Austin Half Marathon "Race" Report

You can tell by the quote marks that it wasn't good.

We drove down to Austin on Saturday morning. Straight to the expo, which was small. Very cool backpack giveaway - complete with waterproof compartment for sweaty workout items or wet swimsuits. I'm already putting this one to good use!

Then over to our hotel, which was very nice (and expensive) since it was Valentine's Day weekend.

Then to Thunderclouds for take-out subs to be eaten in the hotel room while watching the Olympics. This is my idea of heaven. Later that night I sent Preston over to Tiff's Treats for some chocolate chip cookies. Tiff's is one of the things I truly miss about Austin. Best. Cookies. EVAR.

Speaking of miss - we drove by my old place on Rio Grande, and it isn't there any more!! They tore it down and built a new building! Double Daves, which I lived on top of, is still there, in the same place in the new building... but I was *floored*.

Anyways, hit the sack early for an early start.

Preston drove me downtown and dropped me off about 2 blocks from the start. It was fricking cold, and I stood there for about an hour. It was lovely, though, standing on Congress in the dark looking up at the beautifully lit Capitol building.

I lined up waaaaaaay in the back, knowing that between my knee and my boobs, I wasn't likely to be doing all that much running. About 10 minutes after the start, I crossed the line.

The knee started hurting within minutes. The boobs instantly began protesting. And we very quickly found the first hill, which I decided to walk. I didn't really know how many hills there would be, but I knew to keep my HR in a state resembling controlled, I'd need to be walking the hills. And that, my friends, was pretty much as good of a plan as I ever had. Walk up the hills, run the downhills and flats until the knee made me walk again. Rinse, repeat.

I did have a problem, though: baby wanted me to pee. Almost from the very beginning. And the (idiot) race organizers somehow thought that 2 porta-potties per aid station was sufficient for 13,000 runners. Seriously. Every freaking aid station, the line was 20-30 people long. And there was no wooded or bushy area to hide in. I mean, even men were in line at the aid stations. It was awful. I'd stop, go stand in line for a minute or two, see one-freaking-person come out, calculate that at this rate it'd take me 20 minutes to pee, and start running again. I would guess between all my failed attempts at getting access to a pisser, and my one successful attempt (finally found a park restroom that no one seemed to notice: only 5 women in front of me!), I lost over 10 minutes to the bathroom situation. And that, my friends, is unacceptable. Especially to a pregnant woman.

Oh, one other thing that made me grumpy: no gatorade until over halfway into the race. Lame.

Other than that, there isn't much to tell. I was really hurting in my knee. I ran when I could, walked when I couldn't, and hurt like hell for most of it. Oh, and the hill at 12 is a freaking beastie. You round the corner and see it off in the distance and know the sight of evil.

I finished, collected my medal and shirt (btw, it really bothers me that sizes aren't standard. When I order a medium, it is always from a race that is sizing large and I should have had an extra small, when I order an extra small it is always at a race sizing small and I needed a freaking medium. Same thing happens with size small. Basically, unless the race organizers advertise the brand of finisher's t-shirt, it is a crap shoot that I always lose.) Anyways, my preggers breastles look mighty fine in my too-small finisher's t-shirt. Oh yes, they do.

Awesome medal. Love it.

Back to the hotel for a shower, then to EZ's for cheese fries and an oreo shake. Then back to H-town.

And that is the story of my (non)race in Austin.

Baby's first race.

First "Dr" Appointment

Was lame. Totally lame.

BECAUSE I DIDN'T SEE A DOCTOR.

Thank goodness Preston didn't miss work for that joke.

So I went, paid my $20 for the worthless appointment, and was ushered into a nurse's office. I answered 80,000 questions about my medical history (I was expecting this part). One funny bit was the one where it asked if me or my partner had ever had other sexual partners. As I was checking "Yes", I said, "You probably don't see too many "No"s on this one any more, do you?" She said, "Only the Muslims." LoL!!

Anyways, the whole thing was totally surreal. The whole compound is a baby and pregnant person place. There was "Crave" Cafe, and two stores: one for the giant preggers people, and one for the shrimpies. I was practically crying before I even made my way up to the doctor's office. Oh, I mean nurse's office.

Anyways, I told her about my Bell's Palsy and my heart thingy, and she went to consult the doctor about me while I looked around at all of the stuffed animals and baby stuff in her office. Surreal, again.

Then she gave me this bag full of stuff for me to read. Told me not to read What to Expect When You're Expecting, which I had already figured out... it freaks me out. Too much about what can go wrong. Bad dreams.

Then she made me another appointment for 4 weeks. I asked what that one would entail. That one is everything. Full exam, ultrasound, etc. And I'm thinking: so this one was useless.

Then she tells me that I'm no longer allowed to get my heart rate above 120. Allow me to repeat that: I'M NO LONGER ALLOWED TO GET MY HR ABOVE 120. 120!!!! 1-freaking-20!!! Excuse me, but WHAT THE FUCK??? I can't do ANYTHING under 120. Seriously. I can't climb the stairs to the 2nd floor of my own fucking house without a quick spike to 140. The American College of Obstetrics doesn't even recommend a HR any more, just that I should be able to talk. In fact, I'm Googling around, and I can't find a single reputable medical organization that recommends a limit on a woman's HR while pregnant.

Here is the thing: I left the office pissed off that I wasn't seeing a doctor, and knowing that I was going to disobey this "rule" that was just dictated to me. And that is a terrible thing to lay on a pregnant woman. If something happens to my baby and I've disobeyed, I'll always wonder if I should have listened. I'll probably always blame myself. And I probably won't be to blame. And that is a terrible burden to lay on someone. Especially for a rule that the medical associations threw out a long time ago. A TOTALLY ARBITRARY rule that isn't based on the patient, the patient's history, or the patient's state of health. I went to my car and had a little breakdown. I called my mom and cried. (My mom, btw, totally shocked me: she told me to ignore the stupid rule.) I called my husband and freaked out. And then I moved on. But I am wondering if this practice is right for me, and thinking that it may not be. Or it may be that the doctor is fine but the nurse isn't. I wouldn't know: I didn't see the doctor.

Ugh.

Another Weird Pregnant Dream

Last night I dreamt that I needed to take another pregnancy test. It was important to a lot of people, for some reason. They were all waiting outside the bathroom. And it was one of those public bathrooms with a ton of stalls. Very gray in color. Concrete floor, cinderblock walls. I had ot go in with all my stuff for some reason, and I set almost all of it down on a shelf behind me. But there wasn't room for a box of tampons, which I set down in front of me and on the left, and a box of pregnancy tests, which were on the right. But I kept getting the boxed confused. First I peed on a tampon and it took me forever to realize what I had done. Then I was fumbling around trying to get into the pregnancy test (in a hurry, though the reason was never explained in the dream), finally got it open, peed on it, and first there was a second (green) line, which meant I was pregnant, but then the line grew and grew and turned into a green eye, which meant I wasn't. Then I was fumbling for the instructions trying to figure out which result was fight, how long I should have waited before reading it, etc. I finally decided to take another test, but accidentally opened 2 more tampons before I got into a pregnancy test. At which point I got another green line that grew into an eye, and I was crying because I wasn't pregnant any more.

And then I woke up.

Telling a Few Peeps

And why they rock my world.

So I've told my boss and my assistant manager. I know that most people don't tell this early, but if I start having to run out of meetings to pee or hurl, I want at least those 2 people to know that I'm not becoming unreliable!

And I told my Mom and Dad. Who the first night were stunned. And by the second night were excited. Dad says it will be a blue-eyed red-headed baby girl. And by the third night, Mom made the most amazing offer EVAR. When I have to go back to work, she'll start coming down and staying Monday-Thursday with us to babysit. I almost cried when she offered. Such a load off my already freaking out mind.

And Preston couldn't not tell someone, so he texted Aaron, who immediately called and congratulated him, and asked us to dinner so I could tell Justina. Justina surprised me the most: she didn't even bat an eye! Then she offered me maternity clothes and What to Expect When You're Expecting. I asked if I could go over on Friday to pick up at least the book, which I was really wanting to lay my hands on! So yesterday I ran by Panera to pick up lunch for her and the kiddos, and when I got to her house she had 2 boxes of maternity clothes ready, and then offered me all the baby stuff that she had. I told her I'd take anything she was willing to give that she thought I'd want, and I came home with a Menaceload of stuff: 2 saucers, a swing, a bouncy seat, 2 diaperbags, bottles, a changing mattress thingy, a sling, blankets, toys, etc. And a promise of when her son is out of his crib in the next few months, the crib. And when I know what the sex of the baby is, all of the clothes she has. Wow. I mean, seriously, wow. I'm hardly going to have to buy anything!!!!

I've got my first pre-natal doctor appointment scheduled for Friday the 12th. I figure after that we'll tell Preston's family.

First Weird Pregnancy Dream

I dreamt that I visited the street where I grew up and went to visit the people that lived in Polly and Bart's house after they moved out. They were nice people, always had a bunch of cats and dogs, and 2 kids.

I knocked on the door, greeted all the animals and the kids I remembered, and commented on how many more animals and kids they had. Sandy, the mom, said that she had actually just had another baby, and showed him to me. He looked like a human version of a "pinky" mouse... basically like a fetus that was already out. In the dream, this was normal. Then it was time for dinner. She commented that the baby was starting to eat solid foods, and did I want to watch and learn the technique for when I had my baby. Of course I did! So she took the baby, put him in a jar, like a Mason jar, but bigger, and he looked up like a baby bird and she got this eye-dropper thing and started squirting food into his mouth.

Yeah. Weird dream.

The Story of How We Found Out...

...that we are pregnant.

I went to this workout class at work on Tuesday evening, January 25th for the first time. I worked myself hard. Broke a great sweat. Muscles in both legs and arms quivering with exhaustion by the time I left. I was seriously pleased with myself.

Went home that night and hit the sack, and slept hard.

When I woke the next morning, I felt kind of crappy. The day before I had noticed that I looked a bit pale with pink cheeks, that I looked sick, even though I felt fine. Since I felt fine, I worked out anyways. When I woke up the next morning, I wondered if that had been a mistake. I felt fully exhausted, and just generally under the weather.

That night I was running a mild fever, and I noticed when I lay down to go to sleep that my boobs were sore. Strange. Figured my period must be coming. That isn't a normal PMS symptom for me, but it has happened before. I didn't think anything else of it.

For the rest of the week, I felt bad/tired, ran a mild fever, and had sore boobs.

On Friday I started having severe mood swings. And they weren't really mood "swings" per se, they were more one mood swing where I went over to the dark side for a little while. And by a little while I mean 3 days. For 3 days, everything P did made me want to kill him. I finally sent him upstairs to play on the computer while I read, for both of our health! At this point we both thought that all this was a particularly strong and unusual manifestation of PMS. This was strengthened by the spotting that started on Saturday, even though that is also not a normal thing for me.

I got through the weekend without killing Preston, and for some reason on Monday morning, February 1st, at work, I just felt like I must be pregnant. I started researching pregnancy symptoms on the Internet and became more and more convinced. I sent Preston a direct tweet telling him that I wanted to take a test. I was a little afraid - I figured he'd think I was being dumb because of the spotting, but I just really felt like I wanted a test. I underestimated him: he was ready with a test when I came home.

So I peed on the stick and hopped in the shower. Preston was watching the stick. I was looking through the shower door and could swear that I saw 2 lines. I asked him how we were doing and he didn't respond. I asked again and he said, "There is a 2nd line, but it is faint." I started laughing and he said, "I thought we were just doing this to ease your mind!!" Then he started reading the instructions trying to figure out if a faint line really meant pregnant. I told him that it did. He countered that the instructions said the test might not be accurate close to your period. I told him that meant false negatives, not false positives. He wasn't convinced. He wanted me to buy another test or 2 of different brands the next day and take them. I agreed, even though I was already sure I was pregnant.

The next day it was practically all I could think about. I actually got sent on an errand to CVS while at work for box-cutters. I asked the staff to help me find them, then told them that this would be the strangest combo ever, but to direct me to the pregnancy tests. I picked another "line" test of a different brand, and a digital test. And then counted the hours til I could go home.

I did go ahead and attend the workout class that evening, but took it a little easier on myself.

Then I went home and peed on another stick. Which also told me I was pregnant. I call Preston, who was at school, and left a message saying simply, "I am incubating your spawn. Love you."

The next morning I peed on the final (digital) stick, which also said I was pregnant.

Holy shit, we're having a baby.