I am so excited to announce here on MarathonMomma.com that I am pregnant with baby number four! I can’t believe we get to add another little racer to our pack! We are all ecstatic and feeling so blessed.  We especially weren’t sure if I was going to be able to get pregnant after my surgery (read more about that here).

6 weeks along, 2nd place in my age group!

My oldest son demands it’s a boy, and my daughter “knows” it’s a girl, my youngest little man told me I was having two babies! One named “Hulk” and the other “Superman”— but whatever this sweet baby is (yes, one baby :), we are thrilled and praying daily for a healthy baby and pregnancy. So far so good!

You may or may not have noticed a lack of posts on my end (special thanks to Heather for picking up my slack!) I have dearly wanted to share my thoughts, insights, recipes, and fitness with you. But I’ll be honest, in the last three months, I have really had to ration out my energy and limit myself to the most important things.  Also, I could hardly entertain the thought of cooking at all!

If you haven’t grown a person before, it takes a lot of energy, effort, an some extra rest. Taking care of the needs of multiple other persons, a.k.a my family, (and the million things that entails) comes first. I have also tried to keep up my running and cross training the best I could (some weeks were better than others). Not to mention— we have had a huge garage sale, coached a running team for Team Kids Cafe, staged and sold our house (yes, we are moving in three weeks to Arizona, I will dearly miss Texas!), packing our belongings, my husband finished medical school (hooray hubby!!!), we travelled for a week to Utah for a funeral, and we are now in Europe! — i’m tired just typing all that out!

Truth be told, it has been a hard few months with consistent nausea, lack of energy, and still trying to carry on with as much normalcy as possible. Some days I didn’t want to move from the recliner, my spring allergies have been off the charts, sleep sometimes spotty at best. But WE did it! (When I say “we” I am mostly referring to my husband and myself… and my patient children :). My husband has been a rockstar through all of this, and helped me so much. I honestly don’t know how I could survive without him! Props to all you single moms out there, you are incredible!)

 Logging weekly miles on the cruise ship in the Mediterranean. Excited to be wear testing a Mio heart rate monitor, and shoes for Skechers and Merrill. (More on this later!)

I am 16 weeks pregnant now, due October 23rd, and feeling soooo much better in my second trimester! Yay! My energy is back and most importantly, this baby is growing well with a strong heartbeat. I am starting to experience the little featherlike flutterings in my growing belly… and seriously, is there anything better than feeling life, a sweet little human being inside of you? What an incredible miracle to be a part of. I am constantly in awe of God’s goodness in trusting me to bring one more of his children to this earth. It makes all of the nausea, vomitting, tiredness, and lack of feeling normal worth. every. second. For you moms that have a hard time with fertility, I am thinking of you HERE.

You can bet that I will be sharing up to date pregnancy progress, challenges, products and exercises on MarathonMomma.com and my Instagram @MarathonMommaLa.  With three very healthy and active pregnancies already, I have learned a lot about how to put the baby and your health first with proper nutrition, rest, and exercise. I am also a huge advocate of following the doctors orders. I have had one baby via epidural, one baby natural, and one baby half and half (long story Needless to say, I have some perspective on the pros and cons of each for you moms considering which road to take.

As I share what works for me and my pregnancy, I am not recommending you do the same thing. As I said previously, following doctors orders is key to a healthy pregnancy. Every pregnancy, body, and situation is different.  The most important thing you can do is listen to your body. 

FOR GENERAL GUIDELINES FROM THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF OBSTETRICIAN AND GYNECOLOGISTS ON “EXERCISE DURING PREGNANCY AND POSTPARTUM PERIOD” Click Below.

So far this pregnancy, I have been able to log up to 36 miles/week.  That has been my goal, and I have not been able to reach it some weeks. One particular bad week of nausea in the beginning of my pregnancy, I managed 6 miles for the week! Sometimes rest is more important. My average has been about 32 miles/week, at 8:30-10 minute pace. As I’ve gotten further along, I like to run two miles, walk for .2 miles and allow myself a little breather, then run two miles, and so on.  I am training for the Utah Valley Half Marathon in June— representing Every Mother Counts.  Running for maternal health while striving for my own maternal health will make the race even more meaningful for me.

Thanks to everyone for all of your congratulations and encouragement on Instagram and the blog. I might not know most of you personally, but I love getting to know you and hope to encourage you in some way to be your best self — a better you than you’ve every been, many of you have done that for me!

Tell me about your pregnancy… e-mail me at MarathonMommaLa@gmail.com

XoXo- Laura