i made sure to get the bottom of my dirty foot in there so you could see that i’m barefoot and pregnant, but only sometimes in the kitchen.
Category Archives: pregnancy
pregnancy eats
a nice, colorful, leafy green salad is almost a daily for me. as i said to my husbeau when he was just my beau “i like fruit in my salads but not fruit salads.”
since our california trip i’ve been loving another ingredient in my salad… ^^^quinoa!^^^ here’s my unrecipe for family size quinoa salad:
prepare 1/2 cup quinoa, let cool.
start with 3-4 cups of spinach, or if you’re like me just use the whole bag/plastic container
+ dump the cooled quinoa right in the center
+ all the halved cherry tomatoes your heart desires
+ copious amounts of goat cheese
+ thinly sliced carrots for crunch
+ sliced almonds
it is of my opinion that this salad could entertain radishes and any type of berry in the future.
top with fresh honey dijon lemon dressing:
start with juice from 2 freshly squeezed lemons
+ 1 tsp dijon mustard
+ a couple squirts of honey depending on your own taste preferences. i’m just being real. no one measures honey.
+ salt and pepper
mix together thoroughly. then add 2 parts olive oil
my preference is to use a lot of dressing and let it sit on it a bit so the quinoa gets nice and soaked in it.
bonus** if you’re a quinoa lover you should also try this recipe!
ps. quinoa is great to buy in bulk at your nearest bulk goods section or here
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dear DONA, can i be a doula please?
yesterday marked somewhat of an achievement for me. it also happened to be the day we received 2o dollars in the mail from my mother. this could only lead to one thing in our household: achievement + $20 = celebratory tacos.
baby belly, meet tacos. tacos, meet baby belly. oh that’s right! you’ve met before.
yesterday, after almost 2 years of working on my certification materials, i sent off my application to become a certified doula by DONA International.
i have been working towards this for a long time. little by little i got it done and honestly it shouldn’t have taken me this long because i had the actual work part of it done a long time ago. i just had to find time to sit down and compile it all into papers and lists and what not. one of my problems is that i put the things that i need to do for myself last.
but i’m not going to dwell on it because the bottom line is, i done put that sucker in the mail yesterday. and now i just wait to hear if i fulfilled all the requirements in a satisfactory manner.
which is going to be a bit nerve-wracking.
i’m already waiting to hear if i passed one certification and now i’ll be waiting on this one. oh yeah, and i’m starting two new certifications in about 2 weeks. i’ve put a lot of myself into this for the past 3 years and i’m investing a lot of my future in it too. what if i get my packet back and stamped on the outside says “probably the worst doula candidate we’ve ever seen. please don’t do this anymore” ?
there’s a lot of fear wrapped up in this for me.
i have fear surrounding my ability to do birth work after the birth of my own amazing little second human. will there be enough space for me? everybody wants to be a doula now! there will probably be 50 newly trained doulas running around my town by the time i’m ready to take births again. and by the way both those last two sentences are written from a positive spot. i think it’s awesome and right that so many women want to be doulas. it’s my hope for female culture that we reclaim the knowledge of childbirth as a collective. and doulas do run around town. it’s what we do for our clients. we go to them, to their houses, to their hospitals, to their doctor’s appointments. we’re a group on the go. but will there be a space for me when i’m back on the scene?
will there be space in my own life for birth work? i worry about finding time to support clients in a way they deserve while basking in babydom and being present in my own life.
well, the answer is i don’t know what i don’t know. i can only have faith. i can only have faith in myself and in whatever future is out there for me. and i can voice these fears because i know they are not realities. they are just fears of things that have not yet come to pass. one of the main things i do as a doula is hold space for others. i’m going to have to learn to hold space for myself. i will have to hold space in my life and in my thoughts.
this will need to be mantra: my life and my world are big enough to accommodate me and my dreams.
sooooo this is all a really long-winded way of saying wish me luck with this approval and with navigating this area of life in an unknown future.
ALSO, this was a really long-winded way of telling you that those tacos were damn good and thanks to my momma for the taco funds!
bump day
how’s that for an angle? and is it just me or does it look like that little human is sitting slightly more to my right?
in other bump news, the baby is now kicking hard enough for darla and mike to feel from the outside. darla was pretty stoked to feel the baby kick her hand. i simply adore going through this pregnancy with her by my side.
pregnancy eats
our house is going through a bag of apples by week’s end. partly because darla believes herself to be part of the my little pony clan and is consuming two or more apples a day and partly because i’m craving them on an almost daily basis as well.
for months now i’ve been rotating apple slices paired with either peanut butter or cheese slices but lately i’ve had a why-choose-just-one! mentality.
but i just recently learned that you should eat fruit first and separate from other food items so i don’t know how this is going to effect my snack habits. do any of you out there know if this is true? should i be having my fruit separately? should i be pairing my peanut butter and cheese with something else? i’m sure if we really got down to it we are more biologically programmed to consume one kind of food at a time rather than several together.
Bump Day
i tried to take a bump picture this morning but it just wasn’t working. so i’m using this pic from a few days ago because it’s a pretty badass photo of this lovely bump. probs gonna frame it when i get home.
and, yes, i’ll be wearing this fringe everywhere i go from now on.
*UPDATE*
pic of the bump taken today at the beach. i’m no longer cheating on bump day.
pregnancy eats
this pregnancy, i’m trying to average between 80-100 grams of protein a day. once you start counting protein it’s like “whoa, i’m going to have to eat a lot of food today to get my protein requirements AND all the other good things into my body.” especially if you don’t eat meat everyday like myself. i use cottage cheese as my secret weapon. the brands i get have 14-15 grams of protein in a half cup serving. i usually top it with a fresh or frozen fruit for a lovely little breakfast item or a snack. this works for me because i’m the only cottage cheese lover in my house. all the cottage cheese is mine!
what were your non-meat protein secrets during pregnancy?
Bump day
Can you see my bump peeking out of this beautiful robe gifted to me by some awesome humans? Please expect to see more of this robe. And more of this bump.
pregnancy eats
i’m sure it’s no surprise that raw veggies are showing up in my pregnancy eats. i try to get a healthy amount of raw veggies on most days. broccoli has been a big go to for me during this pregnancy because it’s naturally high in folic acid and vitamin c, both of which are important to pregnancy health. but also because i find broccoli easy to just snap off a few florets, rinse and munch.
i like to pair veggies with a hummus that is prepared with a healthy oil. this adds protein and a bit of fat to the snack.
and up there in the cup is kefir. kefir is a new addition to my diet thanks to this pregnancy. i was looking for a way to get more probiotics in my diet. kefir has probiotic benefits as well as protein, calcium and fat. i compare a few different ones in the dairy aisle to check sugar content and healthy bacteria amounts.
by pairing a healthy dairy fat food and a healthy oil fat food with my raw veggies, i hope to increase the absorption rate of the foods for my system. i’ve read that consuming them this way is actually better for my body than eating the raw veggies on their own. i’ll take the professionals for their word, but mostly i have noticed with the addition of healthy protein and fat i stay satisfied longer.
and also, there’s this:
because even though i’m pregnant and trying to eat super healthy, i’m still me. there will always be room for tacos.
bump day
well, i was going to take my bump picture yesterday because it was so sunny but i’m glad i waited until today, which is my estimated bump day anyway, to take it because this little sucker really popped out over night!
this bump is a funny one, though. some days it’s like WHOA and then others I feel like you can barely tell i’m pregnant. did anyone else seem to have fluctuating bump sizes?
{we had our appointment with the midwives yesterday and darla got to be the one to take my blood pressure. we also listened to the heartbeat. i’m loving being able to share this experience with her.}
momjeanz 