Adventure through pregnancy

Yesterday we packed up the car, the dogs, some snacks and some snowshoes and we headed to the mountain. On the way up we picked up a buddy and we hit the trail. There is a loop well known and loved by a group of us out around Trillium lake. Many people know this loop but it is special to us 'select few' who know Dave. Dave was my husband's work partner for 2 years. He was also JD's partner for a few years. Dave is sort of the coolest guy I know. He lives in "the shed", a hand built shack (hippie shack so it is actually quite lovely) out in the Mt Hood National Forest. It snows up there from Nov-Mayish and for a large part of that time Dave can't drive his car in to his house so he skis. Dave is 65 and in better cardiovascular condition than 90% of America's high schoolers. So, Dave lives out there. 4(?) years ago we went out for the first time and we took Dave a nice bottle of wine and some chocolate as a "thanks for taking us around the lake" gift. He promptly opened the wine shared it amongst the 5 of us and then we went around the lake. I was totally buzzed by the halfway point. It was hilarious. I remember saying to my friend Liz "I would totally exercise more if it always involved a jar of 2007 Cabernet.

Last winter we went out for "just one night" over new years to see Dave and his daughter and her boyfriend (who are our age). We packed up food and bedding and dogs. Dave rents a cabin for new years and his family usually comes up for a week. Well, not many of his family could make it last year so he made an open invitation. We went out for a night, had so much fun G called in sick for the next day and we stayed for 4 days of snowventures. It was the best holiday celebration I have had in my whole adult life. cross country skiing, snowshoeing, playing boardgames, bitter bitter ass cold outside, warm cozy wood stove inside, my dogs utterly exhausted twice a day, homemade Kaluha, delicious food and really lovely people. I very, literally could not have had a better time.

So, yesterday....we got out to the trail with JD and saw how packed all of the snow was and decided that we likely didn't need to use the snowshoes so we hauled them down the big steep hill and buried them in the snow (in case we wanted them for the ascent back to the car). The dogs ran around like crazy wild animals and we hiked. It was AWESOME. Dave wasn't home. He was in the city for the day but we carried his wacky mt spirit with us anyway and had a great time.

My body felt good. After the first major hill (sort of slippy and icy) my pelvis had that "old familiar feeling of achy in front but it wasn't unmanageable so I didn't really slow down. I engaged what abs I have left and kept charging away on the trail. I made some creative potty stops (what else is new?) and we finished the 5 mile loop in just about 2 hours.

I realized yesterday that I am officially in 3rd trimester. 29 weeks! Holy shit! Where has the time gone? I am seriously looking at meeting this little one any time in the next 8-12 weeks. That may seem like plenty of time to you.....but I am ticking time bomb of EVERYTHING I KNOW IS ABOUT TO CHANGE! 8 weeks seems like a drop of water in the ocean of time. In spite of that, I am still pretty happy with my body and its capacity. I wish I had/have been working out more but honestly, work has me so damned tired that I need almost all the sleep and mellow, feet up days I can get. Getting sick for the last 2.5 weeks also really blew. I am still coughing but thankfully not feeling as shitty as I had been. I went to the doctor TWICE for this horrible cold. It stared out as a snotty head cold and developed into the worst chest cold I have had. Thanks pregnancy for ruling out taking drugs and an option....But to give you an idea of how bad it was I called the midwife and she wrote a prescription for narcotic cough syrup just to knock me out so I could stop coughing and get some sleep. After my 8hr blackout I WAS feeling better....Anyway, the moral of this story is supposed to be that I am feeling better and feeling GOOD about continuing to adventure through my pregnancy. I know there are women traveling the African bush and living out of WV vans as the travel across the country through pregnancy but I am just as proud of myself for my occasional trip to the pool, my near weekly "big pregnant hike" and my 4 days a week of hour or longer dog walks. I have gained (in my opinion) a fucking ton of weight (I am at 28-30lbs right now) and I don't imagine the last 8-12 weeks of pregnancy are going to be merciful with the poundage but I am doing my best to eat well. I crave green, crunchy things and fruit a LOT. I also crave chocolate which is new... I try not to overindulge but I am only human. At least its not a 3 day a week McDonald's habit or diet Mt Dew right? Right! I am just going to keep trying and hope my body can steer me mostly right. It seems to have worked so far.

Drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, exercising, taking my vitamins, staying healthy, not overdoing it at work, and remembering to cherish every second with my husband are my main priorities right now. I can't tell you how happy I am to feel that adventure is an integral part of all of that.