Calories and Breastfeeding

This has been a hard post for me to write because I have not known how to express how I feel without offending anyone. My whole life I have always been small and skinny. In fact I have always been so small and skinny it was always really hard to find any pants that fit. The pants that fit around the waist were to short, and the ones that were long enough were too big around the waist. This was so frustrating to me, but I was condemned to silence. If I dare bring up this problem people would just get annoyed and rolled their eyes, and they would say things like “I wish I had your problem”

It’s socially accepted to talk about how you’re too fat or how you need to lose weight; but don’t you dare even bring up the topic of needing to gain weight. For years, I have hid my frustrations of being so small, but I am done keeping it to myself. Being small is not as easy as it sounds, and it comes with its own type of struggles. Lately I have been facing a really big obstacle and it is centered on my weight and breastfeeding. Since Levi has been born I have dropped to be 7 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight, and this can get dangerous.

I have always produced plenty of milk, and Levi has always seemed to get enough milk,; but he has always been slow to gain weight. At his last doctor’s appointment I realized that although I made plenty of milk, it was really thin, and it did not have enough nutrients to provide him with what he needed. In addition to him not getting enough nutrients I always realized that I was not getting enough nutrients. I have been feeling very tried and weak, and often times when I stand up I would get a little light headed and dizzy. Levi’s doctor suggested that I try to supplement some formula, but it has been really important to me to strictly breastfeed. Therefore I realized I was going to have to make some major dietary changes.

I love to eat, but I do not love to eat a lot. I am not a big morning eater at all. In fact I hate eating in the morning. It makes me feel sick to eat before noon. I also do not love sweet things or desserts. I love to eat dinner, and to snack all day. I will eat up unto the time I go to bed. I will have two big meals after five. My eating schedule kinda goes like this: eat a light lunch at twelve, snack all afternoon, eat a big dinner at 6:00 and then another big meal at like ten right before bed. I eat fairly healthy, but I am definitely far from being a health nut. I would say I average about 1500 calories a day….maybe even a little less than that.

One thing about breast feeding is your body burns 500 calories a day just making milk. Also if you’re not eating foods with high levels of nutrients, then your body will suck all of your own personal stores and give it to the baby. For example, if I do not consume enough calcium then my body will take my personal calcium directly out of my bones and give it to the baby.

I decided to make it my personal goal to try to double the amount of food I eat, meaning I would eat approximately 3000 calories a day. Many people hear this and think….Sweet just each a bunch of chips, chocolate, and cake, but unfortunately it does not work like that. I have to eat 3000 calories worth of foods that are high in nutrients and that are healthy.

This has been a real challenge for me because pretty much my stomach always hurts from being full, I have to make sure I always have healthy nutritious snacks on hand; I have to plan more meals, do more shopping, and spend more money. In addition to the physical obstacles I have faced I also have had trouble emotionally because I have felt guilty for starving my baby, and not being able to provide him with what he needs.

I just want to take a moment to hop on my soap box and say; this kind of diet is just as much work if not more work then somebody who is trying to lose weight. Gaining weight is hard too. I have to also plan healthy meals just like someone who is on a diet to lose weight, I have to deal with the uncomfortable feeling of always being over full, rather than hungry, and I am constantly focused on counting calories and shoveling more food into my mouth.

I will take Levi back to the Doctor next week and I will get to see if he has gained enough weight. I am hoping that I eating more will be enough to help him gain the weight he needs to grow to be a healthy strong little boy. I love him so much! I will post an update after his appointment next week.

Here are the stats from Levi’s Apt:

Height: 25 and half inches (16^th percentile)

Weight: 13lbs 13 oz (2^nd Percentile)

Texas Life

So moving to Texas has been an exciting adjustment for me. The first thing people think of when they hear the word Texas is heat and humidity. Every time I ever mentioned that I was planning on moving to Texas people always took that as an invitation to tell me about all of the negative things they had ever heard about Texas. Let me also elaborate on the size of Texas…it is huge! So while yes Houston may be intensely humid that does not mean the whole state is.

I am not going to lie and say it has not been hot hear, because it has. However the humidity has not been largely noticeable. From what I understand that hottest month of the year is August, and I have survived that month, and from here on out the weather is supposed to just keep getting better. For the record I will take any amount of heat if it means I avoid snow and freezing temperatures!

In addition to the weather I received many warnings concerning the bugs in Texas. Let me also say the bugs in Dallas are no worse than any of the bugs in Utah or Southern CA.

Now that we have discussed all of the negative things about Texas let me tell you some of the highlights. I have seven malls within ten minutes of my house. Talk about shopping opportunities! We have more restaurants per ca-pita here then they do in New York City, and did I mention that the food is amazing! And the best part so far is they have some of the nicest people. I love southern hospitality!

I was worried about making the adjustment of living in a new place without much family around, however I have made some of my best friends out here already; It has been fun to build such strong relationships. Before when I was in Utah I knew that any friends I made would have to be temporary in the sense that I knew we would be moving away after graduation. This made it hard because I got really close to several different people, and then I had to leave them all and move 20 hours away. However, since I have been in Texas I have not stopped getting to know people. Everyone is so sweet and friendly. I feel like I have already made some lifelong friends out here. It has been a hard adjustment to get use to Morgan going to work, and me staying home with Levi, however I am really grateful for my friends who have been helping me through it.

On my Birthday 2 of my friends came over and took me to get pedicures and to go out to the mall! I have never really had friends come and take me out on my birthday before so this was such a special treat. While we were out doing that Morgan made a beautiful dinner! He smoked ribs all day, and he even made an ice cream cake! I was very impressed. We had a very special time hanging out with our friends.

Well that is all I have time for right now because Levi will be waking up any minute, but I will keep you updated with all of our future happenings!

 Penny Sees a squirrel in the backyard, and she is hypnotized!

 Levis new friend Jax!

Daddy loves to give Levi his baths! 

 Levi at a restaurant way passed his bed time! This is his first time in a restaurant high chair!

 My birthday cake!

Seeing the Deloitte office where Morgan will be working!

Levi’s Birth Story

I am trying to decide exactly where I want to start my birth story. I was a pretty inconsistent blogger through the bulk of my pregnancy (and by inconsistent I mean only posting once) and so I am going to do a brief summary of being pregnant before jumping into my birth story.

I have heard many people tell me that they “love to be pregnant” or “they love their pregnant bodies” I however was not one of those people! Being pregnant was a lot of hard work and most of all exhausting. My first trimester was not too horrible. I did get extremely nauseous in in the morning, especially if I worked outside in the heat; however I did not throw up at all so that was a blessing. The second trimester went by pretty fast, but the third trimester was where I grew a whole new appreciation for pregnant people. My body was so sore. I could not bend over what so ever, and I mean not at all. Poor Morgan had to pick up everything I dropped on the floor, pick up all of Penny’s poop, and he even shaved my legs….I was one lucky girl to have him throughout the pregnancy.

My due date technically would have been March 14^th if you were doing the mathematical calculation, but based on ultrasound it was changed to March 21^st.  So I was thinking that Levi would for sure come early. I could not see any possible way he could come any later than March 21^st but boy was I wrong.

 I also took a Hypnobabies class and decided to do an all-natural home child birth. I know most people think this sounds crazy, but I have the biggest phobia of needles, and I would rather take on any amount of pain if it means no epidural and IV. I could wright a whole post just on natural child birth, but I do not want to get into that, nor do I want to bore you with those details.

I started to have contractions at the beginning of March, but these were not your normal contractions. When I would have a contraction I could feel my stomach get really tight with pressure and then it would relax and loosen. This would be the way that most contractions feel, but the only difference was I felt no pain what so ever. These contractions went on for over a month, and the whole time here I am thinking that Levi is going to be born any day now, but he just wasn’t coming. When I got to my due date my midwife tried rubbing different oils on my belly, but that just was not starting labor either. Every time my midwife checked me I was not even dilated to 1cm.

The contractions continued for about another week, when we decided to try to induce labor naturally by the consumption of castor oil. Let me start by saying castor oil is the most disgusting thing to ever touch my mouth. I took it at about four o clock, and nothing was happening. In fact I felt completely normal. I went and took a nap, and still nothing was happening. That night Morgan has a dinner with other students that were being hired to work for Deloitte We decided to go, since nothing was progressing with my labor. For those of you who are not aware castor oil causes people to have lots of bowel movements, and the theory is by having bowel movements if causes your body to dilate. So we are getting to the end of dinner when I began to have regular bowel movements, and my contractions were all within three minutes apart, and again I remind you I feel no pain from any of these contractions.

 I get home and call my midwife, and tell her my progress. She tells me to get some sleep, and to caller her back when the contractions hurt badly enough that I have to breathe through them. At about 10:00 p.m. Morgan calls my midwife back and tells her I can now feel a slight amount of pain, however in the progression of this 30 second call the pain got 10x more intense and I told him to tell her to come over ASAP. She was there at 11:00 and I had already dilated to a three and my contractions were 3 minutes apart. I was lying on my bed, and I remember just trying to focus on keeping my body relaxed. I learned in my hypnobabies class that the more you can relax your body, the faster it can progress though labor. My midwife got the tub of warm water ready so that I could labor in the tub, she had this set up within an hour of her arrival, and then she came to check my progression again and I had dilated to a six!  Once I was in the tub the contractions were getting more intense. I was lucky to have 5 midwives/doulas there to apply pressure in different places. I would have never guessed that applying pressure could relieve so much of the pain. I had one midwife on each leg, one pushing on my hips, Morgan holding my head, and my mom holding my hand. I was very blessed to have so many people helping me through out my labor. they would coach me through the contractions and remind me to relax. I am the kind of personality that does really well with positive encouragement. I just thrive off of people cheering me on. I am really lucky to have so many people in my life who believe me, and encouraged me all the way to the end. I was going to need all of the encouragement I could get because once I got in the tub The contractions basically never stopped; it was like an hour of straight contractions. It would get really bad and then it would loosen a little bit and then it would get really bad again. I remember just saying that I wanted a two minute brake. I remember thinking that you usually have at least a minute of relief in between contractions, but not me. I threw up at some point during this hour, and I remember being very concerned that I was going to poop in the water, but I never did. Hahaha I know that is grouse but I want to remember all these details. After being in the tub for an hour, I got to the point where I was just like I cannot do this anymore and that is when my midwife checked me again and said it was time to push.

I got out of the water and pushed for like thirty minutes, and then Levi was born at 3:30 in the morning. My whole labor from start to finish was only 4.5 hours. (This is starting at the time I could feel any pressure/pain/discomfort)

At this point in time I thought the worst was over, I had survived child birth; but boy was I wrong. Personally I think the most painful part of the whole experience came 2 days later when I was awoken at like 4:00 a.m. because my milk came in. I remember wakening up my mom, and she helped me go and stand in the warm shower to try to relive some of the pressure, but this was not helping. I was so engorged I did not even know how so much milk could fit in such a small space. This is probably too much information, but I feel it is important. Nobody ever talks about the milk coming in, and this is an entire experience in its own. I had constant milk dripping out of me. I know they make pads that you can use to line your bra with to absorb the milk, but these pads would only last me about three minutes before I was leaking through. Every night when I went to sleep I took one of the giant Egyptian cotton beach towels and I folded it into quarters and then I would wake up and it would be completely soaked with milk. I remember Morgan waking up one night and asking me if I had just pulled it out of the washer because of how wet it was. I went to the doctor to have a check up, and he said I was one of the top ten most engorged he had ever seen. This made me feel good because I felt more justified for all the pain I was feeling. I could write a whole post just about my breastfeeding experience but I will leave it at that for now.

Overall Everything went perfectly, I was really proud of myself for having Levi all natural. So many people told me that I would not be able to do it, and they said things like “you’re going to be begging for the epidural” so to all of those people who questioned me and did not believe in me I just want to say “I did it! And you were wrong!”

Morgan and I are now living in Dallas, and I am no longer working so I therefore have a lot more time on my hands. I am excited to become a regular blogger, so look forward to more future posts from me!

Craziest Summer Ever

So it has been a crazy long time since I have posted. I want to be a better blogger, but I just don’t ever seem to have enough time. So here is an update of Morgan and my summer. We sold pest control this summer in Sacramento, and hated it! The most miserable job I have ever held in my entire life. I hated it! I did enjoy living in Sacramento with the family. We all had a fun time getting to know each other on another level. We did lots of fun things but my favorite was going boating. Morgan and I ended up getting a new car. We went with a white Prius and we love it! So far we have driven over 8,000 miles and averaged over 50MPG. Julie has also been teaching me how to sew. So I can now make a few things so that has been a lot of fun! We adopted the worlds cutest more spoiled puppy. She is a mini Australian Shepherd. She will probably grow to be about 35 pounds. She has been loads of fun. That is an update of the summer.

Our spoiled dog

Since we got back to Utah, we have moved into a new apartment; however we still live in Provo. Morgan and I are both in our last year of school. Morgan will have his Masters in April and I will have my bachelors. Morgan has begun interviewing for full time jobs with the big four accounting firms. He has applied for Dallas and Orange County so we are very excited to see where we will end up. I am just most excited to move out of Utah.

We went camping this weekend for my birthday at Zion National Park. My Grandma, Sisters, husband, mom, and Billy all came. We had a ton of fun. It was so awesome to get to spend time with my family. It has been a very long time since we got to spend that much time together. I also hiked Angels Landing! When I was like seven years old I hiked all the way to the part with the chains, and then I sat down and refused to go on. So my whole family (excluding my mom cause she stayed with me) including my younger sister went on to hike to the top. There was lightning, wind and rain while they hiked it. In fact I guess my sister all most fell of the cliff. The story goes she slipped and was dangling and my dad was holding her just by the arm. People were hiking down discussing the little girl who almost fell off, little did we know that girl was my sister, crazy! Anyways, even though they were crazy to finish the hike I still never lived down the fact that I was the only member who did not finish the hike. So this summer I did redeem myself by finishing the hike, so I felt very accomplished.

My first attempt at Angels Landing

This is the whole family Camping!

Lastly Morgan and I are expecting a new addition to our Family at the end of March. We will find out the gender next month so we are crazy excited about that. We are hoping for a girl, but will be happy with a healthy baby. Life is moving so fast, but It could not be any better. We are so blessed.

I just love this Picture!

Crystal

I Love Valentines Day

Valentine’s Day might just be my new most favorite holiday. I had the best day of my life, and I have the greatest husband in the world! Let me take you all through our fantastic day. So on Saturday night I made Morgan 7 Valentines day cards. They were all different and unique. Within all the cards I included a verse from a song that has impacted our relationship. (The songs were: History in the making, Waiting on a Women, Alright, I Can Love You Like That, She’s Everything, We Danced, and Then) And then I wrote about why that song has been so special to us. So then I woke up early on Valentines Day and left him his first card with some roses and his favorite candy bars on our kitchen table. I then put his 2^nd card on the seat of his car with a rose and some more candy. I then waited patiently for him to leave for BYU. I then followed him to BYU and decorated his car with window stickers, and left him his 3^rd card with another rose and some more candy. Then once he went to work I went to his car again and left him a yummy lunch, card number four, a rose, and more of his favorite candies. From work he went back to BYU and I left him his 5^th card, another rose, more candy, and I put a bunch of balloons on his car. While I was attaching the balloons I accidently locked my keys in his car. HAHA I am a dork, so I was stuck sitting there for 45min until he got out of class. He then came home and made dinner and refused to let me help, so I went home and took a two hour nap…..so nice! Then he surprised me with a candle lit dinner. He made Flamin Young Steaks rapped in bacon….YUM, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. I left him his 6^th note on his chair with another rose. He then surprised me with a bracelet he made me, and some gourmet chocolate dipped strawberries. I then gave him his 7^th note which was the one about the song we danced by Brad Paisley. We turned off the lights, but left the lit candles and danced to all 7 songs. It was the most amazing day of my life! I have the greatest husband in the world. I am sure we wont have a lot of opportunities to go all out like this, so I am glad we took advantage of the opportunity before we have kids and full time jobs.

                There are so many people who do not like Valentines Day. They claim it is a commercialized holiday that was just created to help the card companies make money. They also say that you should express your love on a daily basis and not a yearly basis, and you do not need an annual day to remember to do this. Here is my opinion: They are right the card and flower companies do make a lot of money off of Valentines Day, and they are right when they say you should express your love year around.  However why not have a day devoted to focusing on your relationship each year. It can really be a lot of fun if you get into it. Even if all you do is make dinner together at home it can still be super special. All holidays or significant events are commercialized any more. Let us take a minute to think about Christmas. I think Christmas is one of the most commercialized holidays, however nobody complains about this. You could also claim that people should remember the savior all the time, and we do not need a special day to do this. Ok this is an extreme example, let’s look at the superbowl. This event is also much commercialized but I am pretty sure that people really still get into this event. I am sure several people disagree with everything I just said, but all I am saying is that Valentines Day can be a lot of fun and really special even if u you just do something small.

Hope everyone had a super fun day,

Crystal

Crazy Month

So it has been a long time since I have done a blog posting, and the reason is I have felt like I really have nothing to blog about. I want to say our life has been way uneventful and boring, but that has not really been the case. The last few months have been crazy. I feel like I have not slowed down for even one second, but at the same time it has not really been exciting or fun. We have been slammed with school and work.

I went to Albuquerque for a week for a 4-H training and that was really fun. I however did not like the food at all. I guess New Mexicans have a different way of cooking. The food was really spicy and had odd textures. I had a ton of fun though. I got to hang out with several people that I work with and we had a super fun time. I was gone for 5 days, which is the longest me and Morgan have ever been apart so that was hard. I was really excited to see him when I got back.

This is my last year of school I will finish in December, but it has been a really hard year. I am exhausted and overwhelmed. I cannot wait to take my last day of classes. I think that me and Morgan will be moving to Sacramento for the summer and living at his parents’ house. I am looking forward to that opportunity. I am going to sell pest control while he does his internship, it should be a fun summer, especially since it will be my first break from school in the last 2 years.

Well that is all for now, hope everyone is doing good!

~Crystal

My Husband....You've got to love him!

So this has been a very eventful few weeks, and Morgan and I have had some pretty good times. This last few weeks has consisted of Christmas shopping, the start of snow, the end of school, and of course finals.

Morgan and I went shopping one afternoon in order to find Morgan a new jacket and brown dress shoes. Morgan needs a jacket that will keep him warm. Right now all he has is this HUGE bubble jacket, and I really do not like it. He agreed that if we could find him a jacket that he likes that he would get rid of his puff ball jacket, and he currently has no brown dress shoes and he has wanted a pair of those.

So Morgan started off on this adventure without me because I had a final, but he went to like at least half the stores in the mall, before me met up. Once we got together we decided to try Burlington Coat Factory, Ross and TJ Max. It is safe to say that between all those stores we did not find anything that even peeked interested from him. So next we go to Famous Foot Wear, and he actually found some brown dress shoes that he liked for $60.00, but then he was concerned that they were too cheap looking because of the shoe laces, yes I am serious. They were made by Stacy Adams, so I looked on Wikipedia from my phone to see if it was a known brand. Sure enough not only was it a known brand it goes back to the 1800s, but once I cleared that concern he was worried that they looked to western. So I go through and ask people shopping within in the store, and everyone loved them. So he decided that he would purchase them.

Well that is when I told him that the shoes were buy one get one half off so I explained that we clearly had to get a second pair. He said that we do not and that’s just a sale tactic that they use to trick people into buying more. I told him that I did not care, and one of us walking out with a second pair of shoes. He then rebutted with you do not need any more shoes. In which I replied, I am a girl therefore I always need more shoes. After going back and forth we finally decided that he would get a pair of Bear Paw Moccasins, and we left that store after being there for over an hour.

We then travel down to the mall to continue the hunt for a jacket. We go to Macy’s, Express, Aero-postal, Nordstrom’s, American Eagle, Eddie Bauer, Banana Republic, Gap, and I am sure there is more I just cannot remember.  Anyways we found not one jacket that he liked. One was to cheap looking, one looked to fake, One he liked but decided when he wore it it looked like he was going to go and work in the yard, and one he liked but decided it was not a perfect fit. After five hours of shopping at a zillion stores we leave with nothing. He did not understand why I was so frustrated, and I explained to him that I could find something I like in every store, and he went to fifty million stores and could not find one thing that he liked, except for the brown dress shoes.

The next morning he wakes up and tells me he wants to return the brown dress shoes because the laces feel too cheap…. Long story short, I can shop for him but I will never make the mistake of shopping with him again.

Changing the subject yesterday Morgan turns on the heater and gets in the shower. I yell and tell him that it is blowing cold air and that I am freezing cold. He yells back and tells me not to worry about it, it’s just warming up. 20 minutes later it is still warming up and I am freezing cold, by the time he finally gets out of the shower, he says wow it is cold in here that is not right. I just replied with I tried to tell you. Well we later discover that the pilot light is out. So Morgan goes and gets his fancy lighter that he does not know how to use. When he tried to light it he could not get the flame to stay lit. Ready to give up I ask him to let me try. He very confidently says that if he cannot do it, then I defiantly cannot do it. I explained that is probably just needed a women’s touch. Guess what….I did it! He then goes back into his office and is playing with his lighter trying to figure out how to get the flame higher. He puts it by his ear to see if he could hear gas coming out, when the flame grew and burned off some of his hair! So funny! His ear reeked off burnt hair all day, it smelt so grouse.

Well that is all for now, hope that this was a fun read

Crystal Andersen