Life around California

Hey Everyone!

Sorry for the late post and mild gap. I went to Colorado for a quick visit to come back and learn I needed Iron Infusions. When the doctor tells you that you are pale white and you have a saturation of 4% when it should be 50% it means business.  With every pregnancy, every surgery comes all the year later journeys and experiences. This was a first for me. During my pregnancy with A. I never required infusions, however with B it seems my body is just giving up at times when I need it to stay strong. So I experienced 3 weeks of iron infusions and boy was that fun. Here is how they go for anyone curious about an Iron infusion during pregnancy or after Gastric Bypass. 

You arrive, they verify your info. Take you to a room, you get comfy and then they medicate you. I got tylenol and benadryl. The benadryl is suppose to help with any reaction you may have. You get told there is a medication similar to an epi-pen in the med room should you have a reaction, which is extremely extremely rare. Then the fun begins, you get an IV. then you get temps, vitals etc taken every 15 minutes for the 2-4 hours your infusion goes. Expect lots of beeping and no alone time, haha. After all this is done, they start the infusion, it takes a 15 minute monitoring constantly to ensure proper flow, no reactions etc. All I can say from this journey is ask for an extra blanket because you will get chilly and prepare to be sleepy and dose between vital checks from the benadryl! But it is pain free, and actually I have been free from eating ice for several weeks, I noticed a change within 1 week and got my energy back. I was however recently told by my OB not to consider any further children without infusions prior to pregnancy and during. But that is okay with us as we are done with children! 

Life has been hetic in our household otherwise, A is attempting to potty train, learning new words and getting into all the trouble in the world. This child has attitude like crazy. I always wonder why she has such a huge meltdown but I think it has to do with her limited words and becoming frustrated that Mommy just doesnt understand. I am busy in school working hard on finishing Chemistry and A&P 2 so I can apply to RN programs finally. And of course the hubby is busy with Army work. 

Holidays are upon us and that also means B's arrival. My last check up indicated no contractions, no issues, and we did a blood draw for my CBC to see if my iron has improved since the infusions. I am only up 18lbs from my pre pregnancy weight and I go back next week for a membrane stripping and 38 week check up! I am eager to see what my newest little bundle of joy will look like and what personality she will have, but I am also dreading leaving A and childbirth and homework as my semester doesn't end till after she's here! Anyways, Thought I would take a moment of my night and share my infusion update news, and maybe help someone else who may be curious. Have a great week!

Xo

Krista

How do you plan for the 2nd baby???

How does one truely plan for the birth of a second child? I am a planner, a scheduler and I do not like being left to the unknowns. It causes me great anxiety and fear.

I lately have found myself worried about my daughter, She will be 21 months when B arrives and A has only really known me, daddy, and a few close friends of mine. She is not use to being with people without me and I think that sends both of us into a separation anxiety filled attitude. When I have left her she cries for me and it breaks my heart often times I leave when shes napping so she wakes up to daddy and isn't as bad of a freak out. It has gotten worst as I've gotten more pregnant.

The thought of leaving A with someone she barely knows is terrifying to me. What if they abuse her? What if they neglect he? How will she feel being away from us? I cannot get over these fears it took me a lot to return to work after A was born and let someone I didn't know watch her. But this situation is different. I could in fact be away more than 1 day depending on labor, delivery and release from the hospital and A has never been away from me for more than 1 overnight with her Nanny in Colorado. I am trying to find faith that it will work out but at the same time all of this rushes through my head. Someone who barely knows her doesn't know her routine, doesn't know her behaviors, and I really think she'll feel abandoned but I have no choice with no local family and with a 2nd baby you just never know when they are going to come. Will she come way before her due date, will she come after it. We have no clue and I think that's what drives me the most insane!

I have decided to try and get a few people around her to socialize her, and may even interview a few that may come to the house and watch her need be. But I am still so anxious over it all. So if you read this blog and have any pointers, tips, tricks or trades you want to share for how to handle this fear, this anxiety or situation feel free to post a comment to me!

My plan for the 2nd baby is to get the birth plan done soon either before Colorado or After I return from my vacation. To have our bags started for all 3 of us and then to just wait and see what happens. Obviously I have no control but what I can plan for I will plan for! I don't know who she'll go with whether it will be Jeremy's coworkers wife, whether it be a friend of ours that I've hung out with a few times, or a hired person, All I know is I continue to seek peace in this matter and hope that she understands when the time does come We are coming back and we do love her stinky butt.

How did you plan for your 2nd baby? What steps did you take for the care of your other child? How did you make a smooth transition at home?

Post Pregnancy/Breast Feeding Plan

I wanted to take a moment and share my before and after baby diet. I tend to eat too many carbs during pregnancy to even want to admit it. So Here is what my typical diet will look like after the baby is born and I get back into my Gastric Bypass Weight Loss Roots!

Water: 64oz minimum! This is a must breastfeeding especially! Dehydration is one of the most common causes of loss in supply!

Breakfast: 
Oatmeal I add in butter (Ireland Grass fed) with a 1/4tsp of honey and cinnamon.
or a protein shake or smoothie with spinach
or Spinach, cheese omelet

Snack:
Almonds (Raw or Salted) and String Cheese

Lunch:
Veggie with hummus or plain
Cucumber sliced with cream cheese and lunch meat
or A Cheese and meat roll up and cottage cheese
or a mixed green Salad with hard boiled eggs and shredded cheese

Snack:
Protein Shake or Smoothie whatever extras I have from breakfast, If I didnt make one for breakfast, I will make whatever sounds good.

Dinner:
Chicken Baked or Grilled
Carb- Small amount for me of brown rice or quinoa
Spinach or mixed green salad
1/2 Avocado

Snack:
String cheese and Almonds
or Cottage cheese

If i want something sweet we do enjoy dark chocolate occasionally or dried cranberries :)


If we go out I often will order a chicken sandwich or if we go to a BBQ place I will get pulled pork and just not eat the bread. I use to love Texas Roadhouse Steak Salad with a Raspberry Vinaigrette but that is no where to be found out here yet :(.

I do follow this diet for my snacks currently but have been avoiding protein shakes and instead trying to eat my proteins. As well as I currently consume carbs like crazy.

If you have any questions feel free to ask! :)

Protein is your focus!!

Krista XO

26 Weeks and Counting! Pregnant WITH WLS

What a fun couple of weeks its been, with appointments for catching up for prenatal care that we needed done, to preparing for a trip to Colorado, to getting Jeremy taken care of for work. I sometimes feel as if I am busier as a stay at home mom and wife than as an employee to a large company. Don't get me wrong I am in no means complaining, but some days I feel as if I never stop!

We were able to get our anatomy scan done and A behaved so well alone with me since Jeremy was at work. It is in fact a second baby girl! We are excited and nervous all at the same time! And I am in my 2 weeks of doing my blood sugar finger pricks for my gestational diabetes, OH Boy!

As a gastric  bypass patient we are advocates for our own care. I have done enough research and know how I respond to increased amount of sugars in 1 sitting in a short period of time I would end up hospitalized. So rather than having to do the glucose orange drink I am doing 2 weeks of 4 finger pricks a day. Or another alternative some doctors chose to use is to pull your a1c1 every 3 months from the start of your pregnancy. Let's just say I hate needles and this process and its stressing me out. I am terrified of the results, I am worried for of course B's health as well as she could end up with Diabetes later in life I have them during pregnancy and a week before all this we finally agreed to revamp our diets and get onto a clean eating for after she comes making shopping quicker, and easier for either parent to do!

My 26 week appointment to learn gestational diabetes involved a nutrition course and sadly all that was recommended to me to eat and how much was recommended to eat would never and could never fit in my tummy. And the scale climbed to 190lbs. I often have this mental mind game and battle because of the scale climbing. So at 27 weeks I am 190lbs and that puts me at a total weight gain for the pregnancy so far as 11lbs. I am hoping to stay under 25lbs as I did with A but we will see. Two nights ago I began doing 10 squats a night, 10 pelvic tilts and now I've added in 30 minutes of walking a night tonight, well it actually ended up being 15 minutes because it was 102 degrees. But I went .69 miles.

What the next week entails in our home for us is preparing for Aspen and I to fly to Colorado to visit some friends, attend a memorial service for my best friends mom and to enjoy some time away from the house. By time I return I'll be 30 weeks. So between gathering plane toys for Aspen, planning meals and shopping trips for September, and making sure all is done around the house it has been crazy. I am ready for the break, but sadly I do start my last 2 pre-reqs for nursing school on August 31st so my break will still involve being a Mommy and doing homework for Chemistry and A&P 2. But I know all of this chaos is worth it in the end!

See you again soon!
Krista xo

CyberBullying!

  

            Today I wanted to take a second and blog about something that occurred to me last night. Something that I haven't been through personally till now and something I really didn't think I would ever personally face as an adult. That would be CYBER-BULLYING! 

Cyber-bullying as defined is the dictionary is: the act of harassing someone online by sending or posting mean messages, usually anonymously.

                  I personally as a 26 year old mother never thought that removing a simple person from my Facebook for personal reasons would end up in a personal cyber-bullying me in a group that we were both part of. This person feels that because she left me anonymous, however posted intentionally for me to see her post that she was leaving because I removed her from my Facebook and the admins of such group wouldn't kick me out that she would post hints about who I was, How many mutual friends I had with others and continue to bash me for what reasons I removed her from my Facebook for. When I addressed her that she was being a cyber bully she stated because it was anonymous it wasn't cyber-bullying... Sad truth is it is still!

                  When you bash, belittle, harass, attack someone with mentioning a name or not mentioning a name you are being a bully.  You are trying to hurt someone intentionally and by people responding on her post and getting involved in discussion about it is making those who commented a bully as well. 

          

              It is quite sad how you an watch the news and see reports of children, teens, adults killing themselves over the fact that someone, somewhere on the Internet was being a bully to them. And I am sure just like this person, they play the victim and say how they weren't bullying the person that has ended their life in all reality that are the cause and are a mean and hateful person deep down inside. 

           After my incident last night, I have learned a few things about this incident and what it has made me feel. I do not agree with nor will I ever accept anyone bullying me for standing up for my own beliefs, my own feelings and my own opinion. Some one's life choices and decisions are their own to live with and if I chose to remove someone from my life because I don't agree with those choices I am not in the wrong. I am allowed to be human, I am allowed to feel a certain way and I am allowed to have my own privacy. I will never ever tolerate my daughter's bullying another person and I will take proper action to place discipline to my children for bullying anyone. It is our job as parents to raise our daughter's and son's to respect others and to be civil, but at the same time our children are allowed freedom of speech and to voice their opinions. My child will never be subject to bullying either. I can guarantee that I will take the steps needed to make sure anyone that bullies my children will have to answer to their actions. And last but not least, I have learned I am not a victim by this little girls actions. She obviously has some battles and issues in her own life that she feels the need to tear down someone else, to get a group of so called grown women attacking an unnamed person. By being the bigger person and by not responding to the hurtful comments, the bashing and the hatred, I am the bigger person. I didn't become a victim other than her trying to make me one. I can sit here today with a clear mind and know that I said nothing wrong, I didn't respond in a moment of hatred and I didn't let her get to me. Instead she showed me all the signs to watch for to prevent bullying especially cyber bullying from happening to myself or my children.

  So to you, I thank you. Thank you for showing me I am strong, for attacking me and letting me find my strengths when most fall down and loose the battle. Thank you for proving how much I have grown in the last 2 years. Thank you for teaching me a lesson that I will one day be able to teach my daughters. Thank you for proving another lesson in my life where I will not play victim but will use it to teach someone else. Thank you for allowing me to find the beauty in the friendships I do have. 

Krista XO


**All Images Borrowed from Pinterest and are not my property**

A year to remember....

A year to remember.... Sadly that kind of sounds like a Walk to Remember... But I can promise I wont be writing a sad love story... A story that will break your heart. Instead I am going to take a moment and share some surreal, true feelings and expressions of the past year. 

A year ago in May I decided to take a chance, I was a single mom of a 2 month old. I was terrified to put myself out there again but I decided it was probably time to see what my future may hold. I knew I had my things that may lay in the way of a man wanting to date me.

 1. I had a newborn basically. 
 2. I was a college student and a full-time Hospice CNA and part-time caregiver. 
 3. I had a very guarded heart
 4. I felt physically there were better options than what I had to offer. 
 5. I had a sperm donor that was stressing me out through a child support battle. 

All these things, which weren't many I personally felt would run a man off. Who wants to date a girl who's had gastric bypass and excess skin? Who wants to date someone with a newborn child? How are they going to fit in between my crazy work schedule, a part-time job, my online school and my daughter? Is there a man that will love my daughter as his own one day? Will there be a man that decides to put up with the drama of having a battle with a sperm donor? The answer is YES! There is a man that is out there that is chosen and meant to fit into our lives in the most perfect, most simplest ways. I didn't believe it, you always think well isn't she lucky, but why not me... Timing has everything to do with it. 

I feel that when I finally gave up looking, when I felt that I was ready to raise my daughter alone and knew that I no longer NEEDED a man is when things started to change for me. I focused on my weight loss. I focused on my daughter's happiness. I focused on becoming something better for my daughter so that she would grow up not struggling and would know what it really means to work for what you want and not be handed down things in life. That's when I got a special message from the man I now call my husband! 

Last June I was at a birthday party for a friend's son. We were sitting and talking and I get a notification that I have a message. I look and it's a message from Jeremy. He is very easy to hold a conversation with and I don't mean 1 line sentences he would respond back in full paragraphs. We shared some common interest, then bam! I find out his employment... He's Military! I did not trust military men, I knew from the town I lived in these men were often players. But I expressed my concerns to him, and he promised me that he wasn't the typical military guy. Conversations continued as he was deployed and as we got closer to his coming home date it was interesting how we were able to simply hold our daily conversations, and nothing felt forced. It flowed and was genuine. I started thinking, okay he comes home he meets me and then he'll probably vanish. Ha! Was I wrong! 

Jeremy took me on our first date on July 27th, I ended up bringing A. along with me to see how he would handled being around her. We met at Rudy's Texas BBQ in Old Colorado City. And then went for a walk in Garden of the Gods with A. This man was so sweet, so worried about tipping A's stroller over, was chattering almost non stop..Poor guy was so nervous... we talked for hours and walked. Little did I know that he would be bugging me and chasing me down for another date, haha! 

Jeremy bonded with A, took interest in my job, my future, and was involved in learning who I was as a person. One of the most meaningful things he told me was that he could see how I was devoted to my weight loss and had lost so much weight that he knew I would be dedicated and devoted to other things in life. This hit home to me and made me see that this man was learning to love me and my daughter for who I was through my soul and not my appearance only. This man knew what made my heart beat and made me get up every day. 

I often sit at home and think, how the heck did I end up so lucky. How did I find that man that loves not only me for who I am, but loves my daughter as OUR daughter? He was terrified of babies, wouldn't touch her and slowly fell in love with her and now he chases her around and plays with her. He cannot even go a day without asking about her, and when we are without her he often wonders what she is doing or talks about her. This man was meant to be a daddy and husband! And I am lucky that my daughter and I get to share that life with him! 

When I sat down and decided to move to another state with him I weighed in my head many things I seeked in a man that I would settle down and marry. I wanted a man that could not only be my best friend, but my husband. I wanted someone I could be open with in communication and not be fearful of his response. I wanted a man that would be honest with me regarding my looks, that would encourage and support my weight loss, and working out. I wanted someone that would not treat A any different that any future children, or any children he may have already had. I wanted someone that would balance me when I got stressed out. I wanted someone that was Selfless, Compassionate, Loyal and Devoted. I wanted someone that had family that would accept A as their own not placing the title "STEP" in front of daughter. These were all traits that I saw in my father and hoped one day I would have in a husband. Surprise Surprise I got all of it! 

A year ago I would have never seen my life where it is now. Had I run away being fearful, saying what if it doesn't work or what if he can't stand me when we live together. I would have missed out on an amazing man. Jeremy has so much to offer and I am lucky that a year later, I can call him my husband. The year has flown by and I can only hope and imagine that the next 30 years do the same as we watch our daughter's grow up and as we transition through career changes and our own life changes. I have learned to never take time together for granted and to cherish the memories you can create because you just never know what tomorrow may hold. Jeremy is my rock when times are tough, he is my shoulder to cry on when I feel I have done wrong, he is the best friend I have seeked for many years. Most importantly he is the man I married and now call my husband and will grow old with.

Know this marriage takes work, communication, and time. It is 100% give and take on both sides in order for it to be successful. Do not give up with the going gets tough, because we are never sent through a storm that we cannot handle. 

I love you babe and I cannot wait for the memories we are able to create over the next several years as our girls grow up! 

Krista XoXo

Fat Shaming, My Thoughts....

I wanted to take time today to write a blog that I felt was very a very important subject to me. You probably have seen it often in the news lately and women and men are taking to Twitter and Facebook about it as well. That topic would be: "FAT SHAMING". This is a touchy subject so I am approaching it with caution but at the same time I am writing from my heart and my views on it. 

Fat Shaming is described as "A term made by obese people to avoid the responsibility to actually take proper care of their body and instead victimize themselves by pretending they’re discriminated like an ethnic group." (http://definithing.com/fat-shaming/) 

Fat Shaming and taking acceptance of your body are 2 different things. We as Americans lately it seems to want to take anything and turn it into a way of being racist, hateful and so on. We want to be a victim in some light or fashion. We need to wake up! This is not okay. WE do NOT need to teach our sons and daughters that it is okay to morbidly obese. 

When I grew up as a little girl I was overweight. I wasn't happy being overweight, unable to keep up with fit friends and I knew my life was unhealthy. My parents didn't support my weight but they also didn't look down on me negatively. What they did do was provide me with resources and chances to try and fix myself. They loved me as ME, not for being FAT or being SKINNY but because of who I AM! 

By Fat Shaming we are supporting that life style instead of encouraging our children that we need to do our best to be healthy, to be active and to work on ourselves. I am not saying there is anything wrong with my daughter having more weight than she should, but it is my job as a mom to encourage her lifestyle and being healthy. Not to encourage her to continue to gain weight and continue to be at health's door step for continuous health problems. There is a difference between being HEALTHY and being UNHEALTHY. Between making excuses "Fat Shaming" and accepting your body for who you really are! 

I am taking a stand in my own life to not support FAT SHAMING but to encourage body acceptance. Accept yourself for who you are, you are not a victim, you can change anything you want to change but it begins with YOU! I will teach A and my unborn child that just because they may be a little heavier, they may have to eat a little different to get back on track, that being outdoors with their father and I and being active is not only good for them emotionally, but also physically and mentally. I will teach them that they can love who they are on the inside because on the outside we are ALWAYS changing. The key as a parent is to provide the necessary tools for our children! And being there and being a ROLE MODEL for our children! 

I know what it's like to be judged, to be made fun of, to not fit in because I was too FAT to wear what the other girls wore, or I wasn't pretty enough. But Today I can say, Those girls that judged me, that bashed me, that looked down on me, 50% of them reversed roles with me. I am now that fit mom, that healthy mom and they aren't and I don't sit here and laugh at them. I encourage them as I wish they had encouraged me. I have hopes that they will find the path back to being healthy, to loving themselves, because in someones face you can always see the hurt, the sadness, the urge to change.

I hope you understand my views on fat shaming and body acceptance, with that being said I am going to leave you with one of my favorite quotes about body acceptance.

"I think it's so important for girls to love themselves and to treat their bodies respectfully."

Ariana Grande

Much love, 
Krista XO