Gym Class Hero. Update. 9/16/13

I haven't been as persistent as I would like maintaining this blog with my progress in my weight loss. And this post itself will be pretty short because I've been working this evening after a long day and I am beyond ready for bed. Juggling my many hats has me exhausted. So without further ado...

Starting Weight: 199

Current Weight: 187.2 
Progress: 11.8lb down

Current Goal: 180

7.2 pounds to go

Gym Class Hero Week 4

Yup. Missed a week - Work, pledge, and raising a 4 1/2 month old kept me preoccupied. Seriously, keeping up with his demands all day I don't know how the weight isn't coming off more quickly!

My progress has slowed a bit but I am still seeing progress, I cheat here and there which contributes to that. If I was more strict to adhering to the rules I am sure the pounds would shed more quickly. It isn't easy to always find a healthy and weight watchers approved meal when taking care of the little one (who will be 5 months in 2 days!)

Seasoned baked chicken has become a popular one for me, usually with some roasted veggie of some sort. It's easy and light. But I find cooking at home regardless of what I cook, as long as it isn't fried, is healthier then anything I would buy outside of the house. Right now we are in the process of fixing our diets here at the W Abode. We are trying to eliminate our use of high fructose corn syrup and that alone is helping my meal making to be healthier. However it is also what is helping making my grocery bill higher.

Starting Weight: 199

Current Weight: 191.0 
Progress: 8.0lb down

Current Goal: 180

11.0 pounds to go

Gym Class Heroes Week 2

I wasn't quite as strict this week as I was the previous week - I blame a lot of that on the fact that it was pledge week with my job and I haven't had the time to commit in cooking. So I tried to focus more on portion sizes more then anything.

And sadly I slept through most of the farmer's market so no fresh veggies for this family this week. I might go to the health food store tomorrow though so I can get some organic veggies and fruit.

The progress is slow, but it is progress all the same. I am also finding it to be pretty easy to keep my portion sizes down which is key. I still cheat every now and then, but with the workload, housework, and a baby I think I deserve a little cheat here and there.

Starting Weight: 199

Current Weight: 193.8 
Progress: 5.2lb down

Current Goal: 180

13.8 pounds to go.

Gym Class Hero - Week 1

OK so I have avoided every giving completely factual numbers when it comes to my weight gains and losses. I think even when doing my weekly pregnancy updates I would fudge numbers here and there and round. I've always been pretty self conscious about my weight and it was hard for me to see the pounds pack on. But in order to be held accountable I figure a more honest approach will help achieve my goal best.

I gained roughly 60 pounds during my pregnancy. Yes the truth is out. I lost 47 of that within 2 weeks of having my little man.

As a friend, Lindsay Fogarty, reminded me not that long ago - It took 10 months to get my body to weigh it was when I had Raiden so why would I expect it to snap back to normal overnight? I wish it did but I have a couple things working against me - I don't have a teenage metabolism anymore and I don't always have time to cook an extremely healthy meal. Me personally, I am the type of individual who needs something that can hold me accountable, it usually is my husband but he is working 70+ hours a week currently and our gym dates have been interfered with by work and you know this little baby of ours. So after some thought I decided to sign up for Weight Watchers to help me with staying on track with what I eat on a daily basis.

Last Saturday I weighed in at 199lb. I weighed in today and am now at 195.4lb. It's a start.

My June 2012 weight was 180 lb. so that is my first goal is to get back to where I was then.

My second goal will be to lose an additional 25 pounds and ultimately weigh in at 155 pounds and to bring my BMI down from 27 to 22.

My third goal is to start participating in community runs next Spring.

So here we go. The first of many posts hopefully sharing my triumphs week to week!

Starting Weight: 199

Current Weight: 195.4 
Progress: 3.6lb down

Current Goal: 180

15.4 pounds to go.

July.

My blogging is so nonexistent these days. I'm too busy raising a child, working and preparing for my first long distance pledge drive, and still steadily unpacking. The unpacking being probably my most least accomplished tasks.

My little man is 4 months old now. I can't believe how quickly time has gone by and all the changes my family has faced in such a short amount of time. We are settling in well in Oklahoma. In June the husband had a business trip so I went to Texas to see my parents with the little man and he got to experience his first plane ride. I can't tell you the stress of flying with a infant by yourself. I had a bag for me, a bag for him, his stroller and car seat, and his diaper bag. I waddled over to the shuttle bench and once I got dropped off at the airport and was checking in I realized I had forgotten the car seat base. I had no time to go and get it so for the trip his car seat had to be seatbelted in during our stay in Dallas. It was so nice to see my family - I know we had really just moved but Oklahoma was a big transition, especially with an infant, and everything felt so foreign.

My new quest is in researching cloth diapers. There is this whole world of terminology and information that I admit it is quite overwhelming but I think in August we are going to attempt it. I will keep you up to date on that adventure.

I am also going to start doing weight loss posts that I will work on through the week but will post on Fridays when I weigh in. I will go further into that in the post I will be putting up shortly after this one.

Well, I am off to be a momma to a screaming baby who doesn't realize he is tired. Oh the joy of babyhood.

Hello Stranger.

So I haven't posted in FOREVER, I sincerely apologize, been kind of busy raising a baby! So much has happened in our life in the last few months.

In May, when Raiden was just 6 weeks old we had quite a scare. For 2 weeks he had started to spit up large quantities, well that is what everyone was telling me it was - spit up. I kept saying he was throwing up because there was just so much of it with every feeding. 2 doctors and a nurse practitioner kept reassuring me that it was just reflux and that he was fine and to make his feedings shorter. Well on the day of May 4th I was fed up, the husband and I went to go eat brunch with our little man, and during brunch I had to change him twice and used 3 spit up rags because of his "spit up" - following brunch the husband went to work and I went to my parents. It was there that I held him as he slept and he would throw up every 15 minutes or so from feeding to feeding. Around 4PM I noted that he had only had 2 barely wet diapers all day and so I called our doctors after hours hotline and our ped's partner answered and told me to take him to the ER because my concern of dehydration was very real. I picked up Mr. W on our way to the hospital and they got us in a room quickly, unfortunately things slowed down after that. The ER doctor insisted he was just dehydrated and needed some pedialyte, which was frustrating because I told him very firmly that Raiden couldn't keep ANYTHING down, it wasn't like I was not trying to hydrate him - nor did I see him again after he instructed us that he just needed hydration (probably because he was embarrassed!). Raiden wouldn't take the pedialyte and the nurse said to just nurse, I didn't want to because at this point I think it hurt Raiden when he threw up and I knew it would happen. But they insisted so we nursed and within 5 minutes he was vomiting it back up. At this point we were left alone for quite awhile, and it was during this time that I could hear the nurses in the hallway discussing that it was just spit up and it was normal and I was just a paranoid first time mom, which just infuriated me as they went on and on... Then the ped doctor who had instructed me to come to the ER in the first place came in, and he was our saving grace - it feels like everything went super fast after that but all in all we were in the ER for about 9 hours before we left. He listened to what was going on and said he had 2 concerns that it was either reflux or pyloric stenosis. He ordered a ultrasound and while we waited he tried to put an IV in Raiden's hands. He was so severely dehydrated though his veins were super tiny and they couldn't get one in and blew the veins in his hands. Then they sent us to the ultrasound. Every 4-5 minutes we had to stop the ultrasound to roll him on his side so he could vomit, twice we had to pick him up and clear his airways cause he was choking. It was clear that his condition worsened significantly that day and no one was telling me it was just spit up anymore. His pyloric sphincter was only suppose to be 6-7cm and his was 16... in other words the muscle that allows processed food from the stomach to the digestive system kept growing after birth and had grown so large it had sealed off the digestive system from the stomach so the only place for food to go once it was in the stomach and broken down was right back up and he was literally starving to death, surgery was required - I called my mom in the hallway sobbing and she & my sister rushed to the hospital to be there with us and my father in law came as well... I was inconsolable. So we went back to our room and there were 3 nurses waiting to try and get an IV in Raiden's arm. Seeing your little one at just 6 weeks being held down as they put a needle in him and tried to get it into a vein is one of the hardest things to watch and endure. I had to leave the room several times because I was in tears at watching him in so much pain and not understanding what was happening and my father in law and mother stayed in there with him.

Eventually they got the IV in and wrapped and we were told that we were going to be taking an ambulance ride to a town 2 hours away that had a pediatric surgeon waiting to perform surgery on our little baby boy. Mr. W went home to pack bags and Raiden and I waited for the ambulance. I rode in the ambulance with Raiden in his car seat strapped to a bed and Mr. W drove behind us up to the town 2 hours away. We got to the hospital at around 6AM, my little man did so good and slept the whole way. Once we got there he woke up horribly upset and it took a good 45 minutes to calm him down and get him back to sleep and at that point the husband and I were able to get about 2 hours of sleep before they came and woke us up for surgery. I carried my little boy to another room where they were doing the paperwork for the surgery and I had to hand him to a nurse as I signed papers to let them put him under and all that jazz. I was an emotional wreck. We kissed him and they took him off to surgery where they cut a one inch incision in his tummy to cut his pyloric sphincter. The surgery took about an hour before they brought him back to his room. Seeing him lay there moaning was heartbreaking, but I was so thankful that the surgery was successful.

Raiden in recovery

From there we waited a couple hours and then had to bottle feed him 40cc of pedialyte, couple more hours we did 40cc of pedialyte 20cc pumped breastmilk, couple more hours it was 30cc pedialyte 30cc pumped milk, couple hours later 20cc pedialyte 40cc pumped milk, and a couple hours later we were able to do 60cc of pumped breastmilk - he threw it up within 20 minutes, but the nurses reassured us that probably had to do with the thickness of breastmilk and so we attemped another 60cc of breastmilk a couple hours later and he successfully kept it down. Thru the next day every 2 hours he would get 60cc of breastmilk. Towards late morning we were so happy because he was starting to get very angry that he was only getting 60cc of pumped milk, he was expressing the want to nurse and he wanted a lot more then 60cc and we were given the go ahead to nurse and boy did he go to town! We were released that day.

The day we got to go home, 5/6/13

Going home outfit from the hospital!

You wouldn't have even known he had a life threatening issue 2 days later, he was eating up a storm and as alert and active. I can't tell you the relief I felt.

So that was the first part of May, then on May 14 my husband was offered his own store and we found out we would be moving to Oklahoma and we had to be there with a place to live confirmed by June 2. So we found a cute cottage home on Craigslist of all places and on June 1 we packed up our little family and made the 2 day drive to our new home in Oklahoma.

So as you can see a lot of changes in our household. I will go into further detail later. But that is enough for one sitting. I have a kiddo to attend to!

Introductions

Well, it's been over a week since our little man entered the world and I really wanted to find the time to take and to write out our birth story before it get's any blurrier then it already has. So without further ado...

Our birth plan went completely out the window. Seriously, pretty much none of it went as anticipated or hoped for but when all is said and done I am still perfectly happy with our labor and delivery, even if it wasn't the textbook natural birth with the soft music in the background and serenity that I might of been planning on.

We went to the hospital Monday morning at about 5AM, we were running late and I think both of us were a bundle of nerves about what to anticipate that day. We arrived to labor and delivery to be admitted. Our first nurse was Christine, she was super nice, only problem was even after I warned her of my small rolling veins she insisted on taking a IV needle to my hand and dig around for about 10 minutes before going and getting another nurse with more experience. We ran into the same problem when it came to draw blood and it took 3 nurses to find a viable vein to draw from. They checked my dilation and I was 2 cm and 85-95% effancement. It wasn't until 7 that the pitocin was started at 2ml an hour, but 7 happened to be the nurse shift change so the 2ml was bumped to 4ml within maybe 5 minutes. This is where it got boring to me, waiting for contractions to start. I waited and waited and felt nothing, so in boredom I grabbed my makeup bag and proceeded to do my makeup and hair. Then I sat there texting away waiting to feel anything. The nurses would come in about every 15 - 30 minutes and ask if I felt anything and I would say no and then they would proceed to bump up the pitocin by 2ml. It was just before 9 when the nurse came in and suggested I roll over to my left side and the pitocin was pushed to 10ml an hour. Within minutes I felt my first labor contraction, the best way to explain it was just a really heavy menstrual cramp that came and went. by 9:15 I was having these heavy cramps were 2 minutes apart for about 47 seconds at a time. At first it really wasn't that bad. I held Mr. W's hand as they reached peaks and he would talk me through them. They had checked my dilation and I was at about 3 - 3 1/2 cm and had thinned out little. I hated the cervical check, it was worse then the contractions at that point. Within an hour my contractions went from heavy menstrual cramps to much being much more intense, I was still joking and talking in between contractions though and able to work through them as Mr. W counted down the last 10 seconds of each one for me. They would do cervical checks every hour, unfortunately TWICE because there was a nursing student there that had to do it as well. I went from 3cm to 5 cm in an hour, then 5cm to 8 - It was that time of the rapid increase of 5 to 8 that I started asking Mr. W if he would be disappointed in me if I used pain medication. I was gripping the rails and asking Mr. W not to touch me as politely as possible... I was just trying to work through it by myself in silence. The pain was excruciating but I was so committed in not using an epidural that I asked the nurse what other pain management I could use and they suggested demoral. I agreed to take the demoral to take the edge off and they brought a bag and connected it to my IV, one contraction in I realized I needed more then just the edge taken off and asked my husband for the epidural as the contraction was peaking, with my breathing I would take my big inhale and exhale the word 'epidural' to him. He called the nursing station and let them know I wanted the epidural, of course it was my luck that the anesthesiologist was about to head into a c-section and she was going to try to get to me before the surgery. Yeah, that didn't happen so they told me I had a good hour and a half that I had to get through before she would be available. At this point the dang small amount of demoral I had received had kicked in and I started falling asleep in between my contractions. They slowed the pitocin down significantly to ease the pain but at that point I was too far gone. I had another cervical check and I was at 9cm and the urge to push was vaguely starting to happen during each contraction. I didn't want to tell them because I was afraid that doing so would mean I couldn't get an epidural and I was sure I could resist the urge, but of course it was pretty evident where I was at in labor. I knew they were thinking i probably wouldn't be able to get the epidural come 1PM because I was 9cm and the anesthesiologist was still out, but thank GOD that close to 2 they said those magical words, she was here. They asked if I was able to stay still while they put the epidural in, sane Randi would have said no because these contractions felt like someone was ripping out my intestines, but desperate pain stricken Randi said I would figure out a way. I had 8 off the chart contractions while they were putting the epidural in I grasped on to Mr, W's hands and stared straight into his eyes to focus on remaining still - I still don't know how I did it considering my contractions were less then a minute apart and were one on top of the other. Once the epidural was in I felt about 10 more contractions before everything went numb from the waist down. From that point forward I would consider the rest of labor to be pretty pleasant. The two nurses and Mr. W coached me through about an hour of pushing and holding my legs up. The pushing was weird because I honestly didn't feel anything and I was never quite sure if I was pushing, I just kept focusing on pushing with my abdomen and from all the "Good Jobs!" and "You're doing great  each time I pushed I figure I did it somehow, at one point they said that I had birthed his hair, I was confused and then they had me reach down and feel the top of his head and all that hair - it was surreal to say the least. Then the OBGYN came and finished the job with some more instructing of pushing and a small episiotomy. When researching labor and delivery the thought of an episiotomy scared the hell out of me but looking back I know it was either going to be an episiotomy or a tear. It was shortly after that small incision that my little man came into the world. It was crazy to see my stomach deflate as the doctor pulled him out and there he was, I didn't expect to cry but the tears came flowing the second I put eyes on him, with a quick wipe down from the doctor's hands to the nurse in just a couple seconds my son was placed on my chest and I just stared in awe. I will never be able to accurately explain the feelings and emotions that swirled through me in that moment.

And then there were 3...

Introducing Raiden Jensen Williams, 

he came in to this world on March 25, 2013 at 4:01PM 

weighing 8lb 13oz and measuring 21 1/2 inches long.

Being treated for jaundice 2 days after being released from the hospital