Shingles are for Old People....

Nearly every case of shingles that I have ever heard of is related to someone over the age of 50. I had assumed that it is something that only affects this age group, until Monday. 

While I was in the hospital after delivering my little girl I started to feel pain in my hip that radiated down my leg. I brushed it off as the beds in the hospital were really uncomfortable and let's face it, your hips undergo quite a feat to deliver a baby. When I returned home the first 3 nights at home I had really strong hip pain so I would lather my hip in deep blue and take some advil and sleep as much as I could (which wasn't very much). During the day, the pain felt more manageable, I was even able to get workouts in with little or no pain, but at night it would just flare up. After the third day home I decided to call the chiropractor thinking maybe my hips just needed to be adjusted after the birth. He could not get me in for 2 more days and by the time I showed up for my appointment the pain was gone, but I had a rash on my lower back and a little on my hip. Could I possibly be breaking out because of all of the deep blue I used? I have used a lot of deep blue in the past and never had a problem, but I didn't know what else it could be from. This was on Friday before the long labor day weekend. 

Saturday, I noticed the rash spreading further down my leg and thought I would call for an appointment on Tuesday. By Monday the rash was growing increasingly uncomfortable, blistering in some spots and it just kept spreading further down my leg. It now covered my lower back, left hip and left leg down to about mid calf. I was getting worried that it would be something I could spread to my girls and husband. I googled to see what it could be and the only thing that really came up for postpartum rashes was PUPPPS but my symptoms were not consistent with this. PUPPPS starts on the stomach and usually starts while you are pregnant. I had no rash on my stomach. By Monday evening nothing was giving me relief. I was using my oils and the rash just seemed to get worse so I decided to go to urgent care. The doctor there told me I had shingles! I asked what caused it and she said any stressor can cause it. Since I have had the chicken pox, the virus lays dormant in your nerves and a stressor (in my case child birth) can make it flare up. She said because I was young the course may only last a week or two as opposed to over a year that it affects some elderly people. For me a week or two felt like an eternity because of how uncomfortable the rash is. At least my hip pain had gone away, or so I thought....

Monday night was one of the worse nights of my life. The hip pain came back ten fold and the rash felt like someone was sticking a million pins in my leg. Nothing was giving me relief. I don't like to take medication anyway and now that I am breastfeeding I really don't like to however in this situation the doctor assured me the antiviral was completely safe and I could also take zyrtec for relief for the rash. I am taking the antiviral as it is supposed to shorten the course but after one zyrtec, I felt no relief and will not take any more of that. I have also been supplementing with my oils, topically putting on a mixture of Maleluca, Lavendar, and Euculyptus mixed with coconut oil. I also internally take a mixture of Melissa (an antiviral), Maleluca, On Guard, Oregano, and Lemon. Even thought it has only been a day and a half since I went in, it feels like an eternity. I know it is in the healing process because my rash is blistering but I would do about anything for some relief at this point. 

Yesterday I called my pediatrician to ask about my girls risk. He said my newborn is protected with my antibodies and breast feeding is the best thing I can do to prevent her from getting anything. My other daughter is not though. She has not been vaccinated for chicken pox so it is very likely she is going to get chicken pox since shingles is derived from the same virus and the virus can be transmitted through touching the rash or through the air. At least she will have immunity after she gets it, but I hope it doesn't put her down too much. Her symptoms will be consistent with the chicken pox, not shingles, so at least she will not have to deal with the pain I am experiencing. Any amount of sickness is difficult to see in your kids so I just pray hers is as mild as possible.

I am one of those people that is always looking for the cause for something. I don't just like to treat symptoms and I feel like there should always be a definite cause.  It bothers me that the only answer is the stress of giving birth. I wonder, could it be from the epidural? After all epidurals are in the nerve just like this is. Doctors say no, but I just don't understand how someone as healthy as I am can get this? Could it be from the exercise I did the week after? Doctors say no, and the hip pain I experienced began before I stepped foot in the gym so this was not the cause either. I will never know why I got it and I just hope it goes away soon. In regards to Crossfit, I will not be doing anything until this heals up. As much as I wish I could, the pain is too great even for me to think about getting a workout in right now.

I will spare you the photos this week because the are really disgusting. But here is a cute one of my little one's first Gopher game with her daddy:)

Birth Story Part 2- Recovery Begins

Time seems to go by so fast when you have a newborn. She is now over a week old and still doing great. She sleeps a lot and (knock on wood) has been a really good baby. I think maybe God thinks we paid our dues with my first, haha!

One thing I can say about my pregnancy and post pregnancy this time compared to last time is my recovery has been 10 times better. I feel like it is further confirmation for me that by staying active and continuing a healthy lifestyle makes all the difference in the world. It wasn't that I was inactive my first time around but I was much more regular with my exercise and kept the intensity higher than last time too. I definitely didn't eat as well with my first pregnancy (don't get me wrong, I cheated plenty this time) but overall ate much healthier. 

While I was in the hospital the nurse asked me if I was a runner. I laughed and said I would not describe myself as a runner but I will do up to a mile when I have to! She said she thought I was because my resting heart rate was so low, it is 48. It really proved to me that the high intensity crossfit workouts have put me in the best shape of my life. 

Now for the recovery. 

I don't know what it is with me but I was once again looking forward to dropping 10 or 15 lbs in the hospital. I hear of so many women that do this, but with my first I retained so much water that I gained 5 lbs after I gave birth and this time I lost a whole 2 lbs in the hospital. A mixture of the petocin and epidural make me retain water so I once again left the hospital with nearly all the weight I had gained, yet to lose. It didn't take long though and in the first few days I had lost about half of the weight and as I write now, I only have 5 lbs and a belly left to lose.

I had planned to take about 2 weeks away from working out before returning to the gym, however that didn't happen. I really felt good in the days after so at day 5 I decided to go in and row. I go crazy sitting at home and since my little girl has been pretty easy so far, I brought her in, set her next to my rower and got a good sweat on. It really felt good. 

I decided to do a WOD the next day which showed just how far out of cardio shape I have gotten. Being pregnant I did not push myself into that high HR zone so I have lost a lot of my metcon. I really don't feel like I can run yet as even a light jog doesn't feel good in some areas yet, if you know what I mean. Returning to my fitness regimen is hard and only going to get harder as I can do more things. There are times where I feel that people judge me for returning so quickly, however I am a true believer everyone's journey through pregnancy and postpartum is different. No one should feel bad for taking a couple of months post to recover and I shouldn't feel bad for jumping in when I felt good enough to. 

I don't think I will be doing much direct abdominal work for at least 6 weeks because of my abdominal separation (although surprisingly it has already shrunk from 2 fingertips down to 1 fingertip width). Running might take me another week or 2 before I feel up to it and getting inverted might also take a couple more weeks. The good news is, with Crossfit there are so many things I need to get better at, I have plenty I can do now to keep me busy until I am ready to get fully back into it.

I have gone back and forth on whether to show any post pregnancy photos but I think it is important that people know realistically how pregnancy and birth changes our bodies. I know with hard work I will be able to get most of my figure back, but there are things that will always be a little different. 

2 days post birth

One week post birth

Birth Story Part 1

So much has happened since my last post but most importantly we have a healthy baby, are home and doing great!

My last post was a week and a half before my due date and I had just found out that my little girl had flipped to breech. I was so disappointed because this late in my pregnancy could mean a c-section if I couldn't get her to flip back. That afternoon I did handstands and used doterra oils to encourage her to flip back. The next day I showed up at the hospital for my version appointment and told the nurses the things I had done the night before. Before they hooked me up to the monitors they did an ultrasound and by the grace of God she was back head down in perfect position! I was so happy I nearly cried. I asked my doctor if I should refrain from working out until she was born as I feared her flipping back again. My doctor assured me that I would be much happier to keep exercising as I had been and my regular workout routine in no way had "made" her flip breech.

For the next week I continued to workout but was cautious of a lot of up and down movement like burpees on the low box. At my 39 1/2 week appointment she was still in good position which made me a lot more confident she would stay there. That appointment was on Wednesday. I was only 1.5 cm dilated and my doc asked me what I would like to do as far as an induction goes. I told her as over being pregnant as I was, I wanted to wait until my baby was ready and go as long as possible without an induction. I mentally prepared for at least another week of pregnancy.

That afternoon benchmark workout "Nancy" was programmed at our gym. For some reason I always had it in my mind that I would go into labor the day of doing overhead squats. I didn't necessarily think that day was today but I was hopeful. Nancy is 5 rounds of a 400 meter run and 15 overhead squats with 65 lbs. You can hardly call what I was doing those days running....I called it a woggle (mixture of a jog and waddle). It wasn't very hot for August so I decided to give it a go as prescribed and finished in 17:50. I started to feel more contractions during the workout but I had them off and on for the past week so didn't think much of it.

That evening the contractions were getting stronger and at about 8 p.m. I told Jarod maybe he should start timing them because they seem to be coming frequently and more close together. After about an hour they were regularly coming about 2-4 minutes apart and lasting 45 seconds to a little over a minute. We decided to make a trip into the hospital since it is a half hour drive for us. When I got there I had dilated to a 3 and they said because I had that much change just from my doctor appointment earlier that day to now I was there to stay. I walked the halls for about 4 hours and did air squats to try to encourage my body to progress further into labor. After 4 hours they said I was not progressing quick enough and they wanted to give me petocin. I really was dreading this because I wanted a natural birth with no epidural. With my first I was given large doses of petocin because my water broke at home and I had no dilation when I got to the hospital. Petocin contractions are much more difficult to manage pain wise than our body's natural contractions. I told them I would like as small of a dose as possible so I could try to manage my way through them so they agreed. After another couple of hours my progress was still slow and they wanted to increase the petocin. Once that happened it was all over for me! The contractions were so strong and close together yet I wasn't dilating any more. Now I had a decision to make. Try to fight my way through them, which I am ok with doing when I know I am getting closer to giving birth, but that was proving to be a dead end because for some reason when my body tenses up, I just don't progress. I was worried if I continued to do this a c-section could be in my future so I decided I would get an epidural. It ended up being a good idea because after that I was fully dilated in about an hour. I only had to push 3 times through one contraction and our little girl was here!

I am still a believer in birthing as natural as possible and feel some disappointment for giving in and getting an epidural, however I also do believe in the situation it was the best decision for me. I can tell you after feeling the pain of those contractions and being told they were not helping me progress through labor is like doing Fran and being told every time you finish the round of 15 that you have to repeat that round again. Ha, well not sure if that is a good analogy but the best one I can think of right now.

More details will come in my next post as well as updates on my postpartum recovery and getting back in shape!


Our little girl was born at 7:30 a.m. She weighted 7 lbs 4 oz and was 21.75 inches long.

Breech

Today was a very difficult day for me (and baby). I went in for my 38 week check up (I am 38 weeks and 3 days so 11 days until my due date).  I went through all of the normal checks and everything was looking great. My blood pressure is good and low, my weight has remained pretty stable around the 155 lb mark, and the baby's heart rate was a healthy 125 bpm. Then my doctor went to do the weekly check to see if I was getting any more dilation, which I wasn't.  Along with that check came the bad news, she couldn't feel her head. She reassured me that she is probably head down but wanted to take a look on the ultrasound to be sure. After all at my 32 or 33 week ultrasound she was head down and every check in the last 3 weeks she has been head down. Surely she wouldn't flip this late in the game? As she put the ultrasound wand (not sure the real term for it) low I could tell by her face that it wasn't good. She then checked up and there she is, head under my left rib and feet down toward my right hip. I know I need to stay positive but this late it can be very difficult to flip a breech baby. The good thing is we know she flipped sometime in the last week so I have to keep hope that she can do it again. The bad news is, the percentage of versions that are successful are only 10-30%.

I decided to go to the gym today and do handstands to try to encourage her to flip back. It may be an old wives tale but I am willing to try anything. I did handstands off and on for an hour until my shoulders felt fried and she still is in the same position. Since then I went home and have used peppermint oil massaging in a rainbow shape on my upper belly to try to encourage her to move down. That has definitely go her moving but I am not sure if she is quite there yet.

Tomorrow I may be faced with some decisions that I'm not sure how we will handle. On the one hand if the version is successful I may have the option to be induced so that the baby doesn't flip breech again. I would consider doing this because the alternative of a c-section is less favorable than induction, however I really want to wait until she is ready to come out. On the other hand if the version is not successful, my chances of having a c-section will dramatically increase because the larger the baby gets the more difficult to flip her. I feel so helpless because to this point I feel like I have had such a complication free pregnancy and been so healthy that I just never imagined being faced with the possibility of a c-section. I will first and foremost pray to God that the baby and I come out in good health, but will also pray that he will guide me to make the best decision for her. I feel very emotional about this, but I know I need to stay positive because she is coming soon! To be continued....

I wasn't going to show anyone these but since this is the place I have been really open about my pregnancy, I figured it was the right place to post a belly shot.

New Perspective

I am finally in the home stretch...my due date is less than 3 weeks away. After my meltdown last Tuesday (which was the subject of my previous post) things have been really great. I am so excited to meet our little girl. Up to this point, I really was just excited not to be pregnant anymore, but now that she is almost here I really can't wait to meet her! (although I am still excited to not be pregnant too, ha!)

I decided to go back to doing our normal daily Crossfit classes instead of the extra competitive lifting. It really has given me what I need. I feel good, I am not discouraged by the things that are limiting me and I am still getting an awesome workout every day. I am proud to say this week I even completed a workout doing pull ups still so I think I may just reach my goal of being able to do them through my entire pregnancy. Yesterday we had a workout that including power snatches (which I do from the hang position) and running. I was looking forward to getting some running in since I haven't done a whole lot lately. That is until I got about 100 meters into my first 400 meter run. I felt good in terms of breathing (I was jogging pretty slow so I wasn't breathing really hard) and I wasn't feeling too hot, but I felt like I was going to have a baby while I was running. The pressure was so great in my pelvis that I had to bike in place of running the last 2 rounds. This actually came as a surprise because the day before I completed an entire workout that had double unders in it and did not feel this at all.

I continue to be able to overhead squat fairly heavy. It takes me a little more time to get my balance and my squats are slower to keep my balance but I still managed 7 x 2 at 125 lbs. I have heard from a couple of pregnant cross fitters that they went into labor soon after overhead squatting so maybe it will help her come sooner rather than later?

At my doctor visit this week I actually lost 4 pounds from last week, which I thought was a little strange but my doctor didn't say anything about it. This pregnancy has been really different in terms of my weight fluctuation. I gained a lot more in the beginning, then went for a long stretch of not gaining or losing a little, and then started gaining again. As of yesterday I was up exactly 25 pounds, which is where I was when I delivered my first. I am only dilated to a one so the chances of her coming this week aren't too good, but that's alright, I would rather wait until my mom is here to help out with my daughter.

I love this video just posted on the Crossfit hq Facebook site about pregnant women crossfitting. It really shows the positive influence Crossfit can have on women and their babies through pregnancy. I love seeing stuff like this because it is really what inspired me to write about my experience and hopefully motivate others to continue their own journey of healthy living through pregnancy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxehb6hQjmI#t=12


I finally decided to do some maternity photos. We are a little late being 37 weeks in these but better late than never!

The Crossfit Games

We decided to take a trip out to California last weekend before our bundle arrives (hopefully in less than a month!) There were a few reasons for our trip, one was that we really wanted to have our daughter have one last vacation as an only child and make it a special one, so our first stop was Disneyland. The good news is she had a great time. She loved the Winnie the Pooh tunnel ride and the Toy Story one too.  Luckily with her being so young and me being really pregnant the rides that we were able to enjoy had fairly short (about 20 min wait) lines. The thing that is ridiculous to me about Disneyland is that you pay nearly $100 per person to get in and most of the good rides had at least a 90 min to 120 min wait. Maybe if we went a different time of year it wouldn't have been like this but I can say I feel sorry for our little one on the way because it is going to take a lot of coaxing to get me to go back there and fight the large crowds. At least we accomplished our mission and our daughter had a really great time!

Another reason for our trip was the largest Crossfit event of the year, the Crossfit Games were going on. We knew having our daughter with us would make it harder to get the full experience, but we really wanted to go to see the fittest athletes in the world compete. They did not disappoint! It was truly amazing watching the strength, endurance, and athleticism of all of the athletes that competed. We left the Games feeling humbled, motivated, and excited to improve on our weaknesses.

With this great feeling of motivation brought a couple of rough days when I returned back to reality. While on vacation I didn't workout a single day. We did a ton of walking which actually took more of a toll on my body than the more intense but shorter workouts I have been doing. It was nearly 100 degrees at Disneyland and after walking around for about 8 hours there were a few times that night I thought I might have a California baby, ha! Anyway I didn't realize how difficult it would be to get back into the swing of things after taking 4 days off. I thought it would do my shoulders good since I have had trouble with overhead movements due to the pain when the weight gets a little on the heavy side. While I knew Monday's workout would be tough b/c it consisted of pull ups and shuttle runs, my expectations were low and it really just felt good to get a sweat on.

Tuesday is when my hormonal  emotions all kicked in. I went in to do jerks, squats and push presses. I felt really good warming up my split jerks and then once I hit 105 and 115 (which are not very heavy weights) all of the pain came rushing right back. I felt so frustrated. I stayed at that weight and although I was very discouraged I decided I would at least do the squats. Now that the baby is dropping and I am less than 4 weeks from my due date squatting heavy is proving to be a bad idea too. I am feeling a lot of pelvic pressure and my belly hits my thighs before I break parallel unless I keep my stance wider than usual (pregnancy problems:) At this point I only went up to 175 lbs for 3 reps which I completed very easily but I knew I shouldn't be going heavier than that, at least not today mainly because of the state of mind I was in, but also because I really just wasn't feeling great. For once I "listened" to my body. I should have gone and done some rowing and body weight movements but I was feeling so down and on the verge of tears, I just decided to leave. It was the first time I have ever not completed a workout in my time doing crossfit. I got into my car and cried.

Why was I crying? I think it was more than just because I didn't do well or finish my workout. It was for a lot of reasons. First was coming to terms with the fact that I feel so motivated after being at the games to work harder at my weaknesses but now is not the time. My body is preparing to have a baby so I need to just save all of that motivation for later! Then I was feeling really guilty because the last thing I should be thinking about is how fast I can come back or be worried about losing my fitness. I am about to give birth to our baby girl and she should be filling my mind instead of just staying in shape. I was also crying about things I won't bore you with that happened at work the past 2 days. And to top it off, my husband was out of town on business so I felt like a single mom, cooking, cleaning, and caring for my busy toddler (good thing I have been doing crossfit!) I am not really a cryer but I tell you, being pregnant just amplifies every emotion you feel.

Moral of the story, it is ok to be emotional and have bad days. I have plenty of them, the main thing is to look back and reflect on the true reason you feel these emotions and adjust. For me yesterday was just a reminder that now is a time to be patient, focus on the positive that I have the ability to exercise and live a healthy lifestyle through the last 8 months, and thank God for giving me a complication free pregnancy thus far.

Hmmm, which photo does it look like she was having more fun? 

Natural Living

Today's post isn't meant to tell anyone what is right or wrong (just like all of my posts:). Instead I thought some people might find it useful to know some of the things my family and I have chosen to do as far as nutrition, supplements, and everyday living go. For those who know me you will know that I really like to eat paleo, choose products that I understand and can pronounce what is in them, and incorporate as natural ways of living as possible into my families lifestyle.

Nutrition
I have to give my husband the most credit for getting me started eating paleo. It all started in month 8 of my first pregnancy. I wasn't making the healthiest choices and which made him not feel as good because he eats mostly what I eat. One day he said, "cheese is gross if you really think about it." What?? I love cheese and with one month left of my pregnancy I am certainly not about to give it up! It sparked our discussion and he mentioned he had read a few things on the paleo diet and he wanted to try it. I wasn't completely on board (after all I was 8 months pregnant, who wants to get strict about their diet at that time?) but I did my best to cook meals that were mostly paleo so he would feel better. I noticed that I really started to feel better myself and after I had my first child it was the answer to me getting my body back too.

Fast forward a year and a half and what we keep in our house is almost exclusively paleo. We have tailored it to fit our needs. What I mean by that is we ate strict paleo with absolutely no grains, legumes, dairy, and processed sugars for 2 months and have since tried to add certain things back in and have found some things our bodies digest well, while other people may not feel well after consuming them. We drink organic whole milk, not a lot but we will add it to our protein shakes and give it to our daughter. We also use grassfed Kerrygold butter and occasionally goat cheese. Other than that we pretty much stay away from other dairy products especially highly processed cheeses. The other thing that I will buy on occasion is black beans for chili. It is an easy meal and I only use about half of what we used to and have not noticed any negative effects from them so we choose to eat them occasionally.

Here is what a typical day of eating looks like for us including during my pregnancy:

Morning: Fruit and Veggie shake- we put banana, organic frozen berries, an apple, carrots, kale, broccoli, homemade almond butter (if you have a vitamix this is super easy to make), organic milk, and water in it. This is really good for our daughter as we struggle to get her to eat veggies. She loves it b/c the fruit masks the strong taste of broccoli and kale that we would never be able to get her to eat plain.

We also eat eggs with our shake and on the weekends usually have a bigger breakfast with eggs, meat, sweet potatoes, etc.

Lunch: My staple is chipotle salads. Chipotle is by no means perfect but I really like how they use hormone free meat most of the time (except when their suppliers run out and then they post it to let us know), and you can stay paleo with the salad. I get lettuce, peppers & onion, chicken, pico, med salsa, and of course guacamole.

Dinner: Usually I make some sort of meat, vegetable, and sweet potato for dinner. I love paleomg.com and civilizedcavemancooking.com amongst others for recipe ideas. I buy free range, organic meat from the store and we also partner up with friends a few times a year to buy beef and pork from local farmers. Most of what I buy for fruits and vegetables is organic as well. Just because something is organic doesn't mean it is perfect (ideally we would grow it ourselves, which we do some of) but it is better than the alternative of buying things with a lot of chemicals sprayed on them that we prefer not to consume. When we have a sweet tooth after my husband is the king of paleo chocolate chip cookies so he makes them.

Snacks: We usually have on hand plantain chips, fruit, nuts, and protein for daily snacks.

Our Pantry

Water!!!: I usually drink about 100 oz of water per day. We own the best water bottles I have ever tried, hydroflasks, which will keep your water cold all day, even when it is 110 degrees out in Phoenix. The bottles are stainless steel on the inside so you don't have to worry about all of the BPA seeping into your water like you do with regular water bottles, and it is less expensive than buying bottles of water.

One thing you need to know is even though these are the things we buy at home and do on a regular basis, that does not mean you will not see us out eating pizza as a family or at a coffee shop getting a latte. We enjoy indulgences, which usually come on the weekends but feel much better when our regular diet consists of the things above.

Supplements
During pregnancy you are usually advised to take prenatal vitamins which I did during my first pregnancy. Fast forward a year and a half and I actually started reading the ingredients on the prenatal vitamins and realized in addition to the vitamins of course they have soy in them and the folate is in a synthetic form of folic acid. Another important thing to take during pregnancy is a vitamin with DHA in it. DHA is found in the fish oil I take so for me my prenatal vitamins this time were Solgar Folate and PurePharma O3 Fish Oil. I of course discussed with my doctor first and as long as I keep a balanced diet taking these 2 supplements were all I needed.

Supplements I take during pregnancy

For Information on the difference between folate and folic acid visit:
http://chriskresser.com/folate-vs-folic-acid

Household/Everyday Products
As I have changed my diet I have also started to change some of the other products I use. So many things these days contain unnecessary chemicals and additives. It is overwhelming to change everything at once so I have slowly introduced more and more natural products into our family. Here are a few examples:

- Sunscreen: I make my own sunscreen with Zinc Oxide as the active ingredient along with my doTerra essential oils. We need to protect ourselves from the sun, especially here in Arizona but it really bothers me to be lathering in all of the things found in sunscreen or even worse spraying it on so instead I made my own which is about SPF 20.
- Soap: I make my own baby soap with pure castile soap, olive oil, and essential oils
- All Purpose Cleaner: I make my own with vinegar, water, borax, and essential oils.
- Laundry Stain Remover: I make my own with castile soap, vegetable glycerin, water, and lemon oil
- Diaper cream: Maleluca essential oil and coconut oil

There are so many other things you can make yourself and eliminate or reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals. I have started with these few things and hope to make most of my own everyday household products.

Some of my homemade household products

Workout Update:

I am 35 weeks in and hopefully only 5 more to go (fingers crossed)! In the last week I have seen the largest decrease in energy in quite a while. I had one day where I was even contemplating finishing just because I was so tired. I had just a couple sets of body weight movements left and I opted to finish after a short conversation with myself and feeling that I would be disappointed for leaving with only a few things left to do. After all I only have my 25+ lb training vest for about another month!

This weeks overhead squats were sets of 5. This was much harder than the sets of 3 from last week because overhead squats require so much midline stability, not something I have too much of these days. I was proud to finish my last set of 5 at 125 lbs without failure although it took me some time steadying myself between reps.

Saturday I also broke my no snatching rule. I do all my olympic lifting from the hang position (just above the knee) because it is so hard to maneuver all the way to the floor. I didn't go too heavy but did 95 lbs, which felt fairly easy. I am looking forward to getting back and practicing the snatch. My last 1- rep max of 100 lbs was in September of last year so I am really excited to work on improving that.

Our box was hoppin' on Saturday with a fun team training session. I got excited about working out just watching them do the WOD together. That is by far the hardest thing about crossfitting through pregnancy, watching, knowing you have the capability to perform when you aren't pregnant but also knowing that right now there are just things you can't do or do very well.