Our schedules are pretty fluid with my work travel schedule, so there is a lot of negotiating on who does what on which morning or night. The only non-negotiable things are his Monday and Thursday night climbing and my Sunday morning swimming. All the negotiations were a bit rough at first, since neither of us were really used to discussing things before we did them, but once we figured out what was important to each other and got ourselves into a routine, it wasn’t a big deal.

I loved maternity leave. It was great hanging out with Ben all day and taking care of him. When I headed back to work after 12 weeks of maternity leave, I was thinking it would be nice not to work and be a stay at home mom. Ben is now 8 and a 1/2 months old and I am happy I am back at work. It was the right decision for me. I enjoy working and being away all day makes me so excited to see Ben in the morning and evenings and on the weekends. We found a great daycare and Ben is excited to go and hang out with his friends. There are a number of toddlers in day care and he watches all of them walking around and playing.

My general exercise routine has also changed. I’ll be honest, I used to be a super type A triathlete. I would never skip a workout, over-analyze my training sessions, and sacrifice sleep to get everything in. After I retired and got married, I probably became a type B personality (does that exist?).  I would still be sure to get my workouts in, maybe do more than one a day, and be somewhat anal even though I wasn’t racing. After Ben was born, I dropped to about a type D personality (does that exist?). I still try to exercise once a day and succeed most days,  but am rarely ever concerned about intensity and don’t stress out if something comes up and I am not able to work out. I am actually surprisingly fitter than I thought I would be on 6 workouts a week!

Overall, I love my new lifestyle and wouldn’t trade it for anything! Thanks for following along as I adjusted to working, exercising, and being a mom. It has been great sharing my story with you!

This means I wake up at 6:10. Between 6:10-6:15, I get dressed. This usually happens in the dark since my husband is typically on a 12-8 sleeping schedule. As a result, I think my work attire has declined since Ben was born as 1) I just don’t seem to care as much and 2) when it is dark in the room, I generally pick what is on top of the stack.

Between 6:15-6:40 I grab my coffee, breakfast and read a bit of the newspaper. Typically it’s a day or two old newspaper as I am too lazy to walk out to the curb to get today’s paper. I can read that today’s edition tomorrow. I never actually get through more than a section anyway. 

At 6:40, I get Ben. It is 50/50 whether or not he is awake. Recently he has started waking up at about 5-5:30 and we can usually get him to go back to sleep which works great on the weekends (because he will sleep til 7!), but I have to wake him during the week. 

Between 6:45-7:10, I get Ben dressed and nurse him (I decided to stick with morning and evening nursing and just stop with the pumping during the day. To me, it is the best of both worlds. I still get the simplicity and bonding that nursing provides, but I don’t have to pump at work!) 

We take a few minutes to play and hang out between 7:10-7:15 and by 7:15, I gather everything we need for the day:
1. Food for day care
2. My work bag
3. My exercise clothes (always good to be ready if I have the time!)
4. My lunch  

By 7:25, I get everything, including Ben, in the car and we’re pulling out of the driveway by 7:28. 

Before Ben, I would get up around 6:30 or 7, read the whole paper, watch the news, head out when I was ready or workout in the morning.

It’s been a bit tougher since the days have gotten shorter. It’s a lot harder getting up in the mornings when it is dark out. We also had our first Northern California rain.  I don’t mind the rain nearly as much since I am not racing and don’t have to ride. Although I did recently decide to ride my bike to work in the rain over sit in traffic.

In the evenings, I will pick up Ben at day care around 5:30, feed him around 6 after we get home and hang out for a bit until we get ready for bed around 7/7:30. We usually eat dinner after Ben goes to bed. I am not sure how we are all supposed to eat together at 6 if we are not also having baby food! I usually take one morning and one evening a week to work out and my husband takes two evenings.  The other nights we spend together. 

Life is definitely more hectic, and we have a lot more discussions about who is doing what when, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

With the incentive of not bringing any extra stuff with us on vacation (ok, I also figured it was really good for Ben, but more excited about not bringing bottles and formula and all that on vacation ), I continued to pump twice a day at work, eagerly counting down the number of times left.

Two weeks ago we headed off to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons (amazing vacation spot if you are thinking of going), and had a great vacation.  I am sure Ben would have much rather crawled around the various hotel rooms (no way I was going to attempt camping with a crawling infant) than check out hot springs and geysers and look for moose, but considering every nap he took but one was in the car, the Bob, or a Kelty backpack, he did pretty well!  All the nursings went great.  He lost it a couple times while eating solid foods in the restaurants, but considering his first two teeth came in while we were on vacation and he was probably tired and somewhat frustrated because he got in and out of the car seat 5-10 times a day, we cut him a break!

   

We got back from vacation on Sunday and it was time to start weaning.  I originally figured I would just stop cold turkey, but after talking to a couple friends and my sister, apparently that is not so smart.  Better to drop one feeding a week.  So last week I dropped one pumping a day at work.  It felt so freeing!  After going to the lactation room twice a day for months, once a day felt like nothing.  No soreness or engorgement—just a little less milk.  It makes me wonder if Ben was eating a bit less on vacation. 

Friday I did a little dance of excitement in the lactation room as that marked my last time pumping at work.  Yeah!  I’m so excited for Monday. No more carrying the pump around since I will be down to morning and evening nursings only.  I might try and stick to that schedule for a little while as I really do enjoy nursing, just not pumping (as probably evident from this blog).

Look for an update in a week or two on how the weaning is going…

I am still not completely sure how I am supposed to go to work, hang out with the family, exercise, make dinner, feed Ben, and then have time to relax or do anything else…  I’ll be honest, I am not sure the last time I actually made a dinner that didn’t involve a microwave, a trader joe’s stir fry, a nanwich, or just a salad. 

Benjamin got a cold a couple weeks ago which he directly passed on to me after a couple days, which didn’t really make anything easier.  Ben was completely unaffected by the cold, except that he would completely hate when I would wipe the snot from under his nose.  Seeing as I had to do this about 4 times in the morning between the time he woke up and then time we went to day care, it made for some frustrating mornings.  Then there was my cold, which I’ll be honest I didn’t tolerate very well.

I still tried to get in some exercise after the first couple bad days were over.  Tuesday is typically ‘my’ night, so I went to swim masters after work and got home a little after 8pm to find my son sleeping and my husband outside watering the plants and picking tomatoes with a baby monitor in his pocket and a headlight on.  Kudos to him for keeping the garden growing and flowers looking great!  I headed inside to pump, clean up a bit and I think we finally settled down to eat dinner together about 9:30pm.  At that point I was so tired I could have fell asleep in my plate or just skipped dinner all together.

Having a child is definitely a different lifestyle.  I used to want to exercise twice on most days even if I wasn’t racing, but just because I liked to exercise.  Now I am happy to get in one workout a day and would rather use that extra time to spend with the family.  I spend most of the day at day care getting excited to pick Ben up at the end of the day.  I also worry a lot more about his well-being and our well-being as a family.  Having a child really put the whole life and death and living life to the fullest in perspective.  Ok, that was probably a little deep for a blog that started with me complaining about Ben’s cold and having too much to do.  To put it simply, starting a family has been fantastic and I certainly wouldn’t trade any of it for more sleep, more exercise, or more work.  Here’s to more good times!

All week Ben was staying with grandma at our house, so I didn’t have to worry about the day care drop off.  When I got home from work on Monday, I hung out with Ben for about an hour, left to go for a run, came back, showered, hung out with Ben some more, fed him, put him to sleep and then had a hot dinner waiting for me.  Fantastic!!

Tuesday through Thursday I had a business trip to Arizona.  I left on the 6am flight so was up at 3:45am pumping before packing my pump and heading to the airport.  I returned home Thursday with about 60oz of breastmilk.  They confiscated my ice pack at airport security because it had melted, and since it was a sealed liquid which they couldn’t test, I wasn’t allowed to take it.  But, otherwise it was no problem traveling home with 3 days worth of milk.  I traveled a good amount before Ben was born, but I haven’t been able to travel as much since I have been back to work.  It would have been hard to go on a 3day, 2 night trip without grandma in town, so everything worked out perfectly!  Otherwise, I would have had to figure out how to make it a one night trip. 

It has been tough balancing work, hanging out with the family, and finding time to exercise.  Grandma’s visit allowed me to take a work trip and get some additional exercise in, but I didn’t do a good job of catching up on sleep.  Oh well, I am starting to think that will have to wait about 17.5 years…

We started on a Saturday morning with some rice cereal.  Then tried again on Sunday morning.  Ben didn’t really know what to do with his tongue, but it was very entertaining for my husband and me.  I wasn’t really sure what to do when the week started as far as time of day.  Currently Ben is eating 4 times a day, so during the week I feed him in the morning and evening and pump twice at work.  I decided I would try to feed him cereal right when I got home from work (around 6) and then still nurse before bed (around 7:30).  The first time it went great.  He gobbled down his cereal.  I figured we were all set!  Not so fast though….

 

Due to various commitments, Tuesday and Wednesday I wasn’t able to head straight home from day care/work so Ben only nursed before bed.  By Thursday, he had completely forgotten that he liked rice cereal (I don’t blame him, that stuff is terrible!) and how to eat it.  Friday and Saturday he wasn’t that into it either. I couldn’t seem to find a good time of day.  He was either too hungry, full, or fussy based on his current nursing and sleeping schedule.    I consulted an expert (my sister has 4 kids) and she suggested I add something better tasting (bananas or pears, etc.) to the cereal and stick to around the time we eat dinner (assuming that is actually around 6!).  Sunday went pretty well!

This week I am going to try to get home after work every day to see if we can get a solid food routine going.  We’ll probably stick to cereal and bananas and eating in the evening for this week and then maybe mix it up on the weekend!  It was a bit tough finding the extra time to incorporate solid food, but it has also been fun and it gets us started in the right direction towards eating real food!  I felt like I was wasting a lot of breastmilk mixing cereal that Ben would never end up eating, but I guess that is all part of the trial and error process.    Switching from rice cereal to oatmeal also helped.  The oatmeal is still bland, but compared to the rice cereal, it is significantly better.  Here’s to a good week of eating!!

I was smart enough to take two days off from working out and go to bed right after I put Ben to bed. (He goes to sleep around 8-8:30, but I usually don’t make it to bed until 10 or 11 or so by the time I get a few things done.)  It was actually quite nice to get 9 hours of sleep!! My energy level actually felt pretty good by mid week! My cold is more or less gone by now and I am back to 6 to 7 hours of sleep a night, and being tired…

It’s all worth it though!

The start of day care actually went pretty well.  We are using an at-home day care and are comfortable with the 2 women who run the day care.  They made Ben smile within the first few minutes of being there and from there, we were all set.  Luckily, Ben is a good sleeper and eater and day care didn’t affect that.  By the third day of day care, Ben was laughing and smiling for the day care ladies and then when mom would pick him up he would kind of stare at me with this look on his face, “Who are you and why are you taking me from this place I like?”

One of the big changes I noticed was the number of things I need to put in the car to head out each morning.  Let’s see:  work bag, pump, exercise clothes (always want to be ready if I have time!), lunch for me, milk for Ben, extra clothes for Ben (he’s pretty good at needing an extra set a day), and Ben!  It takes 2 trips to the car before I even get Ben in the car…

It has also affected my hours at the office.  In order to get to day care during their open hours, avoid the worst of the Northern California traffic, and most importantly have time to spend with Ben, I am in the office less than before Ben was born.  The way I have found to make it work is to bring work home and get it done after Ben goes to bed (usually around 8 or 8:30).  It’s a good way to get everything done and still feel like I am spending enough time with Ben, but I am typically pretty wiped out by Friday.  I now look forward to the weekends more than I ever used too…  First to spend time with Ben and second to try and catch up on some sleep. 

It is funny how what I consider sleeping in has changed.  I used to think sleeping in on the weekend meant 9am.  Now I am stoked if we make it until 7am.  This past weekend I made the most of Ben’s 9-11am morning nap.  That seems to be the way to do it.

As for a hip update:  I had my first 2 pain free runs in a month.  Yeah!  The key was to start doing some hip/core exercises.  After self diagnosing my injury on Google, I found some exercises on a You Tube video and started doing those every other day.  I also linked the 2 runs where I had the most hip pain to 2 of the runs I used the baby jogger.  Hmmm… I think using the jogger changed my stride a bit and hence aggravated things a bit more.  So, for now it is hip exercises and no more baby jogger and we’ll see how I do for a while.

So, here we are 2+ weeks later and I am still having a problem with my hip.  It hurt to walk for the first couple days, so by that point I had realized this wasn’t one of those ‘go away in a couple days’ sort of thing.  It also made me realize that my ObGyn was probably correct when she told me it took 6 months to fully recover from childbirth….  I guess things really do get loose and it does take a little while for everything to go back to normal..

After doing a bit of research on running and hip injuries on Google (my go to resource for injury research), I realized one of the causes is weak stomach and back muscles.  Hmmm, another light bulb went on!  I haven’t actually done a sit-up or another core exercise since Ben was born.  Perhaps this has something to do with it…  Nor had I stretched or used my foam roller.  Well, now I feel a bit silly.  No wonder I got hurt.  Seems pretty straightforward when I write it down…

So, I took about 8 days off and starting doing a bit of core and stretching.  After that, I only noticed it a little, so I decided it was time to start running again.  Didn’t get any worse after a 3 mile run.  Didn’t get any better either though…  But, as far as I was concerned, that is pretty much healed.  I ran every other day for a week and have pretty much stayed status quo.  But, I have reached the point where I am ready for this hip injury to go away so I can get back into running longer distances…  I think it is time to really take a break and let the body heal (from the birth that is…)  We’ll see how I do.  One of these days I will learn… : )

What about all of you moms out there? How did you ease back into your fitness/training routines after giving birth?

Returning to work actually went pretty smoothly. My husband was staying home for about a month with our son, so I didn’t have to figure out returning to work and day care all at the same time, which was nice. One of the worst parts about heading back to the office was commuting every day. It was so nice not to sit in traffic! I’d feed Ben before work in the morning and then when I get home from work. I can see the whole pumping at work thing getting old pretty fast, but it is so easy outside of work hours and good for Ben, so I definitely plan to stick with it.

Now that I am working during the day and hanging out with Ben in the morning and evening, I am not really sure when I am supposed to exercise?? The lunchtime run has become key. I try to swim in the evenings; so I’ll head home from work, feed Ben, and then head to the pool. Biking has pretty much become a weekend activity.

This past Thursday evening I did the local Splash and Dash Race put on by Threshold Racing. It’s a 1500meter swim and 5k run. For all of you that live in the Bay Area, the weather was freezing (for us!), so I donned my wetsuit for the swim and actually felt pretty good. The run was very hilly and a rude awakening since all of my running to date has been flat. Overall, it felt good to feel fit and try to go fast again! I logged my first win of the season! (I use the word ‘season’ lightly since I am not really planning to race.  ‘Summer’ might be more accurate…)

This past Sunday I decided to do another swim/run event that my masters group (Stanford Masters) was hosting. Another fun event! I learned the hard way that 2 fast runs within 4 days less than 4 months after having a child is not really a good idea. I heard a popping in my hip during the second ‘race’ and it has been hurting when I walk since then. Probably should have seen that coming. Oh well, both events were fun and I usually need to learn these things the hard way! I guess it was about time to start some core and stretching!!

After I retired from racing, I enjoyed a summer of casual exercising. One of the nicest changes was not setting an alarm on the weekends! I used to feel like I worked 7 days a week; 5 as an engineer and then 2 more as a triathlete. My weekends were consumed with exercise. After I retired, I would sleep in, make pancakes, watch a bit of TV or take a nap, and then go for a ride in the afternoon. Fantastic! It was a nice change for someone who had been so focused on training for the past 15+ years…

I hoped to pursue a few other hobbies since I would have more free time (I’ve always wanted to play guitar, maybe taking some cooking classes), but aside from the weekends my life post-retirement wasn’t too different.  I would still get in one to two workouts a day during the week, but the biggest difference was that I would do whatever paced suited me on a given day!  I went from a Type A personality to more of a type C or D personality (if that even exists.). 

I also got married that summer (2009) and enjoyed our honeymoon and some other big trips that we put off while I was racing (Africa!). The following summer I got pregnant and that further changed how I exercised, but more on all that next time!

Triathlon is a much different world out in California; it is a year round sport vs. a seasonal hobby in Michigan (at least for me). After a few years racing out here, I started to improve and turned professional in 2004.  I continued to work as an engineer and race professionally for 5 seasons (3 of those seasons on the LUNA Chix Pro Team) before getting a bit burned out, retiring (from triathlon), getting married and having a child!

My son is now 2 and a half months old and I am starting to get back in shape, get ready to go back to work (still at the same engineering job), and figure out how to balance it all!