Monthly Archives: January 2015

4 posts

Why Goofy During Pregnancy?

If you are new to my blog, and only reading about my Marathon Weekend Adventures (Parts 1, 2, & 3) You might think I’m a little crazy and you know what, that’s okay.

So, here I am. Answering the question that I’ve gotten already a few times, and if someone has actually asked me – chances are there are people who are thinking it, but not asking.

So, why goofy?  Why accept the challenge to run 39.3 miles at 25 weeks pregnant?

Medical Clearance.
Let’s start here. My Doctor said I could… Now, I am NOT a medical professional, I am a mom-blogger who loves to run. My doctor cleared me to continue training and to run the Goofy Challenge. I reviewed all my fuels with her, my run/walk intervals and I promised that if at any time I were to get a cramp, felt weak, dizzy or any other symptoms of an injury or dehydration I would stop.   I was very open and honest with my doctor about my training – and very grateful for her support.

January 2013
Take a walk down memory lane with me for a moment. It was here that I first decided to run the Goofy Challenge at Walt Disney World. I’d successfully made it through an entire year of changing my lifestyle and getting healthy, I was AT Disney World during Marathon Weekend, surrounded by hundreds (or thousands) of people who LOVED running and many of them were about to complete the Goofy Challenge themselves.

I was so inspired.

I was set to run my first half Marathon in about a month (the Princess Half) and completely hooked on running. I’d decided that in 2014, I WOULD run the Goofy Challenge, and I WOULD have a blast doing so.

April came along, and we registered. Around the time we registered, or a little before… I even posted about how we would be training for the next 9 months and compared it to another 9 month life changing experience … (post here)

Isn’t it ironic that instead of the 9 months of Marathon Training I thought I was going to have, I ended up spending the next 9 months preparing for motherhood? … Crazy – I know.

Our family was growing, and I was due the weekend after Marathon Weekend. Goofy would have to wait… I was able to run until 38 weeks pregnant (all with medical clearance from my doctor), and continued to eat healthy and make plans for crossing the finish line for the Goofy Challenge.

January 2014, we welcomed Little Lady into our lives, and it was beautiful. Our little family of 2 had now grown to 3 and honestly… I hardly remember life without her (that’s a lie, we slept more).

In late February i’d received medical clearance to run and resume all forms of exercise. I actually didn’t start much more than walking until March of 2014.

From March – June I focused on my core doing yoga and programs such as PIYO, with the intent to begin training for the Goofy Challenge on July 1.

July 1 – day one of training.

YAY!!!! I’m finally training for the Goofy Challenge, it was AWESOME!! Our little lady was big enough to handle being in a jogger, and we were ready to train.

Around September I found myself in bed (or hugging a toilet) for 3 days. I thought I had been over training, or perhaps doing too much. I had recently returned to work, I was still trying to breastfeed, I was not sleeping more than about 5-6 hours a night and honestly I just thought I was tired.

On day 3 of not holding anything down, feeling weak and overly emotional I called my husband at work and asked him to take me to urgent care. I just wanted to feel better, I wanted to feel better so I could start running again. I HAD to cross that finish line…

While at Urgent Care they asked my permission to test for pregnancy. I honestly didn’t think much of it and when the doctor came in evaluated me and told me he wasn’t sure what was wrong other than severe dehydration i’d gone back to my original thought that I was over-doing it – and there was not a baby on the way.

When he ran back in and told me he “solved the mystery” I was a little stunned (mostly at how excited he was) – he says “You’re pregnant!”

I burst into tears. I couldn’t believe it… Pregnant,… again? Will I ever get to Run the Goofy Challenge? He put me on an IV with fluids, gave me some anti-nausea medication and told me to take a nap.

So, I napped.

When I got home, I called my OB and scheduled an appointment.

During my first appointment she sent me right away to have an ultrasound to see how far along I was and when I came back, her first question “Are we Marathon Training again?”

… she knows me so well.

Since I was only 7 weeks along, and at the time of the Goofy Challenge I’d still be in my second trimester, she agreed to let me train with the intent of running the challenge. We had many long conversations about fueling, and hydrating and hydrating, and hydrating… and through all the crazy morning sickness (that I still have) I was able to maintain 16 minute miles (with bathroom breaks etc…) so I felt confident I could complete the challenge.

It was an honor to run with my husband and my bump. I was very focused during the challenge. I was focused on hydrating, and staying in-tune with my body. I made sure I knew what type of turf we were running on so not to trip. I made sure I kept my blood sugars stable by eating constantly, and I made sure to stay away from the middle of the course so that there would be less chance of being in the way of a runner.

Final thoughts.

Training for a Marathon with an infant, a pregnancy (with crazy morning sickness), a full time job and a husband was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. BUT – my husband was also committed, and we have such a supportive family that knew of our commitment so it was totally doable.

Would I do it again?

Yes.

Would I do it again pregnant?

I’d have to review the situation, it totally depends on the pregnancy.

Question of the Day: Who is in your circle of support for training, or big life commitments?

WDW Marathon Weekend: Kids Races and Expo Fun!

Welcome to Recap 1 of one of the most exciting weekends EVER!!

My husband and I started our health Journey in January of 2012. We began by simply tracking our calories on MyFitnessPal , walking and drinking more water. I started running one morning when I was embarrassed that an older larger man could run and I couldn’t. So, I took off and ran too. Surprisingly… I didn’t hate it!

So excited about my new found form of exercise I told a co-worker who then encouraged me to run the Everest Challenge!  We ran the challenge in May of 2012 and from the moment we were hooked on running   crossing finish lines.

January 2013 we attended the WDW Marathon Weekend (ran the 5K). Marathon Weekend is so inspiring, I hadn’t even run a 1/2 Marathon yet and I told my husband (and announced on Social Media) that in 2014 I was going to run the Goofy Challenge.

Obviously, the Lord had other plans and instead of running the Goofy Challenge in January of 2014, I was deferring the challenge to welcome our Little Lady into the World.

So, here we are… Two years later. Recapping the weekend I’ve been thinking about since the last time I was in Disney for Marathon Weekend!

Thursday, January 8
3:20 a.m. – The alarm goes off, and our daughter begins to go into hysterics. … A bottle of milk saves the day and we make it out the door by around 3:45ish. Head over to CVS to pick up some last minute items and make it to my husband’s parents house by 4:15.

Everything gets loaded into the car and we are on our way by 5:00 a.m.

Around 9:30 we make it to O-town and stop for Breakfast at Cracker Barrel!

10:30 it’s EXPO time!!!


I’d done a bit of planning so I knew exactly what building we needed to go to in order to grab Little Lady’s packet. There was NO line for her bib OR our Goofy Bib’s so we went ahead and grabbed the bibs, snapped our “goofy challenge” picture and headed out to the field for Little Lady’s race.

Unfortunately, it was about 40 degrees with a windchill so our little Miami lady was NOT willing to leave our arms for the race. We put her in about 3 different heats of the Diaper Dash and she flat out refused to move for either one.

**sigh**

Oh well,… another time.

After the kids races we went back through the Expo to pick up our shirts and check out the Merchandise. I was pleasantly surprised at how much official merchandise there was and how smooth everything seemed to be flowing at the Expo.

I purchased an “I did it” shirt for the Goofy Challenge and the Marathon, and promptly put them at the bottom of my drawer in the hotel. I was NOT going to even THINK about them as part of my wardrobe until I’d actually accomplished the Goofy Challenge!

Other than the official merchandise, we really didn’t spend too much time at the Expo looking around. I was quite tired and getting hungry so we opted to head over to our hotel to check in and have some lunch.

It was great to run into my friend Lena from The Beginners Runner Blog and catch up.

My First Daughter’s Birth Story

I wrote this post a year ago, and wasn’t sure if I would post it. BUT, as we celebrate one year with our Little Lady, I felt ready to share our story of induction.  Recaps from my Marathon will begin either late this week or over the weekend, but for now.. enjoy.

January 10th, 
This is the day that I was “supposed” to be giving birth. Due to a Policy enforcement from the Hospital, my OB was not able to induce me before 39 weeks. Since, I was 39 weeks on Sunday I had to wait. … 
Not really a big deal except my OB was going to be out of the office during my 39th week. Therefore, the baby would be delivered by a different doctor. 
When I got the news of this Wednesday evening, I cried. I’d spent my whole pregnancy going over EVERY detail with my OB. I was comfortable with her, and was just ready to bring Baby Jimenez into the world with her help. 
I nervously waited to meet the new doctor, and was pleasantly surprised when I actually felt a sense of peace upon meeting him. He was nice, competent and very respectful that I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the last minute change in plans. 
The Weekend
The weekend was exhausting. Since we were supposed to have already given birth, we had quite a bit of inquiries as to why I was still pregnant. It was exhausting, but we survived and Monday finally came! 
Monday, January 13th 
My only plans for the day were to get my nails done and sleep. Of course my phone charger had broken, and we realized we had several last minute things to do – so Chris took me to the nail salon for a manicure and pedicure while he ran all over town. 
8:30 p.m. – Time to leave. 
We excitedly left the house and drove to the hospital. I was so giddy with excitement, even though I’d been warned that inductions take time, I was just so excited and in my mind Riley was going to be here in a matter of hours. 
By 9:30 we were taken to our delivery room, and we began the exams, IV’s, blood pressure … etc, etc.. 
11:00 p.m. –  First dose of medication. 
11:20 p.m. – A visit from my parents. They visited for a while and then headed to our house to get some sleep. 
3:00 a.m.  – 1 CM dilated. 
8:20 a.m. – 1 CM dilated 
10:45 a.m. – The Doctor stopped by, told me not to stress. Sometimes inductions take time, but we were going to have the baby and we were not even considering a c-section. 
12:05 p.m. – Let the Pitocin begin. (p.s., still only 1 CM after 3 doses of the first medication) This was very frustrating for me because my contractions were getting ridiculously harder but nothing was happening! 
2:30 p.m. – Still only 1 CM, the contractions were out of control. I had just been told that another woman was in the same boat as me (only 1 CM after 3 doses of medication and pitocin) and she just came out from a c-section. I guess that they were trying to comfort me… but all it did was freak me out. When the Doctor told me I was still only 1 CM, I broke down in tears and begged for the Epidural. 
I’d had several conversations with the Doctor about the Epidural, and although I was nervous, he assured me that the Epidural would help me to relax and allow my body to progress.

So, the Epidural came. I (of course) cried through the whole thing. My nurse held my hand and told me it was going to be okay, I kept asking why I couldn’t feel my legs, and if I was going to be able to walk again.  I think I might have been less stressed if the girl prepping me for the Epidural wasn’t singing “I do what I want, what I want with my body…” But, it was a memory. I also kept looking over at Chris, and thinking “why is he still in here? – I hope he doesn’t pass out”. Chris didn’t pass out and after my nurse assured me about 900 times that I would be able to walk again, I finally relaxed. 

By 3:30 I was still only 1 CM and was in no pain, so we allowed some family to come visit. It was fun watching all our family members inspect the room. Of course the medical family members wanted to look at the print out of the babies heart rate, and the non-medical people would explore all of the stuff prepped for Baby’s arrival.
Around 4:30, my nurse came in and I told her that “I peed on myself”. She laughed at me and said there is no way I peed on myself and I’m just feeling the effects of the epidural. Still feeling like I was sitting in a pool of water (gross, I know) I accepted it. 
Around 5:30 I still felt like I had peed on myself so I told her again. The nurse said she’d test my glucose levels and then check, but there was no way I could have peed on myself.  
Turns out … my water had broken! 
What an answer to prayer! At 6:00 p.m., if I still wasn’t progressing, the doctor was going to manually break my water (something I was quite nervous about) 
Doctor came in, the nurse explained the situation – we all got a good laugh about my description of my water breaking and I was now 4 or 5 CM dilated! 
I was told to take a nap because baby would probably be here around 11:00 p.m. Then, the doctor went off to have dinner and the nurse went to re-chart everything from when I “peed on myself”.
Chris came over, gave me a kiss and I started to go to sleep, while he pulled up netflix on the Kindle. 
6:37 p.m. – The nurse RUNS in and says “I need to check you RIGHT NOW!, something strange happened” Now, I’m nervous. … all I could think was something was wrong with Baby! 
I’d felt a strange urge to push about the time she ran in – but was now too scared to move. 
Chris was on my left side and the nurse shouts out “Oh my God, Oh my God! – I gotta call the doctor right now!” As she takes off her gloves she manages to say “9.5 CM!, get ready baby is coming!” 
Pause. 
The shift changes at 7:00 p.m., it’s now about 6:40. 
The next few minutes felt like an eternity. 
  • I can hear the the chaos outside my room as they are trying to get ahold of my doctor.
  • I can hear the chaos of them trying to see if my evening nurse was in yet. 
  • I can hear the nurses laughing. 
  • I can see Chris pacing… 
We made the decision not to text the family that she was coming. To be honest, there wasn’t time. Chris had to clean up our stuff, put the couch back together and then it happened. 
The doctor arrived. It was now about 7:10 p.m.. He and the day shift nurse prepped Chris to assist with the Birth of Riley while the evening nurse got herself settled.  
The doctor had given Chris instructions, and asked him to go over to the couch if he at any time felt nauseated. The doctor then performed an exam to see how I was progressing and said “Look Daddy, she’s blonde like her Mom”.
Now, I’m no doctor. … in fact, medical stuff grosses me out. But … doesn’t that mean that I’m crowning? 
Yes. Riley was indeed ready to come. 
In the room is still only Chris, 1 nurse and the Doctor. Due to the change of shift, they were still trying to get everyone in place. 
With Chris on one side, and a nurse (who I still at this point don’t even know her name) the doctor asks 
“Erin, Did you take a birth class” 
“yes”

“What do you remember, about pushing?”

In a very frighten, shaken voice I shout “NOTHING” 

“Don’t worry, that’s very common! We will help you through this” 

5 sets of pushing later, at 7:30 p.m. Ms. Riley Noelle was in our arms. A 6 pound, 3 ounce healthy little girl, full of energy!
As she was being born, the other nurses, and neonatologist arrived and began to introduce themselves to me. 
My birth experience was not how I could have ever imagined it, but it was perfect. The Lord blessed me with a quick and safe delivery of our baby girl. 

Family Announcement, Stay at Home Home

2015 is here!!

As 2015 approaches, here a couple things I am looking forward to this year. 
Completing the Goofy Challenge at Walt Disney World. That’s right, I want to complete the 39.3 mile challenge, and claim that beautiful bling and join the ranks of a select group on people who have completed a Marathon (all while being pregnant – because I’m slightly crazy GOOFY!)
I’m looking forward to welcoming Baby 2 this April! I’ve been working on pulling out all the tiny baby girl stuff, and organizing it – anything to help get ready for baby girl, and also keep my mind busy. Every time I have a spare minute I start to panic about the Goofy Challenge… yikes! 
I’m also looking forward too…
  • Reading more books with Little Lady
  • Sleeping less (wait? not really!)
  • More home cooked meals 
  • More Yoga pants / less heels 
  • Potty Training 
  • Weaning a baby off of a pacifier
  • More laughing

and most of all, … I’m looking forward to transitioning into the role of Stay at HOME Mom!!!!