Reading Right Now - The Girl in the Spider's Web

As promised this week's reading right now post has nothing to do with pregnancy and childbirth.  In fact it is probably as far in the other direction as you can get.  (Told you, my taste is eccentric) Though I will admit that this is more what I'm listening to  than what I'm reading.  

This week's audio book is The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz.

  

Lagercrantz picks up the Millennium  series where it was left when Stieg Larsson died and this book surprisingly doesn't disappoint.  Like the other books in the Millennium series (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) the book starts off kind of slow as it builds the backstory for the central plot and catches the reader up with what has happened to the main characters since the story left off.  The story still centers around Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist and their uncanny ability to get wrapped up in mysterious circumstances.  There has been a lot of computer and math nerd language used so far but Lagercrantz has done a good job of explaining it to the reader in a way that feels natural.  

I love the mystery that is woven through the story and they way everything wraps up in the end, I loved the twists and turns and unexpected surprise about who the real villain of the story is.

The Girl in the Spider's Web

Inappropriate conversations at work

Wow, just wow.  Why do post-menopausal women think they have a free pass to say whatever they want about other women, especially about the status of their uterus?
A few years ago I had two coworkers who were pregnant at the same time, and a coworker kept asking me when I was going to have a baby.  I was fairly new to the office so I laughed it off and said "someday."
Then about two years ago my boss's wife was pregnant and the questions started again.  This time she made the comment on a day when I was having a rough time on my fertility journey and dealing with an unsuccessful IUI attempt.  So I snapped.  I told the lady the status of my uterus was no of her business and if she didn't stop asking I would be happy to file a complaint with HR.   She got huffy and proceeded not to speak to me for about 6 months (which didn't hurt my feelings at all!).
Now that I'm pregnant she keeps stopping at my desk and asking questions about my pregnancy.  Thankfully she hasn't gone as far as to touch my belly but so far she has:
-Asked me about my appetite
-Commented that I haven't gained enough weight
-Commented on how much weight I've gained
-Asked about my mood swings
and best of all
-Said "Oh you're finally getting boobs!" as my (male) boss was walking around the corner.  Thankfully I don't think he heard but talk about embarrassing.

What would you do?  If you have had kids what were some of the craziest things people said to you?

Journey to Pregnancy number 2 - abbreviated version

So I actually have more background posts from my original infertility blog, but I kind of want to skip over those and just give more of the facts and general timeline that have brought us from 2014 to 2019 or at least to where I feel like things started to change.
After I miscarried in 2014 my body acted normal for a brief period of time before going super wacky again.  I ended up going back to the specialist and received a formal diagnosis of PCOS.  I then had a second surgery to remove another polyp from my uterus.  Silly me I thought the second surgery would work like the first one and once the growth was removed by body would work like it was supposed to and I would be able to get pregnant again, but this time that wasn't the case.
After multiple long (VERY LONG) cycles, failed IUI attempts, and just generally becoming jaded with traditional medicine I decided to take things into my own hands and advocate for my own health.  It was during this time I started my infertility blog and eventually discovered Restorative Reproductive Medicine.
While I never consulted directly with a restorative MD I did dive very far down the natural and holistic rabbit hole.  I started by removing chemicals from our house, even though I was already eating fairly "healthy" I took things a step further, I started using essential oils and eventually, I got over my fear of the woo-woo needles and went to a Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor/Acupuncturist who a friend recommended and had used to during infertility treatments a few years prior.   
The combination of these changes seemed to work.  After just 2 acupuncture treatments my period started without using any drugs to induce it and since then it remained normal, if on the long side of what would traditionally be considered a normal cycle.   I was finally able to tell what my body was telling me and could identify when something was outside of my personal normal.

I finally got around to reading the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility and realized that by not buying it sooner I had done myself a huge disservice.

While I was doing all of this my husband was working on his health as well.  A friend introduced him to Spartan races and he decided that he loved the challenge.  He let me do my hippie dippy thing and get rid of all the unnatural ingredients in our house and even decided he like the new essential oils we were using.   He even read the research I gave him about removing chemicals from our hot tub and let me switch out the pseudo-natural products we were using for Thieves cleaner based on information I found on a few different websites.  (Which let me add I will happily talk about later because the Thieves works so much better!)

As a result of these changes we both started feeling better and at the end of 2017 I told him if he could get our friends to do it I would like to run a Spartan race with him in 2018, which is exactly what I did.   But I feel like that is a story for next week.

Reading Right Now - The Mama Natural Week -by-Week Guide to Pregnancy & Childbirth

I'm a reader.  I always have been.   I am constantly reading and/or listening to at least 2 if not 3 or 4 different books at a time.   I love audio books in the car or when I am working on numbers things that require no language skills at work.  I have some sort of personal or professional development book going at all times and usually a trashy romance or other chick-lit fiction book on my night stand.  

Since I love to read so much I thought it would be fun to start sharing my eccentric love of books with you. While most of the posts will probably be incomplete reviews (if I'm currently reading it I can exactly give my full opinion can I) I am sure there will be a few throw backs to old favorites from time to time, in which case I promise to let you know how long it has been since I actually read the book.  

So what am I reading right now?   

It shouldn't be a surprise that I"m currently reading a lot of pregnancy & childbirth books, but since I always have multiple books going at a time I promise to rotate between pregnancy books and books not at all related to pregnancy until I enter the next season in my life.  

The Mama Natural Week-by-Week Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth

by Genevieve Howland

I'm a little over halfway through this pregnancy and therefore a little over halfway through this book (funny how that happens right?) I love how Genevive Howland lays out pregnancy week by week and gives me a good idea of what I can expect to happen next.  She also shares amazing resources that really speak to my hippie crunchy soul.  My favorite thing about this book is how the author always gives the "natural" options first but she also talks about the more traditional modern medicine approach in a way that shows respect and that isn't at all bashing those women who choose not to go the natural route and that makes those who may have to have unplanned interventions comfortable with the process a hopefully keep them from feeling mom guilt that things aren't being done the way they may have originally planned. 

Check out Mama Natural on Goodreads 

What are you reading?   What was your favorite pregnancy book? 

World Down Syndrome Day

World Down Syndrome Day, celebrated on March 21 (3/21) in honor of the third copy of the 21st chromosome that causes Down Syndrome, is a global awareness day which has been officially observed by the United Nations since 2012.

How do you celebrate/honor Down Syndrome Day? By wearing crazy socks of course!   

Today I wore my crazy socks in honor of two great kids - my soriority littles daughter, River, and my high school friends son Boone.  These toddlers are amazing and their families love them fiercely.  They bring so much joy into the world.  

#nothingdownaboutit #riverisdownrightperfect #worlddownsyndromeday

Exhaustion

Over the weekend my husband ran an 8K and a Half Marathon.   You would think that that means that he is super exhausted today and absolutely worn out, strangely enough I think I'm more tired than he is.
My husband did not train for these races, but he is a natural runner and did really well.  He loves to run and has ran a lot of races over the years, some better than others and he has ran various lengths and at different frequencies.  This weekend's race we a bit of a last minute decision but he had fun.
I don't think I've realized until now how much of a toll the extra weight I have gained so far has taken on my body.  My feet are more sore than they should be given the amount I walked/stood, my back aches, and I'm super exhausted.  Also my knees keep popping and even my neck is tight.  I have a chiropractor appointment tomorrow and I'm sure that will fix a lot of the neck and back stuff my the feet might be something I need to be more careful about for the rest of this pregnancy.
Overall this weekend really has made me understand more about how people who are truly overweight or obese and try to get more active in order to loose weight feel.  If two mornings of cheering for my husband while he raced could take that toll on my body, how much more painful must it be to walk 10,000 steps or stand for an hour when you have an extra 40 or 50 or even more pounds on your body.
I'm also taking this as my sign that I need to up my activity level daily throughout the end of this pregnancy so that I can be as healthy as possible when it comes time to push.
Wish me luck!

Pregnancy number 1

So to pick up where I left off on Wednesday, as before you can get the long version by visiting THIS POST
When my husband returned from deployment in November of 2013 we expected to take a few months and then we would be on our way to parenthood, only unlike 2011, this time we were right.  In late February of 2014 we bought our house and in March we found out I was pregnant (the two events MIGHT have been related 😏).
At 8 weeks I had some minor bleeding and ended up in the ER, everything was ok at that point and I had a follow up with a ob/gyn scheduled for later that week where the doctor did a dating ultrasound and said the baby had a strong heart beat so we assumed everything was ok, unfortunately that was not the case.  About a week later I started bleeding again, only this time I knew it was different.  I was in so much pain I felt like I was going to die and there was so much blood I had no doubt that I had lost my precious child. 
My husband took me to the ER where they confirmed what I already knew.  And thus began our even longer journey to where we are now. 

You have a baby...in a bar...

Ok, not really a baby and not really a bar but I love Sweet Home Alabama so I thought it would be a fun blog title.

Our Friends Larry & Heather

Last weekend hubby and I went to a local brewery with some friends to eat yummy food truck food, play Exploding Kittens, and in the case of everyone except me, drink beer.

I had a ginger beer and it was lovely

Love a good food truck, unfortunately they only really had one item I could eat but it was delicious. 

It really was great to spend an evening out with our friends just having fun.  Much of our lives is spent working and doing things we feel obligated to do so when the chance comes to just relax and have fun it's important to take advantage of the opportunity.   Also Exploding Kittens is a surprisingly fun game, even when you loose.  You should check it out.  #notanadvertisment

The Cone of Shame makes its first appearance

I found hubby having to wear the cone of shame hilarious

Let's do this

As promised - time to start at the beginning of my journey to become a mom, and because biology, that really begins when I was a baby myself but we are going to fast forward a bit to when I was in high school and first put on birth control. 
For the full story check out THIS POST but here is the abbreviated version.

From the time I was 16 until I was 26 I took a pill every morning that kept my cycle in control, regulated my hormones, and suppressed any symptoms that there might have been something actually wrong with my reproductive system. 

When my husband and I decided it was time to start a family I went off of birth control and we naturally assumed that in a few months I would be pregnant.  On December 27, 2011 I took my last birth control pill, and chaos ensued.

After some interesting issues I had surgery in May of 2013 to remove a polyp from my uterus.  My husband deployed for the first time shortly before the surgery and I was scared to death.  Luckily my mom is amazing and faced her fear (and discovered her love) of flying to come be with me and help me recover in case anything went wrong.  The surgery was successful and my body decided to act like normal once the polyp was removed - which was an amazing miracle.  I was cleared by the doctors to go back to trying to have a baby as soon as my husband returned from deployment and so when he got home in November of 2013 that's exactly what we started to do.  

Being healthy makes all the difference

I never hid my infertility struggles from my blog, but I didn't always do a great job of openly sharing them either.  In fact when I decided to take some time to really embrace the journey and wanted to document what I was going through my gut reaction was to start a blog separate from this one because I felt like that content didn't belong on my "Navy Wife" blog.  But now that I think about it I was really just not in a good place and not accepting of the journey I was going through.  Yes, I am a Navy Wife and when I first started Modern Meets Traditional the purpose was to meet other women who had experience with the military lifestyle and could help me figure out what to expect.  But in reality this blog is just my life and my journey written down for the world to see.  So last week when I decided to go live with my pregnancy announcement on the blog I also decided that I should migrate my infertility struggle over to this blog where it really belongs, because it is part of my life and part of what has made me who I am. 

What is the purpose of this drawn out essay?  Well it is simple.  I want to make sure that you, my dear loyal, too lazy to unsubscribe from a presumably dead blog readers understand everything that has really happened over the past two (ok three, ok seven) years.  Which means there will probably be lots of reminiscing and revisiting old blog posts over the next couple of  months, but I don't apologize for that because these memories are what have made me who I am today. 

So later this week we will start at the beginning.  Hope you are ready because it's been one hell of a ride. 

All the food

This week I have been ravenous.  On Tuesday I emailed hubby and told him if my appetite was any indication of what we are in for in 13 years when we have a teenage boy we should start looking for jobs number 2 and 3 right now to get ahead of the expense!

So - fellow moms - what was your pregnancy appetite like?   I hadn't expected this since you hear about lots of nausea and sickness in the first trimester and having everything press on your internal organs so that you can't eat alot during your third trimester.  Did you find yourself constantly starving around the 1/2 way mark? 

BTW, I'm 20 weeks today!!! Happy halfway mark to me!!!

I'm pregnant!

Like really pregnant, not just a little bit.  Like 1/2 way to delivery have seen the babies boy parts on the ultrasound pregnant.  20 weeks today. 

And I am so freaking excited!

I don't know if I am ready to be a boy mom but I am going to do my best to deal with the snakes and snails and puppy dog tales.  I have no doubt that K-9 is going to be a wonderful puppy with the new baby and totally have visions of a boy and his dog toddling around our back yard.  I'm working on a post talking about our infertility struggles and what I think finally made the difference and am going to try to get into updating more regularly.   Maybe someday I'll even get back into the swing of twitter lol!

Lenten Reflections

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday which marks the first day of Lent.  Traditionally this means it is time to enter into a period of fasting and pennance in order to focus more on your relationship with God.  Every year I do things a little different and instead of giving up something silly, like chocolate, I try to add something that actually does help further my relationship with God.  
This year since I am pregnant I am technically exempt from fasting (thank you because I have been ravenous this week!) but and still going to abstain from meat on the proper days because for me that isn’t a struggle at all (I’m just not much of a meat eater).
But what am I doing to actually further my relationship with Christ? I have dug out my old note book and resumes writing the Bible (yes you read that correctly) every day I will spend time copying words from the scripture into my notebook.   Studies show you remember and comprehend more when you copy your own notes from class during study time so I figure this helps me better retain what the Bible says.
On the kind of silly side I am also taking advantage of this time to prepare more for Baby L by choosing one item per day to get rid of - there will probably be more than 40 items make their way out of this house but I’m going to make sure at least one thing is put in the get rid of pile. We have been in this house for 4 years now and still have boxes that were never unpacked in what will be the baby’s room.   No time like the present!

Exciting announcement!!!

The Modern Meets Traditional household is having a baby!!!!

Baby L will be making his appearance in July 2019.  Why Baby L?  Because our dogs are Izzy, Jersey, and K-9 so obviously L is the only choice for a name.

I've waited to announce this on my blog since we have had such a long journey and I'm so bad at updating the blog and am fairly confident I have exactly 1 follower at this point :) But I did want to update the blog-o-sphere since I have a feeling I will making a reappearance during this new phase in my life.   In preparation for this adventure I  am importing old posts that I wrote for my attempt at a Spartan blog and my Infertility blog so feel free to go back in time and peruse the old entries from 2018 and 2017 that have magically appeared :) I will also start working on giving it a bit of an overall facelift since I just installed a random theme when my custom design died a couple of years ago.