Everything is going great so far with the baby. I followed in my mom and sister's footsteps and had zero morning sickness or other first trimester problems. I did have some shortness of breath, but that resolved several weeks ago. At the present, my friend Anne Marie and I are training sorta hard for the Philly Triathlon this weekend. I say sorta hard because obviously I can't go bonkers and train 3 hours all out in the heat in my condition. We usually ride for about an hour or so and then maybe do a quick half-hour run. Which brings me to my first story of the blog.
At my last OB visit, my weight was up 10lbs from my visit 5 weeks earlier. Oops. Besides the fact that I ate a gigantic lunch that day and was eating starburst and coke in the exam room, I had also just gotten back from my sister's wedding. Presto Fatso! No problem, I told the nurse practitioner, I'm training for a triathlon and the weight will hold steady there. You would have thought I had told her I was taking up competitive smoking and drinking. I explained to her that I was taking it more easily than usual, but she didn't seem reassured. She then told me I shouldn't get my heart rate above 140 while pregnant. I didn't ask where the random number came from, I just told her I would try.
Being a good patient, I went out and bought a heart rate monitor. Now, I have used a lot of cardio equipment that records heart rate, and I am a friggin' hummingbird when exercising. While biking and running, I can get into the 170's with just minor effort (this is in addition to my non-pregnant resting heart rate of 55-60). So I took my little heart rate monitor out for a quick run. As soon as I got going, BAM!, 163 bpm. Okay, I'll jog slower. Only down to 158. Huh. So I started walking. Within 10 seconds of walking, I was down in the low 120's. I bounced around for about 20 minutes of walking and running with the same results: no form of exercise that I do keeps me in the 140s (maybe swimming). Which made me think, if I can do moderate exercise with a pulse in the 150-160s and still be able to carry on a conversation, I can't possibly be shunting blood from the uterus (otherwise, the lungs would be compromised too). So, screw the arbitrary 140 limit, I'm doing what I know I can handle without too much effort. Besides, everything I've ever read on pregnancy and exercise mentions that it's good for the baby as long as you don't overdo it and try to run a marathon or something.
In other news, my big ultrasound is scheduled for next Tuesday (6/30). That's when we find out baby's sex and, more importantly, if everything is going ok (I had no genetic testing or triple screens performed). Just scheduling the ultrasound reminded me how much HMOs suck and I won't go into details here (shocking as that is).
Currently: 19 weeks, 3 days (6/21/09) and with no more nights spent in the hospital for call!
2 comments:
I do remember something about a upper limit for heart rates in my prego book. I got it out. I've got everything I can give you ready to go I just need to ship it. Talk to you soon! :)
The 140 thing is rather arbitrary. It was kinda based off people who weren't necessarily athletic before getting pregnant. My doc told me that my body would tell me when I was going at it too hard. I noticed that if my upper limit seems to be 160,165 depending on what I am doing (and even lower for the damned elliptical machine).
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