pregnancy
Holy crap. I got up at 6am to take a spin class. That’s right – I woke to an alarm that was not a baby crying. It’s a big deal. I have not been up and out of bed willingly at 6am in years. I have not put on my workout sneakers in an embarrassingly long time either, typically preferring the yoga mat.
It’s a breakthrough day.
Been thinking, man, losing the baby weight was pretty easy but pulling my body shape back, um, into shape? That doesn’t just happen on its own. At least not for me. Term of the day: diastisis recti, or the separation of the stomach muscles. Yeah. That. I don’t have a fancy name for flabby legs, but that too.
Continue reading »
October 31st, 2011 | pregnancy, self care, yoga | 12 Comments »
It’s funny – people always expect me to be a vegetarian. Well, I’m not. However, I’ve noticed that lately I am leaning towards a blend of 2 main dietary theories:
Veganism and Weston A. Price
There couldn’t be two more opposite approaches to “healthy” eating. In fact, they downright contradict each other, with vegans staunchly opposing the use of animal products in their food and WAP followers adamantly demanding traditionally prepared meals with grass fed beef and raw milk.
Um. What gives, Michelle? You are a seriously messed up diet flip-flopper!
Continue reading »
October 24th, 2011 | pregnancy, recipe, sea vegetables, vegan, vegetarian, Weston A. Price | 9 Comments »
I’ve been feeling very passionate about confronting the health issues women face. Especially those that aren’t spoken about often, the ones we hide and feel shame and sadness around. Many times I’ve said that eating broccoli isn’t the end-all-be-all when it comes to good health. It’s so darn true! So to women everywhere, hello! Please take note of the call for submissions at the end of this post.
Here’s what happened. I knew it was over during my 10am yoga class. I was teaching at a gym in Cambridge, felt something wasn’t right. Well, you can’t just walk out of a class when you’re the teacher.
An hour later, I drove home. I sat on the couch with my feet up. Maybe if I just rested a minute. I’d been working too much.
Just the previous evening, we’d started thinking about names. Boy names, girl names, either way it would have to be short and sweet to work well with Pfennighaus! We searched the internet as if we were looking for a recipe, or the weather report. But this was different because we were just starting to consider our new reality. A baby.
Continue reading »
October 19th, 2011 | baby, pregnancy | 15 Comments »
After months of alternating between feelings of anxiety, anger, confusion and sadness I finally heard what everyone was whispering to themselves and no one was saying to me:
I’m dealing with postpartum depression.
There you go. No more whispering. It’s a thing. A thing that happens. To a lot of women. And no one talks about it, except in shameful whispers.
That stops here. I HAVE POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION AND IT’S OK. I mean, ha, ok, it’s not great. For sure. But it’s ok. I am going to get through it. I love my child more than anything, I am not going to hurt anyone, I’m simply struggling with this gigantic life transition.
Notably, some women experience PPD in a much more severe way. I don’t mean to minimize it, this is written from my personal experience only.
Continue reading »
July 20th, 2011 | baby, pregnancy, self care | 45 Comments »
Breastfeeding is hard. There. I’ve said it. It’s actually one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn to do, including some very bendy yoga poses.
Because, like, if I don’t get it right, my child starves. How’s that for pressure?
This is pretty much my favorite topic lately, the whole breastfeeding thing. After all, I do it 8 hours a day or more. A new hobby, of sorts.
What really pisses me off is that I’m 31 years old and until now I have never, ever seen a child being fed at the breast. Ever. Among family and friends, or just in my general experience in the world, I don’t recall ever seeing a mom feeding her infant. How is that possible? Every single baby needs to eat, every woman has two breasts, and this type of exchange has been going on since the beginning of time.
Total blackout on breastfeeding though. It’s all secret-like, happening behind closed doors or, as you see above in my first public breastfeeding adventure on the Washington Mall, under a little curtain.
Continue reading »
April 18th, 2011 | baby, pregnancy | 21 Comments »
I’m off dairy again. Had to happen. During my pregnancy I craved milk, cheese, yogurt. And that’s fine because in organic, full fat, unsweetened form that stuff is great for growing a baby!
But come springtime, it’s not so good for my sinuses. Nope. Dairy creates mucus in the body, and I definitely do not need more mucus in the spring. Another reason to get off the white stuff is that milk protein can be notoriously difficult for little ones to digest. By staying off dairy, hopefully Danny and I both will be free of tummy upset and stuffed noses. Hooray!
Have you ever gone off dairy? Do you find it difficult?
Continue reading »
March 22nd, 2011 | dairy, detoxify, pregnancy, recipe, spring, vegetarian | 20 Comments »
Although I haven’t talked about it much publicly, home birth became an important choice for me during the last trimester of my pregnancy. Yeah, I know, I know – home birth??? Sounds so….pioneer woman!
That’s what I thought when I first heard about it. Plus, who wants neighbors hearing me bellow with labor pains? No thanks.
But after reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth and watching The Business of Being Born, my husband and I changed our tune. I was lucky that our move to DC brought us in range of some excellent home birth midwives.
One meeting with the midwives was all we needed to feel the sense of comfort, patience and support that had been lacking at our previous hospital-based birth center. We were like, let’s do this!
After that, things fell easily into place.
A lot of the wishes I had for my birth were focused around bringing my baby into the world in the least traumatic, most healthful way possible. I would have to fight for this in a hospital. But the midwives’ values and ideas were totally aligned with my own.
Continue reading »
March 1st, 2011 | family, happiness, pregnancy | 49 Comments »
Daniel Max Pfennighaus was born today! I’ve been holding onto this post for whenever the baby came, not knowing exactly how long I’ll be away from blogging. Hopefully not too long! I plan to be back and I promise to bring baby photos 
Until then…
Surprise #1
My husband bought a generic brand pregnancy test. Now, I’m all for frugality. But this was one case I would have sprung for name brand. Surprise! It worked! And another surprise – a trip to the doctor might be just another urine test. Not a brain scan or even blood work to confirm that you’re in the family way. Just another darn urine sample. Is that worth paying a co-pay for? Whatevs. I also learned that while there are plenty of false negatives – if you get a positive test result you are probably definitely pregnant. There isn’t much chance of a false positive.
Continue reading »
February 20th, 2011 | pregnancy | 33 Comments »
I’m 41 weeks pregnant tomorrow. A natural birth means I will not be induced nor will I have a C-section just because I’m a bit past my due date. This makes me weird in the pregnancy world, where most women by now would be facing medical intervention in the form of surgery or drugs. But babies have been born at 42 weeks, 43 weeks, whatever, for a gabillion years. No need to rush. Yet still…I admit…I might punch someone. I think this is the appropriate way to feel at 41 weeks pregnant. Ha!
In the meantime, I thought I’d direct my punching to 3 newsworthy items from this past week. They all fit in well with Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday, which I haven’t participated in for awhile. But today…yeah, I’ll Fight Back!
Earlier this week, I wrote a post about food allergies. My main questions: What is causing the rate of food allergies to rise so drastically? And what can we do to reverse the trend?
Continue reading »
February 11th, 2011 | disease, groceries, pregnancy, public health, where I went to school for nutrition | 27 Comments »
-->
Maybe I’m exaggerating here, but I feel like every baby born to my friends has a food allergy of some kind. Peanuts. Soy. Milk. Wheat. Eggs. Fish. It’s become commonplace, almost expected. And we’re talking about pretty severe allergies here for the most part. There’s a whole other category of kids who have allergies that result in eczema or something less obvious and I bet they haven’t even been diagnosed yet.
Is it just me, or are food allergies going through the roof? Because thinking back to when I was a kid…I knew one boy allergic to shellfish. It made him puke. Um. I can’t think of anyone else, anyone carrying an epi pen or bringing their own food to birthday parties.
In this week’s New Yorker magazine, I came across an article entitled The Peanut Puzzle validating that in the US: “the rate of allergy is rising sharply…In the past decade, allergies to peanuts have doubled.”
This is not what an expecting mama wants to hear. I remember one of my friends warning me to stop eating peanuts when I got pregnant, so I wouldn’t cause my baby to have a peanut allergy. I’ve also received advice to stop eating common allergens (milk, eggs, soy) in my 3rd trimester so my milk won’t contain it – just in case baby is allergic.
And I thought about doing those things. I did. I bought almond butter instead of peanut butter. I skipped milk for a few weeks. But then I was starving, needing protein, and accidentally ate some eggs and cheese. Whoops.
What really concerns me here is why the rate of food allergies are on the rise. It just doesn’t make sense to be allergic to such nutritious, real food that has been part of the human diet for so long! If kids were allergic to Doritos, THAT I would understand.
Continue reading »
February 7th, 2011 | dairy, pregnancy, public health | 25 Comments »
