AdventureEverAfter

I went in yesterday due to continued bleeding. The doc agreed that Rhogam might be a good idea, since I'm RH-factor negative. While there they did a sonagram. "I see a gestational sac...and a yolk sac...and a fetal pole...and a heartbeat!" the nurse-midwife said. She swung the screen around so C and I could see.

The thing is, you can't know until you know.

I'm pregnant again. And at 6 weeks 2 days, exactly like last time, I started spotting. I called my doctor. We decided to keep my appointment for Friday, a week from now, unless things change drastically. Today the spotting is heavier.

--made breakfast

--did dishes

--cleaned the stovetop

--took a pregnancy test (negative)

--added "clean bathroom" and "weed garden" to today's to-do list

--bottled fire cider

--wrote a grocery list

--rounded up stuff for donation

--tried to sell stuff on various apps

--rounded up laundry and schlepped to laundromat

--did laundry

Which brings us to the present. One more thing for the list:

Want to run lots of trail races but don't have lots of $$$? Volunteering is an option! I'm running several races in my leadup to the 50K and that sh*t is expensive so I've been volunteering for various race companies to earn entries. Today C joined me at Coastal Trail Runs' Grizzly Peak ultra. I'll use my entry for a (long, slow) marathon with them next month, and Middle Daughter wants to do the 5M that day so C wanted to earn an entry for her. Plus, my husband likes to hang out with me. 🙂 

 What does a volunteer do? By now I've done a bit of everything. Aid stations are my favorite. I've also helped with parking (kind of the worst) and finish line (there are still a few outfits not using timing chips!). Today we assisted with check-in, which was fun. C, ever the prankster, took advantage of the one time I took my focus off the person we were helping. When I started getting the name from the next person in line, trying to be efficient, he handed out the wrong bib number! "I wanted to see if you were paying attention," he said. "And I wanted to see how good quality control was at the T-shirt pickup." It must have been good because the woman came back for the right number. 

 After the races started--they ran a 50K, a marathon, a 30K, a half marathon, and a 10K, with two different starts--the assistant race director asked if either of us was good with a camera. I’m not bad, but C’s really good. She handed him the camera and asked him to take photos as people approached the finish. It took us a while to find the right spot. First we were near the finish line on a paved path, but that didn’t seem too trail race-y. When someone mentioned mud nearby, we went to investigate. The mud wasn’t that interesting--people slowed to a walk to pick their way through--but it was at the bottom of a downhill runners flew on, making for some nice snapshots. C took the snapshots. I cheered the runners on: “Yay! You’re almost there! THROUGH the mud, AROUND the lake, and ON TO THE FINISH!”

Some people took “through the mud” literally, and one guy came back with a long branch after he finished. He explained he’d lost his shoe in the mud but felt he was making good time and didn’t want to stop. Sure enough, he snagged his shoe right out from the worst of it!

I take a physical fitness test for work twice a year, and if I do well enough, I get a day’s worth of paid leave. That’s a pretty sweet bonus, adding a potential two days of vacation a year, and somehow I thought I’d always make it fairly easily. Well. Today I almost didn’t.

I’ve been gaining weight--about five pounds eating my emotions after my miscarriage, and then steadily as the treats we allowed ourselves during that time became more normal. Ice cream, cakes for the kids’ birthdays, wine and beer, chocolate--I’ve had more exposure in the last few months to those things than I have in a long time. It’s how I’d have eaten in college given an unlimited grocery budget. (Fortunately, I did not have an unlimited grocery budget in college.) Now I’m 13 pounds up from when I met C, and on the cusp of “overweight.” For weeks C’s been saying he doesn’t see it. He thinks I look incredibly sexy and healthy. I’ve noticed the waistbands on my pants tightening, though. I’ve worried about how it might affect my running, and I’ve worried about losing control.

My PT test has five elements: Body composition, bench press, flexibility (sit and reach), agility run, and endurance (1.5 mile) run. I’m terribly inflexible and my bench isn’t the greatest, but I always crush the runs, so it’s never been a problem. However, gaining weight is a problem because it affects both my body composition and my bench press, which is scored as a strength-to-weight ratio. If I get heavier or lighter, my score will fluctuate even if the amount I push stays exactly the same. In other words, gaining 10 pounds can be hugely detrimental in two of five areas. I went from scoring in the 90th percentile in body composition to the 76th--a drop of 14 points. Even though I lifted more than last time, my bench press store dropped dramatically as well.

It all came down to the long run. I knew I needed to be in the 100th or 99th percentile to get my time off award. As I settled into my pace, I felt slow and heavy. Weight affects running as well. I got to the halfway mark (according to the test administrator) in 5:45--fifteen seconds from the slowest possible pace for my goal. I was worried I’d slow in the second half. Fortunately, I think the administrator’s halfway point was further than the actual halfway point of the run. I finished with almost a minute to spare, running 1.5 miles in about 11 minutes. I earned my award with a one point cushion.

The first time I dated someone who had a child--and the only time, aside from my husband--I was reluctant to meet his daughter. It was a somewhat close-ended relationship anyway, since we met at a residential training and lived in totally different parts of the country and were completely wrong for each other, but I got my foot caught in the door. And then he came to visit me at school one weekend, driving some insane distance (I just looked it up--1170 miles--because the relationship was crazy) with his barely-seven-year-old daughter in tow. I thought this was a terrible idea, and yet my heart just melted and I fell in love with her pretty much instantly. (Which added another couple levels of fuckery on the nearly inevitable breakup, but that was a story for a different Tumblr.)

No surprises there, the instant love. Loving kids is easier than falling off a log. Which is why it stymies me that I don’t love my stepkids.

A friend of mine’s parents divorced when she was a baby, so she’s always known her stepmom. She also had a few stepdads. She said that her mom and stepmom established a good working relationship early, and that made life smoother for her and her sisters. “You should have coffee with C’s ex and get off on the right foot,” she urged. “What happened between them was between them. Her kids are spending two weekends a month with you; she’s going to want to know it. It will be better for all of you if you give her a chance to get to know you, and start a good working relationship.”