Catherine

Navigating the Newborn Phase: Nutrition

by Catherine | May 7, 2016 | Everything Else

Last time, I tackled what I call “Minimums” in my Navigating the Newborn Phase series. Today, I’m sharing my experience with Nutrition in Navigating the Newborn Phase.

Transitioning from Pregnancy Nutrition to Postpartum Nutrition

I struggle with excessive nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. This last pregnancy, I was on my anti-nausea medicine until the 34-week mark. (Diclegis, I love thee!) Even after I was off the medication, I was still nauseated 24/7. As with all of my previous pregnancies, my prolonged nausea changed my attitude toward food. For the first 24-ish weeks, I just ate whatever I could keep down for the sake of getting calories regardless of how it tasted or its nutritious value. Toward the end of my second trimester, I began to be able to eat most foods. Unfortunately, even with my full dose of the anti-nausea medicine, I had to eat around the clock to keep the vomiting at bay. Between meals, this translated into me eating a granola bar here, a cheese stick there, a handful of grapes here, a cookie there, a yogurt here…you get the picture. So, even though I vomited more than I care to share this past pregnancy, I gained more weight this time than in previous pregnancies because of my need to eat around the clock.

Instead of enjoying food, eating became a constant chore. My relationship with food became tiresome, and I dreaded having to come up with something else to stop me from getting sick because everything sounded awful after I had eaten it for the zillionth time that week. If I didn’t start having aversions to food from having them on repeat, I had aversions to them from getting sick after eating them. Yummy.

You can imagine my excitement to re-enter the world of normal eating once Baby Dorothy arrived!

The Year of Me & Nutrition

As you might remember from my post about The Year of Me, I’ve decided to take better care of myself from here on out. It’s time to stop putting myself last and start putting myself toward the top. As one of my favorite mentor mamas told me, “Fill yourself up so that you can pour yourself out for those you love.” Nutrition is one of the areas I’m focusing on, and I’ve spent my 6 weeks postpartum trying to figure out my game plan. The date of my 6-week postpartum check-up with my OBGYN will be my “Second New Year” when I start officially holding myself accountable to my Year of Me goals.

I’m pleased to report that I think I’ve found a nutrition solution that will help me to:

Reach my fitness goals
Consistently eat healthy
Reach my breastfeeding goals.

My Fitness Pal

My new favorite nutrition tool is the app My Fitness Pal. (I’m not getting paid to share my endorsement of this app; I just love how it works, and I want you to know about it!)

How it works:

You enter your age, your height, your current weight, and your target weight. With that information, the app determines your target daily caloric intake. (Breastfeeding note: Unfortunately, the app doesn’t have a special setting for breastfeeding mamas. After a little research, I learned that most doctors agree that the average woman uses between 250-500 calories breastfeeding. With this information, I simply added 500 calories to my target daily caloric intake to make sure I’m staying in the healthy intake range while nursing.)

Once you have your target caloric intake number set, you can log every single thing you eat in the “Diary.” My paper and pen food diaries were never successful in the past because I never knew what the exact caloric values of the foods were, and I’d find myself away from the diary, so I’d forget to log everything. With My Fitness Pal on my phone, I’m able to log things shortly after I eat them. Sometimes, if I’m in a pinch and can’t log things right away, I’ll take a picture of my meal on my phone so that I remember exactly what and how much I ate.

My Fitness Pal makes it so easy to track exactly what I’m eating, how much I’m eating, and what it’s “worth” in terms of calories. When I go to enter a food on My Fitness Pal, I find multiple results in the search bar. For example, when I’m having my favorite snack, I could type in, “Banana Cream Greek Yogurt,” and my exact kind of yogurt pops up with the exact caloric value. “Banana Cream Dannon Light & Fit Greek Blends, 5.3 oz. 80 calories.”

Another great feature is the ability to adjust the serving size based on how much I actually end up eating. If I decide I’m full and don’t need to finish that dessert or want to eat some extra fruit, I just change the serving size to reflect that.

If you’re like me and have some regular staples in your diet, you can choose to “repeat meal” on a subsequent day instead of plugging in all of the information over and over again. Also, as I start typing things in, the app has a “Recent” for the foods I’ve recently plugged in. I haven’t done this yet, but you can plug in your favorite recipes to draw from, too.

In addition to being able to track your nutrition in the food diary, you can log your daily exercise. As you enter in your physical activity, the app subtracts the caloric value from what you’ve eaten. This helps you to see if your nutrition combined with your exercise is helping you to stay above or below your caloric intake goal.

The app has a helpful blog on the home page with articles sharing healthy recipes and other fitness tips. I’m still exploring all of the features on the app like the goals, challenges, reminders, etc. One feature that I’m excited about is the ability to find other friends on the app. I just did a quick search, and a bunch of my friends are already using the app. I love the idea of being able to hold each other accountable by sharing what we’re doing on the app–what we’re eating, how we’re exercising, what’s working, what’s not, and when we reach personal goals.

Another benefit of My Fitness Pal is its ability to help me “be good” even when I’m eating out. The app has most items on nationwide restaurants’ menus, so it’s easier to track what you’re eating when you’re out.

Shift in Attitude

Now that I’ve been using My Fitness Pal for a few weeks, I’ve noticed some big changes happening. I have had a shift in my entire attitude toward food. Instead of treating food as fuel or something to stop me from being sick, eating is back to being an event that I look forward to. I’m savoring the calories I consume.

Today, I opted for the small protein smoothie at my nearby coffee spot. My thought process was, “This way, I can enjoy the smoothie this morning and still have a little something sweet later,” when my old mentaility would have been, “But $.50 will get me MORE SMOOTHIE.”

A small smoothie is still a delicious smoothie

Instead of just scarfing down whatever’s within reach when I’m in hangry mode, I’m planning out exactly what I’m going to eat that day, and I’m planning for busy times so that I have nutritious options available. Now that I’m more aware of what I’m eating, how much I’m eating, and what kinds of calories they are, I’m making the calories count. I know this sounds silly and ridiculous, but laziness can sometimes be a good thing with My Fitness Pal. If I think, “Man, how in the world would I log this food item on the app?” it probably won’t get eaten because of the hassle! Instead of mindlessly eating, everything I eat is a deliberate choice.

Going Forward With the Year of Me

I’m looking forward to officially launching The Year of Me. As I get started, I’m still working on my meal planning as well as meal preparation. After using it for a few years, I still love the app Paprika for organizing recipes and putting together meal plans. We’re not very good at eating the same things over and over again, so we’re always looking for new recipes. Lunch is always my most difficult meal to figure out. My brain gets stuck on the same options on repeat, and I struggle to come up with something I actually want to eat if I don’t have leftovers available. One of my friends does a “Sunday Set-Up” every Sunday where she does a lot of the prep work for the meals she’ll be eating that week.

Help a girl out! I’d love to hear your favorite, nutritious recipes. What about your meal prep hacks? What kinds of things do you do to cut down on your meal prep time? What tips or tricks do you have for helping yourself to make better choices when you’re hangry? What do your fridge and pantry look like? Share, share, share away!

What would The Year of You look like in the area of nutrition?

Navigating the Newborn Phase: Minimums

by Catherine | May 4, 2016 | Family, Marriage, The Homefront

Since “the domestic church” mirrors the Triune God’s Love, I’m convinced there’s nothing the accuser relishes more than trying to tear apart marriages. With each baby, Philip and I learn some new tricks to help us navigate the newborn phase a bit more smoothly. In this series, I’d like to share those tips and tricks in the hopes that they’ll help you the next time you find yourself in the newborn or other variety of survival mode.

Today, I’m tackling what Philip and I call minimums. Minimums are exactly what they sound like–the very least that you’d like happening in your world in order for you to keep your sanity.

A few weeks before Dorothy was born, I was getting anxious about entering back into the newborn phase. I may or may not have started catastrophizing as the hormones took over after a long day, and I started thinking of all of the ways the newborn phase would be difficult for us.

When I catastrophize, I come up with all of the worst case scenarios on any given day or moment.

“We’re never going to be able to…”

“But what if…?”

“How in the world are we going to…?”

“I don’t think I can…”

“I already feel like I’m drowning, so how am I going to _________ with FOUR kids?!”

Combine the crazy extremes with hormones and lack of sleep from all of the contractions, and it all seemed like pretty legit reasoning in my head.

Enter my knight in shining armor and voice of reason husband, Philip. He ever-so-gently brought me back to reality, reminding me that we’ve had a couple of kids, that we’ve survived survival mode a few times, and that we were better prepared than ever to welcome a new baby into our family. Even so, I asked if we could take a few minutes to discuss our minimums for when Baby arrived.

My minimums:

A shower every morning
A tidy family room
- Our open concept kitchen looks into the family room. Before the kids go to bed, I like to have the room put back in order–pillows neatly arranged on the furniture, books in the baskets, and toys back in the cupboard. The toys in the family room were starting to take longer for the kids to pick up every evening, so I did a purge a few weeks before Dorothy’s arrival. Since purging the family room toys, the kids are able to tidy the room faster and they play with the toys more frequently. They haven’t even asked for the toys that disappeared.
A tidy kitchen
- Cleared off and clean countertops
- Cleared off and clean kitchen table
- Empty sink and dishes loaded in the dishwasher (ideally running overnight)
- Trash emptied
6 hours of sleep (not necessarily continuous)
1 load of laundry everyday
Kids maintaining their morning & evening jobs
- making beds
- dirty clothes down the laundry chute
- tidying bedrooms
- getting dressed without destroying the order of their drawers or closets
Regular breaks away from the kids (blogging, walks with Monty, naps)
Getting outside of the house for at least 15 minutes everyday
Once a month date night
Time to connect with Philip (and talk with an adult!) every night for half an hour
Pumping in the morning starting at 3 weeks postpartum
- This relieves me from the anxiety of feeling tethered and the stress of having to always be available to breastfeed. Being free to take occasional breaks keeps me sane.
Multiple hugs everyday and lots of verbal cheerleading from Philip
A Mother’s Helper for a few hours a few days a week

I won’t share all of Philip’s minimums, but the highlights include: eating, sleeping, and words of affirmation from me. We all have our things. For me, clean kitchen counters bring peace. For Philip, hearing that he’s a great husband and father will get him through just about any day around here.

With each child, we’ve gotten better about advocating for our own minimums and working to meet (and exceed) them for each other. Knowing each other’s minimums helps us to give ourselves permission to lower the bar on everything else. Then, when we do exceed the minimums, it makes us feel like absolute rock stars! Slowly but surely, Baby gets a little older, we start getting more sleep, and we start exceeding the minimums on a regular basis as we find our new rhythm.

Photo by L Guerra Photography

We’re still very much in the trenches of the minimums stage, but I am pleased to report that this has been our easiest transition yet. I wouldn’t say that it has been easy, but it hasn’t been nearly as difficult as it was in the past. Having our minimums in place went a long way in bringing peace to the day-to-day around here.

Doesn’t it look peaceful around here?

Photo by L Guerra Photography

What are your minimums when you’re in survival mode?

Dorothy’s Birthday (and my birth photography experience)

by Catherine | May 2, 2016 | Family

A few months away from my due date, I asked my photographer friend, Lisa, if she’d be interested in doing a newborn home photo shoot once Baby arrived. (Do yourself a favor and check out her beautiful website here.) She said she’d be happy to, so I told her my due date, and we said we’d follow up once Baby arrived.

Shortly thereafter, Lisa contacted me to see if I might also be interested in a “First 48 Hours” photo shoot of labor, delivery, and introducing Baby to the fam at the hospital. Ever since I saw blogger friend Kathryn Whitaker’s birth photographs, I knew I’d love to have a birth photographer, but I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity fall into my lap. So, when Lisa proposed a birth photography shoot for us, I immediately jumped at the chance! I promised to let her know when it was game time.

I had my 39-week check on Holy Thursday. I was experiencing a lot of Braxton Hicks and was at 3 cm, but things were relatively quiet until Good Friday evening. Things picked up and my contractions kept strengthening until we called Philip’s mom to come and stay with the kids Holy Saturday afternoon. My contractions were getting painful and remained 3 minutes apart for several hours. After a few hours of monitoring at the hospital, they released me, saying that I wasn’t advancing quickly enough. I have a track record for experiencing prodromal labor. (Having prodromal labor means that I contract for a long time before I transition into “active labor,” so I’m usually exhausted from days of sleepless nights with contractions by the time Baby decides it’s go time. It becomes an exhausting guessing game of, “Is this it or isn’t it?” An induction helps my body to transition into active labor more quickly than it would on its own.) I felt silly getting turned away from the hospital after having a few babies, but I wanted to make sure Baby was tolerating all of the contractions okay and that I wasn’t further along than I thought.

Our nurse suggested getting a bite to eat and power walking around the mall to see if that would get things going. After eating and walking at the mall for awhile, we decided it was time to head home to rest. Philip’s mom graciously stayed over Holy Saturday in case we had to go back in. Unfortunately, the contractions never ramped up, but we got to enjoy Easter Sunday at home with the kids. Fortunately, we had put together their Easter baskets and had stuffed eggs earlier in the week!

My OBGYN scheduled an induction for first thing Monday morning. I was still contracting at this point, but they weren’t terribly painful. After getting checked in and settled, I started poring over the 5 pages of prayer intentions that people had sent me. I had them all written down on a memo pad that I kept next to me in my hospital bed. As the pitocin ramped things up and it got harder to talk through the contractions, my loved ones’ prayer intentions kept me focused. The hospital where I delivered had a Catholic priest chaplain who brought me the Eucharist. What a comfort to receive Jesus as I labored!

I opted to get an epidural when I could no longer talk through the contractions. Perhaps someday I’ll go the, “I’ll offer the whole shebang up,” route if God blesses us with more babies, but I love my epidurals–especially with prodromal labor. A few hours after I got the epidural, I had advanced enough to the point that it was time to call Lisa.

By this time, I had pretty well memorized all of the prayer intentions, so I continued to pray them mentally throughout the rest of labor and delivery.

Munching on ice chips and debating on our boy name right up until it was time to start pushing.

Getting up on all fours to help Baby get here faster. It was entertaining to get into that position while I couldn’t feel the lower half of my body after the epidural!

Time to push! 1…2…3…

I love how this one captures Philip’s support by my side. We had a scary moment when Baby’s shoulders got stuck. The nurse had to climb up onto the bed to push on my stomach while my OBGYN moved Baby. Fortunately, it only took a few scary seconds.

Here Baby comes!

2:22 p.m. Baby’s here! Philip and I wait to find out our babies’ sex until they arrive. It’s our tradition to have Philip tell me whether Baby is a boy or a girl, so I was anxiously waiting to hear whether we had a new son or daughter.

After the final push, I heard Philip tell me, “It’s a girl!” Waterworks.

So happy

I kept saying, “We have another girl!”

Taking her in

“Hi!”

So mesmerized by her little face

Since Dorothy’s shoulders got stuck and she was so blue, the nurses took her over to the warmer to evaluate her. Philip was right by her side, telling me what was going on and assuring me that Dorothy was doing great. Having a pediatrician for a hubby comes in handy!

Big girl!

Back to me for some skin-to-skin

This picture so perfectly sums up what it’s like those first moments after Baby arrives. It felt as though there was no one else in the room except for me, Philip, and Dorothy.

I didn’t want to let go of Dorothy to dry my eyes, so Philip helped me out

Thanking my awesome doctor for safely delivering Dorothy

Basking in the afterglow

Time to eat

A relieved and happy smooch that Dorothy Jo had finally, safely arrived

A few hours later, the big kids came to the hospital to meet Dorothy.

Coming in…

Here’s your baby sister!

A little party in the hospital bed

Sisters

Shhh! She’s sleeping!

Sibling love

A big smooch from big brother

Our first family picture as a family of 6. Nevermind that it took some Twizzler’s to get this shot…

While Philip helped his parents to get the kiddos loaded up into the car, I had some quiet moments with Lisa to snap a few more pictures of Dorothy.

I am so, so, so happy we took Lisa up on her offer to photograph Dorothy’s birthday. The entire experience was beautiful, and Lisa captured it in a way we were never able to with our previous deliveries. Philip was able to be a part of the entire day as husband, birth coach, and father without feeling the pressure to also play photographer. Instead of just a small handful of images, I have nearly the entire day documented so that I can relive my favorite moments and think about the moments I otherwise would have forgotten. Emotions are so heightened during labor and delivery, and I was so focused on just getting Dorothy here safely, that a lot of the day had become a blur. As much as I love the labor and delivery photos, I equally love the sibling shots at the hospital. It was wonderful to just take in the experience instead of documenting it.

I knew Lisa would do a wonderful job since she has taken photos of our family multiple times, but these photos blew me away. I cannot recommend Lisa highly enough as a photographer, and I highly encourage other families to consider doing a “First 48 Hours” photo shoot with her. You won’t regret having these priceless moments captured forever. You can look at some of Lisa’s beautiful online portfolio and learn more about her work at L Guerra Photography.

Dorothy's Birthday (and my birth photography experience)