a word of advice.

in my head the reason that people enjoy my blog is because i am brutally and sometimes too honest with the things that i go through. but i have always been an open person and i believe that a lot of other women have gone through these same things but are too embarrassed to talk about it. and even if they havent, who cares?

as i am sure many of you remember, i touched on the subject of kegel exercises back in march when i first realized that every tiny sneeze or burst of laughter may cause me to pee on myself. i started the kegels and after a short while i did notice that i was no longer crossing my legs to prep myself before every sneeze. this particular blog is to warn all you preggos out there that you must, i repeat, you must continue the kegels as soon as you can after you give birth.

once home from the hospital after pushing a 6 lb baby (i know, hes little, i have no right to complain) out of my downtown, i was not thinking of the kegels or anything else that work the muscles of that area that was already sore, stitched up, and swollen beyond recognition. bad move. once i was healed, or on the way to a normal vagine, i shouldve started those kegels back up with a vengence! and you should too!

after returning home from some errands the other day, i squatted down to unbuckle avery and save him from the confines of his car seat. while in this fabulously attractive squatting position, i felt a sneeze coming on, and then realized that is is terribly difficult to clench the downtown muscles during a squat and that there was no possible way that i could stand up in time... so i sneezed in my squat and i didnt just pee on myself a little, i definitely peed. i peed like i had been holding it for ten minutes and finally reached a bathroom. it was absolutely no fun and all i could think was 'thank goodness this happened while i was home.'

so to all you pregnant women out there reading this blog, continue with your kegels, they may just save you from peeing on yourself during a squat.

in other news: we had some pics taken of the little man! you can go to this website to get a little sneak peak at whats to come... hes just too cute!

libby benson photography

bulldogs and babies.

first and foremost... we are currently 18 weeks and 3 days, and i know ive been slacking with the updates lately, but i guess thats a testament to how ive been feeling, much better! ive had some back pain that i know i just have to deal with, but other than that, we've been doing well. :)

i went to richmond for the weekend a few weeks ago to hang with my very excited soon-to-be aunt little sister where we spent almost the entire time shopping for baby. also where i made my very first baby purchase of the super awesome bulldog onesie to the left. my sister in law has decided that once the baby comes we need to get stelly a shirt with the baby's picture on it and they can wear them together. i will admit that i LOVE this idea...

we had a dr's appt last week which was pretty much just a standard check-up. the heartbeat was at 147, so down a little from the last time, but still good. i also had some blood drawn for the test for down syndrome, and i guess no news is good news because i havent heard anything back. but the most exciting part of that whole thing was that i was finally able to make my appt for the BIG ultrasound! woohoo! may 12th we find out what we're having and make sure everything with baby persons is lookin good! i cant wait!!! it will make this whole name process so much easier!

i also started a prenatal yoga class that i was a initially a little apprehensive about but am super happy about now! completely superficially i was worried that i would either be the most terrible looking preggo there or that i would look like an idiot having never taken a yoga class before in my life... but the class was awesome, there were maybe 7 of us ranging from 9 weeks to 6 months and pretty much everyone was new to yoga so it made it much more comfortable. i felt really good after the class and im really hoping that this will eventually help to relieve some of the back pain. the first 30 minutes was a lot of breathing and kegels! ha ha ha! always with the kegels...

ugly babies.

14 weeks! we are officially into the second trimester, how awesome is that?! the odds of miscarrying have dropped way down, the morning sickness should be almost completely gone by now, and i should be getting back some of my energy that seems to have disappeared within these past three months. yay!!! i even let myself have a glass of wine at a friends birthday over the weekend, and honestly it tasted more weird than anything... very anticlimatic.

and let me also report that the kegels have been working out perfectly, i have been sneezing like crazy lately with this weather change and i have not been peeing, not even a little bit with my one million sneezes. yessss!!! although i have been peeing no less than 20 times a day. i think i woke up 5 times the other night to pee, and its not like i was drinking gallons of fluids throughout the day... you think you pee a lot in the first trimester? ha! just wait...

so my new worry is that i will have an ugly baby. i kinda feel like (hope) all other moms think about this at least a little bit during their pregnancy, and im not this crazy superficial sounding girl... but i really do worry about this because lets face it, when people say all babies are cute, it is so not true. i have seen plenty of babies that i did not have the instant urge to oooh and aaah over. of course i would never tell the mother this, and i think that that is my fear more than anything; my friends and family feeling that they need to tell me that my non cute child is cute. but i think as long as our baby looks more like my husband then well be fine. i was an odd looking baby (of course my mother would disagree). love ya ma!

im pretty gross these days.

ok so i think im catching a cold or something... or maybe its just the crazy weather but i am sneezing like it is my job to sneeze lately. and i have noticed that every once in awhile when i sneeze, i pee... just a little bit. im sure im not the only pregnant lady to pee a little bit when she sneezes so shut it. but im thinking that this is another one of those awesome things that comes along with pregnancy that no one really elaborates on when telling you just how wonderful being pregnant is...

so im telling my mom of my recent relapse back to the age of three again where i cant quite 'hold it' all the time and she tells me that i need to do 'kegels.' what are kegels you say?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegel_exercise

there you go... basically its where you tighten and release your downtown, kinda like if youre peeing and you gotta stop all of a sudden. so i try to do it, and im doing it but the second i start to actually think about what im doing, im tightening everything in the lower region of my body... i feel kinda like a little kid trying to get that whole hand eye coordination thing going, but its just not quite all there yet...

so now you all know, sometimes i pee a little bit when i sneeze and sometimes i do kegel exercises... awesome.