 minutes of prep was a mad dash, but it all came off without a hitch!

Another thing we did differently this time was baking most of the pies the night before. While the pies baked, I took the opportunity to also bake my sweet potatoes for our sweet potato casserole.

Here are my thoughts on each dish on my menu:

Maple Roasted Turkey with Smoked Bacon  
[recipe from Tyler Florence on The Food Network]
This was my third turkey to do with bacon and it did not disappoint. Each time I have tried a different recipe or variation, but this one was by far the simplest to make, and perhaps most flavorful. My 20lb turkey took exactly 3.5 hours to bake. The maple syrup gave it a slight sweetness that I enjoyed and that meshed well with the other dishes that incorporated maple syrup. My mom thought the maple syrup made her gravy a bit sweet, but I thought it was all delicious.

Stuffing 
My mom made her usual stuffing (she even pre-cooked the cornbread and brought it with her from Arkansas). In the future I might consider making another pan of stuffing for such a large crowd.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Cinnamon Butternut Squash, Pecans and Cranberries 
[recipe floating around Facebook]
The week before Thanksgiving I saw this recipe on Facebook and thought that it would be a good addition to our spread. It had maple syrup as an ingredient and that tied in wonderfully with the turkey. I accidentally bought fresh cranberries instead of dried, so at the last minute I ended up adding dried apples (found in my pantry) to the dish instead. The flavors all worked well together. 

Green Bean Casserole
[recipe from Frenchs]
We had the traditional green bean casserole recipe found on the Frenchs French Fried Onion can. I had the wrong kind of green beans (flat, wide ones instead of skinny french cut). I dont think my sister was a fan, and while I agree I like the skinny green beans better, this dish was still tasty and there were no leftovers.

Mashed Potatoes 
[recipe from Pioneer Woman]
The Pioneer Woman NEVER lets me down with her recipes. These mashed potatoes were decadent in a savory kind of way. You could eat them without gravy, they were that good. They were also good cold and I even threw them in broccoli-potato soup at the end of the week. Five pounds of potatoes really went a long way and they were amazing!

Soul Sweet Taters 
[recipe from Pioneer Woman]
Another score for The Pioneer Woman. I baked the sweet potatoes the night before. The only negative was that one of my potatoes didnt fully cook and so it didnt mash up completely in the casserole. It was still good though! Also, I need to buy one more 9x13 dish. I ended up making this casserole in a shorter, deeper dish and the ratio of topping to potatoes was off.

PW Dinner Rolls 
[recipe from Pioneer Woman]
These rolls were a bit finicky – though I always have trouble with bread. The dough was SUPER moist and I couldnt seem to make it dry enough. I more than doubled the recipes stated 4 cups of flour! I literally kept stirring in flour until I could work with it. And even then, I ended up pouring the batter directly into the muffin tins. So basically we had muffin rolls. They still tasted good though!

5 Cup Salad 
[oranges, pineapple, marshmallows, sour cream and coconut]
This is one of my favorite family recipes. We have been making this dish for Thanksgiving as long as I can remember. Daniel doesnt care for sour cream or coconut, but that just leaves more for me!

Cherry Yum Yum
[recipe found on Pinterest]
Daniels family makes this dessert for every holiday and I have really come to love it. I dont think this particular recipe is the same one as what his family makes, but I have had a hard time getting Daniels Great Aunt Thula or his Grandmother to write down the exact recipe. I need to bug them some more!

Pecan and Pumpkin Pie
My mom made the pecan and pumpkin pies that she has been making forever. I especially love her pecan pie. My parents always gather pecans from the trees around town and share their spoils with us. I think we all agreed we need to make homemade crusts next year.

 
Apple Pie 
[cousin Moriah]
My cousin Moriah made an apple pie with the help of my niece, Izzy. They did an excellent job. I didnt have any shortening on hand for her crust, so she made it with butter and it was SO GOOD. I want her to make all of our crusts with butter in the future!

So that was our meal in a nutshell. It was delicious and decadent and made with loving hands. I didnt feel stressed and everyone had more than their fill of good food (plus lots of good leftovers!).

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timeline of pregnancy weight loss | Happy 4th Birthday Jack!

timeline of pregnancy weight loss

We had several celebrations with Jack over the course of the last week. We had a friend party on Saturday, followed by a family dinner to celebrate at El Metate (the Mexican place where you wear a blue hat), and then a preschool party on Jacks actual birthday.

We are about partied out around here.

I have so much to say about my sweet boy, though not all of the blogs in the world would adequately describe him or what he means to our family. Hopefully these few words will suffice.

At four, Jack is incredibly curious. As with most parents of 3 and 4 year olds, we continue to be in a never-ending why phase. As a parent I have a love-hate relationship with these questions. I love that he is learning and wants so badly to know things, but sometimes the questions never seem to cease. These questions stretch me to help him understand the world around us and in turn I learn more as well.

Right now Jack havs a deep love for people and helping others. He has never met a stranger. His standard pick-up line at the park is "Hi, Im Jack. Im three [now four]. Do you want to play with me?" I hope he is always this outgoing and that his sweet spirit never gets crushed. His confidence amazes me. He doesnt care how old or young you are, he wants to be your friend. It makes him sad when older kids are not interested in playing with him. In turn that makes me sad, but I try to let him experience these harder moments without interference, along with the sweet moments.

 

At preschool and church, Jack wants to hold the door for every single person coming in and out. We are typically running late anyways, so I really have to check my patience at the door. Instead of being exasperated that we are behind (mostly my fault anyways), I allow him to hold doors and talk to everyone. I hope he always desires to put others first.

We spend a decent amount of time in the car and I try to use those moments to teach him things like our address and how to count to 100 and how to do basic addition and subtraction using his fingers. He is a little sponge and soaks up all of these lessons. He is starting to consistently recognize a handful of letters and can spell his name. One of his favorite games is to play teacher and I know that his time spent in preschool aids in his love for all things school and learning related. He has quite a few books memorized (his favorite right now is Madeline) and I cant wait until he learns to actually read and all of the doors that reading will open for him.

This year Jack requested his very own kayak so that he could take his friends paddling with him. This was a big change from last year when all he wanted was an electric toothbrush! Since it was November, we werent ready to commit to a kayak, but we are still mulling it over – maybe Christmas little buddy! His back up request was an Optimus Prime robot (which his Great Grandmother lovingly bought for him!). I think he had a good birthday.

Most days the days are long, but the years really are short. Im still kind of in shock that we have a four-year-old. Jack loves being four, but doesnt get why he doesnt get to move up to the 4s class at preschool and church. I am working to convince him that he is one of the first to turn four and he gets the privilege of teaching the other kids how to get ready to be four. I am really looking forward to the coming year and all that it holds for Jack.

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