If men got pregnant!

If men got Pregnant

Maternity leave would last two years... with full pay.

There would be a cure for stretch marks.

Natural childbirth would become obsolete.

Morning sickness would rank as the nation's #1 health problem.

All methods of birth control would be 100% effective.

Children would be kept in the hospital until toilet trained.

Men would be eager to talk about commitment.

They wouldn't think twins were so cute.

Sons would have to be home from dates by 10:00 PM.

Breifcases would be used as changing bags.

Paternity suits would be a fashion line of clothes.

They'd stay in bed during the entire pregnancy.

Restaurants would include ice cream and pickles as main courses.

Women would rule the world.

All babies would be fast asleep no matter what - in time for kick off on Sky Sports

What is it with pregnant women and fluffy animals?

Well this was a very different bank holiday weekend than last year. I used to be a full on party girl and bank holidays meant Sunday night clubbing cos there was no work on Monday. How times have changed!

This year instead of clubbing till the early hours of Monday morning we went to Avon Valley Country Park. There's something about reaching the third trimester that has sent my soppy side into overdrive. Instead of wanting to go out for lunch / shopping, I asked Carl if we could go to the country park down the road so I could play with the bunnies and the other fluffy things that they have at the park.

It's a great park because you can go into all the animal areas apart from the bigger stuff like the bulls, llamas and wallabies, so we spent the day petting bunnies, goats and shetland ponies.

It was a fantastic day out and the rain managed to hold off too, so that was a bonus!

GO TEAM GB!!

Today's post is not really related to anything pregnancy but I just had to say a big congratulations to Team GB after an amazing weekend at the Olympics. In just one weekend we saw our place in the rankings rise from somewhere around 10th last Thursday to 3rd this morning.

Our gold medal count was boosted majorly by our swimmers, rowers, sailors and cyclists. 8 GOLDS IN ONE WEEKEND!! Plus 3 Silvers and 3 Bronze medals! In the midst of an atrocious British summer, the credit crunch and an approaching reccession it's great to have something to smile about on Monday morning and be proud to be British!

"I see the bad moon arising"

...."I see trouble on the way"

Well not quite on the way, more past actually. Turns out that there was a full moon last night, which would explain my tearfulness and sugar cravings of the last week.

No I'm not some weird breed of half woman half wolf, but I am regular as clockwork with the lunar phases. Before I fell preggers I could time my periods by the moon and ALWAYS 1 week before I would crave sugar and get all emotional. Seems like old habits die hard, my body is still in tune with the lunar tide.

Well good news after taking Tuesday and all day yesterday off to rest I went swimming last night and felt so much better. I left the pool feeling much more like myself and woke up at 6:30 am this morning. (The fact that it was sunny helped, yesterday we had rain all day and gale force winds - it was like November!). My alarm was set for 6:45 so I switched it off and woke up leisurely and had breakfast. I had the urge to go to the gym but held it back as I'm teaching Pilates at 1pm and don't want to tire myself out again, I'll save it for tommorow.

It feels good to be back. I was actually quite scared that the tiredness was to do with reaching the 6month mark of my pregnancy. Think I'd go stir crazy if I felt too tired to train every day!

Round Ligament Pain

I thought it was my abs splitting but turns out my abs are fine, (thank god!). What I was experiencing was round ligament pain.

Why midwives never tell you these things is beyond me. I saw my midwife for my 24 week checkup and mentioned I was feeling some pain in my lower abs and groin. Her advice was that I shouldn't be engaging my tummy muscles at all. Ever. WTF? Can you imagine what a mess my core would be in if I never engaged my muscles? Apart from the fact that I teach pilates and Body Balance weekly and I train at least 3 days on top of that, how on earth would I be able to support my own weight without engaging my core?

Anyway, I just agreed with and did my own research.

Round Ligament pain occurs around the 2nd trimester and can carry on all the way through the third trimester too. The round ligament is the ligament that attaches to your hip bone to hold the uterus in place. The ligaments must stretch and grow to support the weight of the baby, (you can't build a house on matchsticks!), and can grow from around 2 inches to 12inches.

This stretching can be accompanied by sharp pains or twinges in the groin. Once I'd ruled out my abs splitting I thought I'd strained my abs with too much training, but then I realised that I could still train and do most things without any pain at all. The pains would occur with getting up out of bed, getting in the car and if I was trying to do a lunge or any exercise where I would need to stretch the groin area. It wouldn't last long, just a few seconds but it was sharp but not unbearable and went away pretty quickly. Still I didn't want to have this my whole pregnancy so I took some steps to remedy it.

First off I took 2 days off of training, to allow any additional strain on the muscle tissue to repair. This worked well and I reduced the pain by about 70% just from that.

Secondly when I went back to training I focussed on getting my glutes fired up to support my pelvis. Bridges would take the weight off the ligaments so I designed a workout around these and some other glute firing exercises.

Third, I went swiming. I found the water really helped as it supported my bump and took pressure off the ligaments whilst I worked out. Breast stroke worked the gluteus medius which stabilises the pelvis and helped stretch out my groin, gently, without pressure. It also allowed me to focus on my posterior chain which is essential in supporting a pregnant posture.

These things reduced the pain to around 5% of what it was originally. Lastly I learned to roll onto my side to get up and to sit down sideways in the car seat before swinging my legs in together, to avoid loading the ligaments in an already stretched position.

Another pregnancy lesson learnt the hard way! But I'm glad I could share it in case you suffer the same thing!