Abdominal Separation

Last Saturday I was waiting in the lobby for Jarod and my daughter at her gymnastics class. He was walking in with her when a lady and her young son were walking out (they had just passed me in the lobby) and the woman turned to her son and said "that woman's pregnant belly is huge, but she was really skinny!" She had no idea that it was my husband she was walking by. Hmmm, I think I'll take that one as another compliment?

Right now I also wear a lot of maxi dresses since Arizona summers are hot and they are stretchy so they fit better than most things. The other day I wore one that had a print on it and one of my coworkers walked in the office and said, "you look like a snake that swallowed a giant rat." Uh, thanks?

At my last appointment I had some devastating news, ok not devastating but when you are pregnant all of your emotions are taken x 10. I was at my doctor visit and she was doing the usual check of the babies heart rate and then measured me and asked if an area in the middle of my abdomen was bothering me. I said, no, why? Well you have some abdominal separation. What is that? I google to find out anything I can on it and basically it is common in pregnant women (especially those with multiple pregnancies) when your belly grows the connective tissue between your abs stretches.  The worst part is after pregnancy, it doesn't always go back! I read stories of women that were asked 10 months post partum when the baby was due and it wasn't because they were out of shape it was because the diastasis recti gives the appearance of a big pooch, and if you are thin in other areas besides your belly it can look even worse. There are exercises you can do to help the muscles go back together however many times it never goes all the way back to how it was. In this case you can opt for surgery, but that would just add time to my recovery and I am ready to get back in shape and compete again!

I have read quite a few internet articles posted by women who have had kids saying they are proud of their post child bearing bodies and we should embrace all of the imperfections such as stretch marks, mommy pooches, etc. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't trade my children in for a perfect body but I really don't embrace those things at all. Do people really like their bodies better after having kids or are they just saying that because we "should" feel that way?

I had my 31 week appointment today and I am at 151 lbs which is +23 from where I started. I haven't gained anything in the past month but that is because I gained too much in the second trimester due to not eating as well. This week hasn't been the best as far as my diet goes. I have given in to some cravings but I try to remember the saying on the wall in our bathroom at the gym. "Saying Oh well, I've already ruined my diet today" is like saying "Oops, I just dropped my phone so I think I will smash it until it breaks."

As far as workouts go, I did some really light snatches with overhead squats this week. It is the first time I have even attempted a snatch in a few months. I miss Olympic lifting because it is challenging and I have so much work to do on my technique! Going to the gym and watching everyone else do it is like giving a kid a bike and making them watch everyone else ride it. I watched a video blog of another competitive cross fitter and her experience through pregnancy. She did hang power snatches and cleans through the better part of her pregnancy which is why I wanted to do a few this week. After this week I don't think I will do them again until after the baby comes because for me I already have a tendency to keep the bar too far away in a snatch and the big belly just makes that worse. I don't think it is a good idea for me to train a bad habit so kettle bell snatches it is!

My strength is staying pretty steady. Right now I am just focused on maintaining the best I can. It is so hard because my competitive spirit sees everyone else getting stronger day by day and week by week and it makes me want that too! I know that my time to make gains will come later but it is so hard to be patient.

We had a workout this week with box jumps and strict pull ups. It was an ascending ladder for 8 minutes. I was able to complete it RX but had to use an underhand grip for the strict pull ups. This allowed me to use more of my arm strength and I didn't feel as tight in the belly, but pull ups are getting so hard (especially strict ones)! My goal is to be able to do a pull up through my whole pregnancy but with 9 weeks left I'm not sure if I will be able to accomplish it. Time will tell!