A Pandemic Baby

With the Covid-19 pandemic spreading chaos all over, hospitals have instituted very strict rules about who is allow inside the building, when they are allowed, and for how long.

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These precautions are, of course, necessary for keeping our health care providers as safe as possible and limiting the exposure of high-risk patients to the potentially deadly virus.

That being said, if you are 38.5 weeks pregnant, like I am, this is a very difficult time for you. I will be heading into the hospital for a scheduled and medically necessary cesarean amidst all of this pandemic craziness.

Not only does this mean walking into the belly of the beast, as my hospital is currently treating several Corona virus patients, it means doing it without the support of my family.

I will be allowed to have my husband with me during my surgery and he will be the only person allowed to visit baby and I. Our other children, including our 22-month-old, will not be allowed into the hospital.

For our family, this is a huge hit. We are very close, and our baby girl has never been apart from us for more than a workday. The idea that I will be unable to hold and comfort my daughter for 3 to 4 days while I am in recovery is devastating to me.

It also places the burden of single parenthood onto my husband for the time that I am sequestered in my hospital room. It will fall on his shoulders to comfort our baby girl and reassure her that mommy will be back.

He, alone, will have to deal with our elaborate night-time routine. While I, alone, will have to work on healing while caring for a newborn.

We will get through it, because we must, but it will mar this occasion in our lives.

We will not think back on the birth of this child with the same fond memories as the last one. Instead, we will reminisce about the difficult times we had and *hopefully* how we pulled together as a family to get through them.

Please, be safe everyone!

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Going Vegan: Taking the ‘Game Changers’ challenge

I am what society would consider an “older” mom.

My husband and I both had children in our 20s, and when we got married a few years ago, we decided to have babies together even though we are around 40 now (I am 7 months pregnant with our second daughter together, making 4 total children).

That being said, we take our health very seriously.

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Recently, we watched the digital documentary “The Game Changers,” by James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Lewis Hamilton, Novak Djokovic, and Chris Paul.
The film caught our attention due to the backing of Schwarzenegger and Chan, two people who we consider to be exceptionally athletic.

If you haven’t seen it yet, the film explores the popularity of a plant-based diet amongst professional athletes and provides some very interesting and compelling facts about the benefits.

After having watched it, twice, my husband and I have decided to give the plant-based, or more commonly referred to as, vegan, diet a try.

So far, as I write this, we are 6 days into our journey, and this is what I have learned so far…

A vegan diet is expensive.

We went grocery shopping they day before we were to start our diet and spent more than $100 over our normal budget. In addition, we have had to make 2 additional trips to the grocery store for dinner supplies and spent an extra $150.

That gave us a grand total of $250 extra in just 6 days time.

Now, to be fair, we did have to purchase all new snacks and a few incidentals that we would normally have on hand if making a non-vegan meal. However, there is a definite and very noticeable increase in our grocery budget so far.

It takes some effort to plan your meals.

Quick, go-to lunches and snacks have been replaced with more thought out, and sometimes prepared from scratch, meals.

This issue is one of habit, knowledge, and routine. I have to assume that, as we become more familiar with the diet and discover more vegan alternatives to our favorite snacks, our snacks and lunches will become easier to prepare quickly and / or pick up on the run.

Take-out and fast food are dead to me.

While our grocery bill has gone up, our take-out budget has been reduced to $0. There are not a lot of options out there for vegan fast food. Even the Impossible Whopper comes with cheese and white bread.

We can do fries and maybe a plain bean burrito, but really, at that point, you might as well make your own lunch and have something worth eating.

The bottom line, so far…

While your weight loss results may vary, there is no denying that after only 6 days I can feel a difference and so can my husband. I have more energy throughout the day, and he has seen a noticeable increase in his stamina during workouts.

Meals have not been difficult to make or plan. Quick internet searches have provided us with easy to make and delicious recipes for each meal. We have even adapted some of our favorite recipes to turn them into vegan friendly favorites.

So far, we are believers. The extra effort and money have been worth it to us. We are investing in our health and our futures. We owe it to our children to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible.