New Start, New life.

On May 31 2011 my life changed forever. That morning I weighed in at an all time low of 162.4lbs, that pretty much made my day.  I didn't realise that wouldn't be my only good news.


I went to my workout that evening and it was a complete bust. Generally when you don't feel like going to the gym but you go anyway you end up being really glad you did. Not that night, I squeaked out my squats and got halfway through my bench press before calling it done. I felt weak, dizzy and generally seriously out of sorts. You might not be blamed for thinking it was the RFL but I know how I react to that having done it quite a few times now.


I put a few things together and took a test, sure enough, I was 5.5 weeks pregnant. Pregnancy was full of great hopes and plans that didn't go at all the way I envisioned. Thanks to the way he was sitting I had some pretty severe ligament pain in my hips that pretty much put paid to any workouts happening. Along with the fact that we now had a severe deadline to move to the UK by. So my evenings and weekends were taken up with putting our house in order to sell, this involved painting the entire exterior , most of the interior and a whole lot of other work.


We did make it, we landed in the UK on Dec 2nd. On Jan 16th 2012 I gave birth to my son.


I had the most amazing birth experience I could ever have asked for. About 3am I woke up with cramps in my belly, since I had been suffering from some god awful sciatica at the time I chalked it up to just something else that was hurting. It didn't take long to realise however that this was more than just pregnancy twinges. By 7am I was getting regular contractions every 5-10 mins. I called the midwives around 10am and they told me to hang tight until either my waters broke or the contractions were to the point I couldn't talk through them.


It wasn't until around 4pm that I got the first serious teeth gritter. After that things get a little bit hazy, I called the midwives back and they said to stay home still, as a first time Mum it could be quite some time yet especially given I hadn't passed my cervical plug nor had my waters broken yet.


By 6pm I was at 3 mins apart, had lost my breakfast (I never did get as far as eating anything else during the day) and was generally in some serious back pain. Hubby called my Mum who came to get us and we arrived at the midwife led birthing unit at the hospital about 6.30pm. I met Charlotte, the wonderful midwife who was going to be helping me through the birth.


I remember lying on the bed through several contractions while Mum and Hubby rubbed my back and then finally one that just forced my entire body to push. That seemed to spark a flurry of activity and I remember Charlotte telling me not to push yet. I laughed so hard in my head, fighting that urge was like asking the sun not to rise. I managed to get through the next few and Charlotte examined me to find my waters bulging from my cervix. One more contraction and they burst, very odd sensation I have to say. They ran the bath as I was lucky enough to be able to use one of the birthing pools. I had up to this point not had any pain killers, while that was my original plan I must say I think in the end had she actually asked I probably would have said yes to the gas and air at that point.


However getting in to the bath was absolutely amazing, all the pain in my back went away and what followed  was, whilst painful, not excruciating. I entered the bath at 7pm, Ethan was born at 7.51pm.

He weighed 7lbs and 14oz, was two weeks early, and has completely stolen my heart. I should say our, my husband is pretty enamoured of him too and says we can keep him ;)

One proud Papa:

New Granny:

Ethan will be 8 weeks old on Monday, I've been given the all clear to start working out having suffered a 2nd degree tear and it is time to reclaim my body. I'll be retrieving my kettlebells from Dad's on Sunday and I have Lauren Brook's new book Kettlebells for Women to help me on that path. I am exclusively breastfeeding so there will be no crazy diets. Just healthy food and swinging some heavy metal. My scales are still packed up, whilst I know where the KB's are I'm not entirely sure on the scales so unless I find those on Sunday I'm going to be starting a bit in the dark. I do know I'm somewhere around the 200lb mark. Not impressed with that at all but it's just a starting point and I know exactly what to do. Consistency will be the key.