Prenatal apt & monthly forum

I had my second checkup with my wonderful midwife, Sherri, last Thursday. We had another good hour long visit and talked about all kinds of things.

One of the things we talked about were using essential oils to solve some of my pregnancy symptoms right now. She actually sells DoTerra and gave me a little 3 pack of essential oils for free which was great and I've already used them a bunch. Peppermint, Lavender, and Lemon.
Peppermint - great for headaches (which Tara ps my midwife says is fine to use while pregnant)
Lavender - to help me sleep and STAY asleep better
Lemon - Rob's used on his cold sore; good for upset tummies/digestion
A few drops of all 3 in a capsule is supposed to be good for allergies which Rob has bad right now so I made him take it 2 times and we're not sure the effectiveness yet but we're willing to try!
Anyways it sounds like there are a million uses for even just these 3 she gave me alone! I know people who use these instead of medicines and I love the idea of having something safe and natural to use for me and my family. I'm definitely interested in learning more about them.
Here's a little chart of different uses of some of the essential oils:

One of the best things was hearing the baby's heartbeat and having Robby listen to it with me - he was so excited! "The baby's heartbeat's COOL mom!"

My blood pressure was normal this time which is good...

Weight - can we talk about the fact I've gained 13 lbs (+maybe a few more if you count vacation lbs that I'm choosing to not count) and I'm only 16 weeks. I was freaking out thinking I'd gained 5 lbs in a WEEK and calmed down a little when I realized it was over a month but still - with Robby I'd gained 0 by this point. I'm not sorry and I'll gain whatever lbs I need to and I feel like I'm eating when I'm hungry and not gorging on treats or anything so it is what it is. But I don't love it. Speaking of gaining weight and nutrition...

Sherri's Monthly Forum

Once a month Sherri gets all of her clients together and does a forum on a subject that's important to cover and then has couples who have just had their babies come and share their birth stories with the group. I know my nutrition isn't perfect but holy cow guys, it can get overwhelming thinking about all the stuff you should/could do.

We learned about the HOPE diet:

H- High Fiber - should be getting 30 grams a day, most people get like 8


O - Omega oils - can be found in flax, hemp, or chia seeds (were some we talked about); I'm taking high quality  fish oil pills Dr. Dummar gave me


P - Probiotics - plain yogurt, we didn't understand too much about them :)


E - Enzymes - help us digest our food, in raw fruits and veggies, can take supplements

There's a ton I could say but I'll just say the thing we are working on now is having a good, healthy green smoothie every morning with flax seed in it to help with fiber and omega... trying to eat more fruits and vegetables, raw foods...

Also, Sherri said by your 4th or 5th month of pregnancy you really should be OFF sugar! Did you hear that? OFF SUGAR! Wahh! Ok, I do see that the more fruits and veggies we eat the less we crave sweets - I haven't even wanted chocolate for days which is good - but I'm definitely not OFF sugar! And there are different levels of OFF sugar - like no treats, or not using any products with High Fructose Corn syrup or sugar in them which is pretty much everything besides raw foods. :) (like when I did the HCG diet) At least that diet helped me be much more aware of what has sugar in it and look for/make my own no sugar or low sugar options. So I'll be trying to cut sugar out of my diet more and more but I'm sure I won't be perfectly OFF sugar.

So I haven't been able to convince Rob to do an early ultrasound and now ours is only 16 days away so I guess I can wait... waiting is no fun! But that's ok. Gives me something to look forward to!!

First prenatal

I meant to blog about this right after and I kept forgetting!

So you know how I had decided on a midwife and so when she called me back on Monday and asked when I wanted to come in I said RIGHT AWAY! I was able to see her the next day, so last Tuesday, for our first appointment!

I pulled up to her house and she and her 5 year old son were just getting out of the car - hurray! Someone for Robby to play with! You guys, this is so great, Robby just ran around and played with her son for the whole hour we were meeting. And we scheduled my next appointment to be when her son would be home again so they can play. It's such a relief knowing he's welcome at these appointments and now he even will have FUN!

It was kind of funny because she and her son had just been at McDonald's at the playplace - it was his first day of school. She said, "oh no, Esther! Today we're going to talk about nutrition and now you're not going to listen to a word I say when you see me with my Dr. Pepper and cheeseburger!" Ha! I told her no, now I won't worry about her judging me if I tell her I ate something like that. :)

We did talk a lot about nutrition and I asked her what I ask every doctor, "How bad is it if I have an occasional diet coke?" I am basically asking for it when I ask this question but I need someone to convince me not to drink soda!! She told me a pretty convincing story - when she was pregnant with her 9th baby, at age 40, she decided she'd just drink Dr. Pepper if she felt like it! And all through her pregnancy she kept having bladder infections... and she said, "I know what it was from and I didn't care!" And then when she was in labor her midwife broke her water and all her contractions stopped - she said in a serious voice, "And Esther... I had to have a hospital birth." She went to the hospital and she had a cervical infection. So they gave her antibiotics and an epidural and then the baby came without any other problems but it was not the kind of birth she wanted and she felt like the infections were linked to drinking soda and just not taking as good of care of herself as she should've. She pointed out that it has to go through your kidneys which are right next to where the baby is!

If my goal is to have a healthy baby and to be able to give birth at home then I need to take the best care of my body that I can!! So I am going to do my best to eat healthy foods and exercise and not drink soda.

My favorite part - we heard the heartbeat! I was almost 12 weeks at my apt and my uterus is tipped back so I knew it would be hard to hear the heartbeat but since I'd been having some cramping that weekend I was desperate to hear it!! She was very patient in searching for it and we found it a few times although it was very quiet - her monitor picked it up and it was definitely a baby's heartbeat! It was such a relief! I'm excited for my next appointment where it should be much clearer and easier to hear right away!!

She also took my blood pressure which was a little high which was random for me. She said it could be a fluke and she's not too worried about it but if it's high next time too then we'll start talking about ways to lower that - like eating more garlic apparently. I've read exercising can help as well - trying to get back into that these days!

And just fyi she does urine tests each week like at a regular doctor too. Other labs and ultrasounds are elective and we'll do an ultrasound around 20 weeks to try to find out if it's a boy or a girl and see if everything looks good! So that's just like a month and a half away! Ah! So exciting!

Basically I still feel really good about my choice and my midwife is great and I'm happy. :)