little feet, big sky

I’ve been on a fruit kick lately, and one of my absolute favorites is watermelon. Cold, chilled, crisp, sweet watermelon. I used to be a huge fan of honeydews, but not while pregnant, apparently. The spouse has been good lately in keeping chopped watermelon ready-to-eat in the fridge for me. :-)

Watermelon eases heartburn and reduces swelling; its high water content (92 percent) and fruit sugars alleviate morning sickness and dehydration; and the minerals it contains can help prevent third-trimester muscle cramps. – Watermelon Wonders onFitPregnancy

According to my favorite pregnancy calculator, I’m current 37 & 4/7 weeks pregnant. Now should be about the time for the baby to drop, so I’m trying to do everything I possibly can to encourage that. The acupuncturist did a some points to help with that, and starting today, I’m going to make myself walk every day.

This is harder than it seems to be, for me, at least. Here are some of my fabulous excuses for not walking more often, all of which elicit much eye-rolling from the spouse:

• It’s hot. By the time I wake up and get dressed, it’s heating up enough that it’s too hot to go for a walk outside.
• In the afternoon/evenings when it’s cool enough, I’m too tired.
• We live on a bit of a crest of a hill. Which means that walking in either direction requires an arduous walk uphill. (Okay, okay – only arduous when you’re 8 months pregnant.)
• Walking around the neighborhood is boring.
• Walking around the neighborhood while listening to something on iPod/iPhone is only slightly less boring. (I used to love this. While pregnant, I find it oddly annoying. No idea why.)

Now, I realize these reasons would never get me out of hell, but they’re all quite true, to some degree. Still, I realized the importance of walking to get the baby to drop, even as the 21-year-old in me shrieks at the thought of voluntarily doing something to shift a bowling ball into my pelvis. So I’ve figured out a plan that only someone in Los Angeles would think of: I shall drive somewhere nice to walk and walk around there instead! :-)

Some of the locations I have in mind are: the beach, near Malibu; Huntington or Descanso Gardens; Sunset Plaza; the Grove; Aquarium of the Pacific; and West Hollywood.

Any other tips/advice for getting the baby to drop? Factual tidbits or old wives tales welcome!

As if nutrition during pregnancy isn’t confusing enough, there’s more than plenty misleading advice on eating fish while pregnant. Some say eat more fish, as it’s a great source of lean protein and high in valuable omega-3 essential fatty acids, important for brain development and more. Others say to avoid it for possible mercury contamination, possibly linked to autism and other developmental disorders, or for environmental concerns with overfishing, etc.

So when standing in front of the seafood section at the grocery store, or when eating out, how do you know what to choose?

I’ve come to rely on the Green Guide’s Smart Shopper Fish Picks, from National Geographic. It’s a handy list of seafood choices ordered into three categories: YES fish, NO fish and SOMETIMES fish. YES fish are selections that are either low in mercury (L) or not overfished or farmed destructively. SOMETIMES fish are either moderate in mercury (M) or recovering stocks, and NO fish are either farmed destructively, overfished and/or high in mercury (MM). The list makes distinctions between species from different locations (ie., Atlantic vs. Pacific cod) which helps to make local choices, as well as other important facts like farmed, trap-caught, wild-caught, etc. For example, while Atlantic mackerel is low in mercury and listed as a YES fish, the note that it’s “purse seine-caught” reminds me that this method of fishing often captures other than the intended catch, such as dolphins or turtles, and also can lead to catching more than can be transported or processed, leading to waste and overfishing. I don’t think it’s a fair tradeoff for my child to be mercury-free and healthy, if there’s not much of a world left for him or her to enjoy!

On a side note, I would suggest pregnant women stay away from farmed fish. While it may seem like the healthier or more ecologically-friendly option, farmed fish often are limited in room, which makes them more susceptible to disease, which in turn leads to the use of antibiotics. Not only does that imply our consumption of said antibiotics, but run-off from fish farms contaminates fish and sea life in the wild.

If you have a mobile web phone or PDA, add a bookmark to the mobile version of the Fish Picks guide: m.thegreenguide.com/fish.mhtml.

Personally, I’ve been disinterested in most fish while pregnant, though I’m still happy to eat shellfish and such. Has anyone had any interesting stories with eating seafood while pregnant?

I opened the box of Lansinoh lanolin to put in my nightstand drawer and being the kind of freak that reads all the silly packaging materials, I noticed a statement on the insert that suggested using Lansinoh while pregnant to help prepare your nipples for breastfeeding. Of course, being in the organizing mood at the time, I just went “huh, that’s interesting” and tossed out the insert.

But somehow, it creeped back into my mind as I was oiling the belly and breasts towards the end of this morning’s shower – should I skip the vitamin E oil on the boobs in the shower and start using Lansinoh instead? How exactly does lanolin “help prepare” your nipples prior to their future role as suckers-for-a-lifetime? Soften them? Toughen them? I’ve scoured the Lansinoh site for that insert message, but couldn’t find it or any reference to using Lansinoh while pregnant. Hmm, back to doing things the old-fashioned way…

Lanolin is an emollient, which translates to “softener” in my brain; Wikipedia seems to agree with me on that one. According to the encyclopedia god, emollients have three properties: 1) the oil ability to block moisture from escaping, 2) some humectant ability to help the uppermost layer of skin retain more water, and 3) lubrication for the skin against other things. (Like little vampire baby gums, I’d imagine.) So Lansinoh, being “100% pure lanolin”, works like a barrier cream to protect your nipples while breast-feeding from drying, cracking and such. In pregnancy, I’m guessing it probably helps to do something of the same so that you’re less likely to start out the gate with dry nipples.

So maybe I could still use regular food-safe body oils for a similar purpose while pregnant, but have you ever felt lanolin? The stuff is thick and gunky, and I supposed I’d better get used to it now. I like the idea of using a little expressed breastmilk to treat sore/dry nipples, but it seems that doesn’t always work for everyone.

If you have any experience using Laninsoh either while pregnant or while breastfeeding, please share! I’m a curious critter for this stuff… :-)

I was recently reading an article on how in pregnancy, and it got me started thinking on chocolate. While I have had a bit of a sweet tooth while pregnant, it’s mostly been for fruits and smoothies. I’ve been overjoyed since discovering that Trader Joe’s stocks canned lychees, something I’ve only previously seen at the Chinese supermarkets like Ranch 99. (Seems like a few others were just as excited! , , 3) I keep them in the fridge and when I want some, I open the can, drain out the sickly-sweet syrup water, fill it back up with filtered water and let it sit for a half hour. Then I drain that water out, toss it in a bowl and chow down.

Oh, but this entry was about chocolate, right?

(Hmm.. chocolate-dipped lychees – that might require some experimenting.)

While the spouse likes dark chocolate, I’m a milk chocolate snob. Sometimes, I’m even a white chocolate advocate, but usually only for things like white chocolate macadamia nut cookies or Cadbury’s white chocolate buttons. (Does anyone remember English-made white chocolate mice?) Most of the time it’s milk chocolate and the good stuff, which though I hate to say it, is rarely American-made.

While I’ve been a fan of Scharffen Burger for a time, and even though I once swore that Telluride Truffle was the only chocolate I would consume until I died, I must admit there’s another chocolate maker that beats these two hands down: BonBonBar.

makes handmade candybars, and I tend to think of them as a replacement for crap like Twix or Hershey bars, rather than floofy chocolates you’d bring out only for company. (Though we do bring them out for company (or give them as gifts) and knock the pants off our guests everytime.) They’re locally made here in Los Angeles, as organic and local as possible and never with artificial ingredients, like high-fructose corn syrup.

My favorites are the Caramel Nut Bar ($5) and the Malt Bar ($5) in milk chocolate, though they have it in dark chocolate if you’re into that. available starting at $15 – a great idea to treat the next pregnant lady you’re looking to gift! There’s even hand-delivery available to certain areas of L.A.

And now that I’m done writing this, I’m going to finish off my last milk chocolate Malt Bar. :-) Time to get more!!

Since getting The Breastfeeding Cafe the other day and devouring a third of it already, I’ve been looking up more and more about breastfeeding online. Breastfeeding.com has some GREAT resources, I highly encourage you to check it out. There are video clips to watch while pumping or nursing, humor, pictures and video of proper latch-on and positioning, LC help, etc. And one of my favorites pages (on a slummy, gossipy note!) is their breastfeeding celebs pages of who is and isn’t breastfeeding. I’m rather impressed by all the ones that nursed to a year; I’m sure it was no easier for them than it would be for the rest of us.

Gwyneth Paltrow said “I’m not in my pre-pregnancy state. I’m trying not to rush myself. I want my food to be high quality as I’m feeding Apple. I’m not into dieting. Now I’m able to exercise, I’m shrinking back down a little bit. It’s a very slow process.”

Breastfeeding.com – For Moms Only – Breastfeeding Celebrities