Since I’ve Been Gone: Part Two

Like I said in Part One of this blog post, the last six months were a whirlwind of celebrations and new beginnings. But I left out one big thing: my husband and I are expecting a baby girl in March!

And even though we are incredibly excited to share this news, even at almost twenty weeks of pregnancy (this Friday) I’m still tentative to share here. Why? Because we experienced a miscarriage at around eight weeks last year. I alluded to it last year in this post, but I never really wrote about it. And even today, I haven’t found myself wanting to write about the experience, but I do talk about it openly with those around me because I feel it’s something that needs to be discussed more. Even within months of our own miscarriage, we had three different pairs of friends miscarry their little ones, ranging anywhere from 5 weeks to 20 weeks. I grieved for my friends, but I found solace in being able to share my grief with them. If you’ve experienced a loss yourself, I encourage you to talk about it with others. You never know who can help you with your grief, or who might be going through the same thing and need your help.

If you’re unfamiliar with the pain that a miscarriage can cause, I found two great blog posts that I really related to along the way:

• The M-Word by Meals and Miles
• Little Angel by Happily Eva After

I knew that the stresses of finishing up my MBA program and having a media sales job were likely adding to the delay in us getting pregnant again, but boy was I surprised to get pregnant just as school wrapped up and I started a new job. I guess my body was finally happy and relaxed enough to give it another go. And we couldn’t be more excited!

Interesting fact: I still haven’t shared the news on my own personal social channels and likely won’t. Of course, I’ve told all of my close friends, family, and colleagues. But when I miscarried last year, every Facebook pregnancy announcement was like a dagger to my heart and I decided to just let people find out organically. However, I wanted to bring it up here because it’s really hard to talk about my running journey without talking about why I have to stop and pee every two miles.  Seriously… every two miles. I now plan my running routes around bathroom stops. 🙂

I recently ran my first half marathon as a pregnant woman, so I’ll definitely write a blog post about that soon. I really want to document some of the changes I have to make to my running as I go because I myself have so many questions I want to answer:

• I’m getting too big for my running britches. Do I switch to larger sizes or do I just try maternity running clothes? Who even sells that?
• How heavy is my belly going to get? Do I need one of these belly bands I’ve heard about but don’t have any friends that have actually used them?
• How long will I be able to run for? Will I be able to run the half marathon I’m signed up for in early December?
• Will I pee my pants? Because I’ve come pretty close to it lately. 🙂

If you’re reading my blog and you’ve run pregnant, pretty please share your running while pregnant tips in the comments. If you’ve miscarried, know that you’re not alone and please talk to someone about how you’re feeling. And if you’re not pregnant (nor plan on it any time soon), I hope I can at least amuse you with my pee stories.

I look forward to sharing the journey.

Tags: running pregnant