March 28, 2010, 25 Weeks

Wow 25 weeks! I found out an amazing fact today while reading my baby books, Layla could live if she was born now. It wouldn't be easy but with the advances they have made in medicine treating premature babies she would have a great chance of survival. As an almost mother this is so comforting.

She is 1 1/2 pounds and almost 9 inches long. She moves all of the time! It actually hurts a little and I wasn't expecting that. The other day I told Chris I felt like she was a little vampire baby and was going to break her way through my skin. (I am a big Twitard, if you didn't already know!) I can definitely tell how big she has gotten by how much stronger she kicks and punches.

It is such an amazing a scary time. She is getting bigger and I am getting closer to becoming a mom. I just keep feeling like I should be older. I guess when you are in your teens you think of 27 as old. And I do not feel that old. Looking back I thought as this age I would just know what to do, like a chip is implanted and you just know things. You figure you would know how to raise a child, how to be married and how to buy a house. And you really don't know any of it. It is weird because when you look at your parents you think I wonder who taught them how to care for me. What if Layla gets a fever, will I know what to do? My parents always seemed to know what to do.

It is exciting to start to think about things like that. I am growing up and I like it. I feel like I have been an adult since I was 10, but I am finally enjoying that feeling.

Chris was gone this weekend and it was not very fun for me. Mali seems to rebel more. I am just thankful that it is finally Sunday and Chris should be home this afternoon.

Today I am going to my Aunts for brunch. My cousin is coming in from Alaska where he is stationed in the army. He has been in Afghanistan for the past year and we have all really missed him.

March 23, 2010: My weight problem

I have been writing this post for the past few weeks. We have been extremely busy, but it was super important for me to get this done. I will be posting new info about Layla tomorrow.

Its Friday and weigh in day. I am very proud to say that I only gained .2 last week. And .4 this week. So far in the pregnancy according to my scale I have gain 23.4 pounds. I was 140 the day I found out I was pregnant and now weigh 163.4. I realize that I talk a lot about weight and worrying about gaining weight. Some of you do, but I know some of you don't, know what I struggle with when it comes to food and weight. So here it all is:

The pictures are before and after of myself. The above pictures were taken when I was 20 years old. The highest number I ever saw on the scale was 175 pounds. The lower pictures are of me at 24 years old. I was 134 pounds there.

I was able to maintain my weight through high school with moderate dieting and exercise. Right out of high school is when the big weight gain happened. I was never a skinny kid but I don't look back now and think I was as heavy as I felt. My weight gain had to do with my thyroid and a lot to do with my eating and life style.

Chris and I ate out a lot and did not exercise at all. Being only 5' 2" 175 pounds is a lot of weight to carry. Once my thyroid was taken care of with the radio active iodine treatment I started to become really interested in nutrition and weight loss. I start with nutrition classes in college and found, what I still think is my calling, which is to be a registered dietitian. I would love to go back to school and finish that career path. But that will have to wait until after Layla and our other kids get their turns in college. Even though I learned a lot from the classes it wasn't until I started working at my current job and got to know my aunts sister better did I really learn how to eat.

There is something very valuable about knowing how to count calories and how many calories you should be eating. I had to start my weight loss by drinking protein shakes for two meals a day to lower my appetite and then I was able to go to once a day. I used many resources to help along the way.

To count calories and keep my percentages of carbs, protein and fat in check I used fitday.com. The books that taught me how to exercise and had great recipes for low fat meals were New Rules of lifting for Women by Lou Schuler, Cassandra Forsythe, M.S. and Alwyn Cosgrove and Abs Diet for Women by David Zinczenko. I also am a huge fan of Women's Health Magazine. The best books I ever read on eating are The End of Overeating by David A. Kessler, M.D. and Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michales. Because of The End of Overeating I was able to overcome my hypereating behavior before getting pregnant. Some of my favorite parts of the book are as follows:

Chapter 6: Sugar, Salt and Fat Are Reinforcing; "This is scientific confirmation that the combination of fat and sugar is a strong reinforcer. In a conversation with Ward, I asked her how strong it really was. The breaking point at which the animals will no longer work for the reward, she told me, is slightly lower than the breaking point for cocaine. Animals are willing to work almost as hard to get either one." pg31 (Kessler)

Chapter 11: Emotions Make Food Memorable; "That's the food industry's goal in its television advertising. We aren't being sold nutrition or satisfaction. We are being sold emotions. That's what the Applebee's campaigns 'Eatin' Good in the Neighborhood' and 'The Flavors That Bring People Together' are all about." (pg 57 Kessler)

Chapter 15: Cinnabon: A Lesson in Irresistibility; "Given her professional interests and the extraordinary success of her signature product, I was somewhat surprised to learn how concerned Jerilyn Brusseau is about childhood obesity.

'If someone today asked me to create the world's greatest cinnamon roll, I'd probably think differently about it,' she said candidly. 'Twenty years ago, it was a once-in-a-while indulgence. I wasn't so worried about the growing obesity among kinds. Now I am...I'm very concerned that kids are growing up eating too many things like Cinnabon every day of their lives.'

But she felt no need to apologize for her success. 'I make cinnamon rolls for my family for special events. I make Cinnabons for friends. I love to teach people about the linage of cinnamon rolls, about this ordinary food made extraordinarily well so that you can really have a wonderful sensory experience. But I don't teach them to eat it four times a day. Its all a matter of balance.' (pg 77 Kessler)
Chapter 34: Warning Signs in Children; "To understand when conditioned hypereating takes the brain hostage it is useful to consider the age when we first see indications of reward-driven eating. The process seems to begin in early childhood-and it now appears to be developing among younger and younger children." (pg 169 Kessler)

This post might seem weird on a baby blog but I think it is really important for Layla, when I give this to her at her wedding?, to know what I struggled with since she has half of my gens. And all of this eating and dieting has been huge for me in my pregnancy. I have included an article from the LA Times that discuss child hood obesity and it is clear that the problem starts before you are even pregnant. With the increasing rate of childhood diabetes, obesity and heart disease I find it my responsibility to take care of my daughter before she even takes her first breath of air. My education level on eating and exercise will benefit her from the very start. I know how hard it is to stay on track and how difficult it is to loose the weight but the better educated you are the better chance you give your self and your love ones.

I definitely will be posting more advise on this blog for my daughter and anyone else who is interested. I also have decided to post some of my favorite recipes that have helped me eat healthy at home. And the main lesson you will learn if you read The End of Overeating it is to eat at home. I was so mad at the food industries and restaurants after reading that book.

Obesity risks start before birth

Prenatal, infancy, early childhood — factors in all may affect a person’s future weight and health.

March 08, 2010|Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times

Pam Levin's daughter weighed less than 5 pounds at birth. But by the time the child turned 3, Levin and her husband had begun to bristle at some of the comments about her. "People would say, ‘She's chunky' or ‘She's a big girl,'" Levin says.

The comments may not have been tactful, but the Los Angeles mom caught herself wondering if they were true. Was the adorable, easygoing preschooler overweight? During the child's first year of life, she had been smaller than 95% of children her age, according to pediatric growth charts, weighing about 17 pounds on her first birthday. But her weight had increased, and kept increasing, until she was 43 pounds at age 3 1/2.

"All of a sudden she's was on the 50th percentile, then the 75th, then 99th," Levin recalls. "You say, ‘Wait a minute. Something's not right.'"

Today, one of every three U.S. children is overweight — but it's much easier to prevent obesity than to treat it. That's why pediatric obesity experts now say intervention should begin early — very early. The risk of becoming overweight or obese, it increasingly seems, begins before a child is born, establishes roots in infancy and may be entrenched by the time a tot starts kindergarten.

In recent studies, researchers concluded that some risk factors for childhood obesity exist even before birth. Further, they've found, obese 3-year-olds already show the signs of inflammation that is linked to heart disease in adults.

The notion that a person's lifelong weight trajectory might be programmed early in life is startling — and potentially revolutionary, says Dr. Nicolas Stettler, an associate professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania.

"If we can identify a short period of time where an intervention can have a long-lasting effect, that could be very promising," he says.

So far, most of the evidence that the early years affect weight into adulthood comes from observational or epidemiological studies. There are few randomized, controlled trials — the most scientifically rigorous kind that prove cause and effect, says Dr. Elsie M. Taveras, an assistant professor of population medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. But she points out, "We have pretty strong observational studies for a good number of risk factors in the prenatal, infancy and early childhood period."

In her paper, published March 1 in the journal Pediatrics, Taveras and her colleagues summarized more than one dozen factors in the prenatal period through age 5 that can increase the likelihood of later obesity. The research was based on a study of 1,826 mother-child pairs from pregnancy through the child's first five years of life.

Many were behaviors that are often passed down through generations and are more likely to be found in black and Latino families than in white families, possibly accounting for the high rates of obesity in those communities. For example, black and Latino infants are more likely to be fed solid food before 4 months of age and to sleep less as infants.

Each of the three early-life stages — prenatal, infancy and early childhood — comes with its own risk factors. But each also comes with the chance to intervene, breaking a lifetime cycle of obesity and dieting before it starts.

Prenatal

Several risk factors likely begin with the mother — even before she's a mother.

Almost half of U.S. women today begin pregnancy overweight or obese, automatically increasing the likelihood that their babies will be born either too small or too large, both of which increase the risk of obesity for the child later in life.

Further, studies show that how much weight a pregnant woman gains and whether she develops gestational diabetes both can influence her child's weight in adulthood.

The odds of being overweight at age 7 were 48% higher for children of women who gained more weight than recommended during pregnancy compared with women who met weight guidelines, according to a study by Stettler and colleagues published in 2008 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"What we find is that these things set up children for a lifelong risk of obesity," says Asheley Cockrell Skinner, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. "These factors don't just make them overweight; they become barriers to helping them change when they get older. It becomes the story that never ends."

Infancy

A newborn's weight is noted on birth announcements, memorialized on the first page of the baby book and never forgotten by his or her mother.

But perhaps it's a baby's weight at age 1 that matters more, experts say. Weight that is too high for the child's height — for example, being at the 75th percentile for weight but the 30th percentile for height — can spell trouble. Another study from Taveras' research group, published last year in Pediatrics, found that rapid increases in weight-for-length measurements during the first six months of life were associated with a greatly increased risk of obesity at age 3.

No one is sure why rapid weight gain in the first year is important. It could be that when a baby is fed more than it needs, the brain's development is affected so that it signals the need for excessive amounts of food, Stettler says. Likewise, too much food might program an infant's pancreas, and the body's response to insulin, in a manner that leads to obesity.

Whatever the cause, Taveras says, "excessive weight gain in those first six months of life is not baby fat that is going to go away. We're going to have to change perceptions about what's healthy and what's not healthy."

Whether a baby is breast-fed (and for how long) or bottle-fed, when it begins eating solid food and how much it sleeps have also been linked to obesity risk. A 2008 study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that babies in child-care centers or cared for by relatives tended to have lower rates of being breast-fed and had solid foods introduced earlier, both factors tied to weight gain.

But studies on breast-feeding are an example of a weakness in the argument that the early years influence future weight, Stettler says.

For example, one study randomly assigned the mothers of infants to a program that encouraged breast-feeding and compared them with women who did not receive the breast-feeding promotion program. More babies were indeed breast-fed in the first group. But when the children in both groups reached age 6, there were no differences in their weight. The paper was published in 2007 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"We know that families that choose to breast-feed are very different from families that do not," Stettler said. They may have higher incomes or feed their children more healthful food. Thus, it's hard to say whether breast-feeding or other family characteristics affect a child's future risk of obesity.

That's why, Stettler says, "these associations are not ready for prime time or to be converted into public health recommendations."

Early childhood

Other experts say the soaring rates of child obesity warrant changes even without solid evidence.

In a study published recently in Pediatrics, Skinner's team found that obese children as young as age 3 had higher levels of C-reactive protein, a marker for inflammation that is linked to heart disease in adults. C-reactive protein levels can rise for a number of reasons, and about 15% to 20% of children have above-normal levels. But among obese 3-year-olds, 45% had elevated levels. It's not clear yet whether this inflammation remains high in obese children or causes any long-lasting harm.

"That indicates to me that when we see what appears to be a chubby kid on the outside, there may be something different on the inside, compared with healthy kids," she says. "It's a red flag that something is not quite right."

Levin didn't wait for someone to test her daughter's C-reactive protein.

The first-time mom recently consulted a doctor who specializes in weight and nutrition issues, and she learned that the family needed to make immediate changes. A toddler doesn't need a whole bagel with cream cheese and salmon for lunch, she learned. One-quarter of that bagel sandwich would suffice. Low-fat milk is more healthful than whole milk. Snacks need not include juice.

That doesn't mean she put her child on a diet; most doctors discourage such restrictions. "It's not about losing weight," says Levin. "It's about her growing into her weight. We're not focused on numbers and the scale and all of that. We just need to focus on healthy choices."

More parents of young children are asking for advice on weight and nutrition, says Dr. Elaine L. Rosen, director of the California Center for Healthy Living in Encino, where Levin took her daughter. A pediatrician, Rosen opened her center, which addresses weight or nutritional problems in babies through young adults, because of high rates of child obesity and because worried parents didn't know how to help their kids.

Too much concern on the part of parents can backfire, Rosen says, leading to eating disorders in children or contributing to children being overweight or underweight.

"There is a lot of misinformation out there," she says. "A lot of adults rely on diet-mentality notions, which is not appropriate for kids."

Families are taught what, when and where to feed their children, while leaving the questions of whether to eat and how much to eat to the child, Rosen says.

"Sometimes parents cross the line into the domain of control," she says. "The child does not learn to trust themselves to feed themselves properly. Some kids resort to under-eating and picky eating. Some overeat, learn to sneak food and defy their parents."

The emphasis on the early years just makes good sense, Taveras says. "Almost all of the risk factors we found we can change. We can counsel families about these issues."

Levin and her daughter began to see Rosen a few months ago. But already, Levin says, her daughter's preschool teacher has remarked that the child seems to have had a growth spurt — in height.

A late start

So far, the early years have been ignored when it comes to obesity practices and policies. First Lady Michelle Obama recently launched a campaign to address child obesity. But like many other programs, it focuses on school-age children. There is no organized public-health effort on obesity prevention from gestation to age 5. The Institute of Medicine, however, recently convened a task force to study that time period.

Because child obesity is linked to both maternal and child health, obstetricians and pediatricians must be enlisted to address obesity prevention in their patients, Taveras says.

But, she adds, "during pregnancy and the first two years of life, mothers and their infants are seen by physicians more often than any other time of life. It's kind of a golden opportunity. We have systems in place to reach mothers and children."

shari.roan@latimes.com

March 11, 2010, For Sure a GIRL!

So I can finally take a deep breath and relax. It has been confirmed with out a doubt that I am having a girl. I did not mention before but for the last few weeks there has been some talk about the 4D pictures and whether they were correct about the sex. And they were. She is for sure a girl. I am so relived. I can finally start painting the room and finish the registries. I am so happy!

We went to the dentist on Tuesday and I think Layla must have been cringing at the sound of metal scraping against my teeth as much as I was. She was moving around so much. But we were lucky and had no cavities and got a "better than last time" from the dental hygienist.

I think this week has been the best week of Mali's life. Chris gave her a giant beef leg bone on Sunday that she is still trying to devour. Last night she got to go with Chris to the guys poker night and play with a yellow lab, Jake and a black lab puppy, diesel. Then today Mali got to go to work with Chris and play with her brother Samson all day.

Shannon and I went to spinning last night and then to my moms for a baby shower meeting. Spinning was awesome. And it feels so good to get back. The baby shower meeting went really well and invitations should be in the mail by mid April.

I have been counting my calories like I said and I realized I was eating between 2200 to 2500 calories day. It is always an eye opener when you really sit down and write everything down. I have now cut my calories back to 2000 a day with at least 30mins of exercise. I am also trying to be more aware of where my calories are coming from. On Sunday I ate mostly junk food, but now I am trying to eat more fruits and vegetables.

My newest guilty pleasure is whole wheat pitas, toasted, with hummus and feta cheese. It is so good!

March 10, 2010

OK it has come to my attention that there are many concerns with the things I am posting on this blog. I would like to address those.

I did write something that I feel was a little harsh and not exactly what I meant and I will be explaining it. Please go to February 19, 210 to see my explanation.

First I would like to mention that the only people that this blog address was given to were the girls at work and my very close friends and family that have a face book account. Now I find it pretty funny that people who enjoy the open public forum of face book would not also look at a blog in the same way.

I have a theory on this. Our brains are so intelligent that they have the capability to block out painful things in our life. Whether it is emotion or physical which pregnancy is both. I think that people forget once they have a beautiful perfect baby in their arms how hard the nine months to that point were. I am going through it now and I a have a lot of emotional highs and lows. The people that see me all the time would not even need to read this blog because they already know how I am feeling. I am not a keep it all inside and smile kind of person. I feel I do best when I share what I am going through and get feed back from peers and people who have been through the same thing.

For those of you who do not like my blog I have some advise

One: STOP READING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not forcing you to be a part of this pregnancy, but I will continue to blog good and bad things and if you are misconstruing that then you will have to deal with it.

Two: If you have a concern then you could comment on the blog or call me and ask if everything is OK. Because truthfully it usually is by that point. Have none of you ever cried over spilled milk. I am very worried about what kind of mom I will be, if I will get my pre-pregnancy body back, will Chris and I make it through having kids. And I do not feel bad for felling that way. If any of you can honestly look back and say that you didn't have the same feelings then good for you. I am using this blog as a journal and I am willing to share it with people because I am that kind of person. If you did have those feeling but believe that they should not be shared publicly then follow advise One and STOP READING! You also might want to consider not have a face book either because people are pretty open about there feelings on there too.

I am pretty mad about this situation and ask those of you who enjoy my blog and the pictures to keep signing on and those of you who dont to tune out. As I have said before the purpose of writing this was to share what I am going through for people who have yet to have kids, people who wanted to know how I am feeling and mostly for Layla who hopefully will be pregnant one day. And instead of me shutting her out and saying that I loved being pregnant and she should to, I can give her this blog/journal and maybe she wont have to feel like no one understands what she is going through.

March 9, 2010, 22 Weeks

Here are our pictures from our doctors appointment yesterday. The doctor said he thought it was a girl but that she was being stubborn in her positions. Cant believe she is already like her mom! It was a pretty brief appointment and so far everything looks good. It is so amazing to see that she has all 10 of her fingers and toes and all the right anatomy. The doctor could even see all her internal organs. I cant wait to meet her!

Wow what a weekend we just had. I think I was more tired yesterday then I have ever been on a Friday. You'd think we went to Vegas for the weekend. I unexpectedly got to see my younger sisters on Sunday and that was awesome. We went out to lunch and then played Hanna Montana games on the computer. They are so cute. Later that night Chris, Mali and I went to my moms for dinner. She cooked a pot roast and it was delicious. I also had the pleasure to eat with my two little cousins, John and Peter. They are so funny. We were talking about sleeping and John said that they sleep in their own beds. I said wow that's great and he then looked at me and said just kidding! Then Peter said just kidding. I think John said that joke about three times that night. "No we really do sleep in our beds, Just Kidding!" It was so cute. He also asked me if he could see my stomach, I though how cute till he poked my in the belly button. The rest of the night was spent talking about nothing other than Layla.

I know it must be tiring for people that are not pregnant to hear all about everything that is going on in your pregnancy. Its just really all that's on your mind. Its like trying to talk to a bride about something other than her wedding. I try to be sensitive to other people and change the subject when it starts to look like they have drifted off to sleep.

I think we might start working on painting the nursery this weekend. It is mine and Chris's last weekend together till the middle of April. Next weekend he will be in Vegas, the weekend after I will be in Newport with my dad and then the first weekend in April is gun club again.

BABY SHOWER UPDATE: it looks like the date is going to be set for May 16th, Sunday.

March 5, 2010 Nursery Change

I have made a slight change to the colors of the nursery. Chris, being super sweet, brought home color palates for me to look at. Right when I saw this one I loved it. Our glider that we got from my aunt and uncle is yellow and all the wood tones in the room are honey. So I am going to paint the top half of the room Frolic and then depending on the cost do wainscoting in Popped corn or just put up a chair rail and paint the bottom half rum spice. I think it will look nice to accent with the sweet corn yellow color in the curtains and the rug. Plus all of the flowers and bugs can be done in these colors. I would also bring in a little of an Robbins egg blue for a pop of color. I am so excited to have the ideas coming together. I do not think I will find a bedding set that matches so we might just go with solid colors.

Yesterday my back hurt so bad. I think it was from my spinning class. I just do not have the ab strength that I used to. I am definitely going to be doing more prenatal pilates to strengthen my back and stomach so I don't have to feel miserable again. I also gain another two pounds. I am really pissed that I keep putting on so much weight. I have decided to write down what I am eating in a day and how many calories to see if I am being ridiculous with the amount of food I am eating now. Right before I got pregnant I was dieting pretty heavy to get to a good weight for Vegas and for the pregnancy. So when I finally could eat I just wanted to eat whatever and not diet and now I have gained too much weight for 22 weeks. I am not going to cut calories or try to loose weight I am just going to see what I can eat to maintain so I don't keep gaining two pounds a week.

Another thing I would love to stop is the acne. It is horrible and I have always had perfect skin. I feel like I am on my period all the time because of all the zits. I never even had this many when I was going through puberty.

March 4, 2010 20 Week Belly Pictures

This is my belly at 20 weeks, half way point and my tattoo. I would say there is little to no movement on my heart but we will have to wait and see. The best thing about my belly so far is NO STRETCH MARKS! Thanks mom. (stretch marks are considered genetic no matter what lotions you use.)

This has been a really good week. Chris and I actually got our stuff together this weekend and went to the store and planed our meals. We both love to cook and we have made dinner at home every day so far. On Monday I made a pasta casserole. I cooked zucchini, red bell pepper, garlic, onions, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and tomatoes together and then layered it with whole wheat pasta, part skim mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce. It turned out really good. On Tuesday Chris ground some chicken and we made tacos. Yesterday Lindsey and Shannon came over for sister night and we made meatball sandwiches. They were good along with the leftover broccoli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts. We ate dinner while watch American Idol which is Chris's favorite show. The talent this year has been a little disappointing and my favorite guy was voted off last week.

This weekend is really packed with Chris's gun club, a wedding reception and my friends combined 25th birthday party in Hollywood. And they are all on the same day! Some weeks I look more forward to going back to work than the weekends. The weekends are never really ours to do with what we want. Between all of our family and friends we can barley find time to clean our house and train Mali for the new arrival. I am hoping April might be a little slower and we can get some things done.

The tentative date for the baby shower has been set during the third week in May. Probably the 15 or 16th. I will be almost 32 weeks by then.

Everything seems to be going smoothly with the pregnancy. I will know more next Monday at my doctors appointment but I am feeling great and more like myself. Today I even went to a 5:30am spinning class. It was great and I did not have any trouble getting up that early. Because of the amazing deal the studio just had I am going to be able to cycle more often now. That just couldn't have come at a better time. I now have a way to stay in shape doing something I love for really cheap.

March 1, 2010 HALF WAY THERE

So we are already half way there. To be exact 21 weeks. I feel Layla move all the time now. Even Chris has been able to feel her kick. No hiccups yet but I am sure I will be tried of them once they get here.

Layla's size is compared to a banana and she is almost a whole pound.

Next week is my last week of my 5th month. And also my 2nd trimester ultrasound. I am so excited to see her again. The doctor will be looking at her development and will also reconfirm the sex.

It is pretty difficult not being able to see your baby grow. It would be so cool in the future if you could buy something for at home that you hooked up to your stomach and it would let you check on your baby every day. I just have the most horrible thoughts because I have to wait so long between ultrasounds.

I got the rest of my baby books in the mail last week. I am currently reading three of them while Chris is readying one. The ones I am reading are: And Baby Makes Four, Babyproofing your Marriage and Becoming a Calm Mom. Chris is reading Money, sex and Kids, Stop fighting about the three things that can ruin your marriage.


I am really enjoying all of the books. I know that they wont be able to solve any of the problems that might come up but I think just knowing that what you are going through is completely normal will help. The dog book is very good too. It does however have some tough rules that are going to be hard to follow.

I still do not have any crazy cravings. Just mayo, cheese, chocolate, potatoes. But no weird combinations at all. I feel great now. I am going to start exercising more and hopefully stop the weight gain. With the time about to change I will have more sunlight after work to be outside which will be great too.