Feeling This Good Can't Be Good, Right?

I had my 20 week ultrasound and pre-natal appointment with the doctor this morning.  The sonographer was amazing - showing us every measurement, where it fit in the norms, every organ, every finger, every toe. 

Conclusions:

• It's a Girl! :-) We're excited to add another girl to our family.
• Everything looks normal - brain, nose/lips (looking for cleft palates), heart, kidneys, intestines, stomach, and she was at an angle that we feel pretty certain that all fingers and toes are there!
• She's actually 96th percentile for weight! And measuring at 20 weeks, 5 days - a little more than the 20 weeks I'm supposedly at!

Then we saw the doctor.  She looked over everything from the sonographer and she was beyond thrilled.  I was giddy with relief - I've had a hard time gaining weight this pregnancy and feel like I've been trying so hard to eat.  I'm actually still one pound below my pre-pregnancy weight, which sounds scary on paper, but the doctor was completely happy with it because as long as the baby progresses looking as great as she does size-wise, it's fine if the rest of my body is trimming down a little.

Besides my concern about weight gain, I was so relieved because I explained to her that there's this little feeling in the back of my mind that kept saying, "You're not supposed to feel this good.  Something must be wrong." I know, weird concept, but it's the thought that not everything can go that well, that the other shoe will drop at any moment.

Which  brings me to my running.  I gave her a chart that showed every workout and the distance totals that I've done since she saw me a month ago.  I had felt so good, I had lengthened my workouts from what she had approved as things seemed to be going well. 

Also, I told her how in the last week, I'd found I wasn't having to watch the heart rate monitor nearly as much.  It appears I may have acclimated to the heat because for the same pace, or a little faster, my heart rate's not going above about 155. 

She was very happy with all I had been doing and wasn't freaked out by the weekly mileage or longer runs.  I then told her about El Scorcho.  I was definitely hesitant about how to explain this race to her, so much so that she looked at my husband and said, "She's about to tell me about something I'm not going to like."

So I told her about the 25K (15.5 miles) race I'm planning on running Sunday.  I told her the following:

• I would never consider this if it wasn't on a 5K loop.  So if something feels wrong, I can stop 9 or 12 miles in, easy to stop.
• A good friend and veteran runner, who's fast and has run through 2 of her 4 pregnancies was going to be my pacer/crew, taking every step with me and making sure I drank and ate enough.
• I know the folks coordinating the medical from Baylor and had gone so far as to call him to find out who would be out there.  It appears there will be, besides ambulance EMTs, two athletic trainers and a nurse, with the Baylor air-conditioned van.  Crucial because I have trouble at my angle around the belly relaxing the round ligament and oblique muscles on the side of my belly, so it will be easy to explain to an athletic trainer what muscle I need helped.
• I'll have food and drink easily available at the end of each loop.
• She asked how long it would take for me to complete a race of this kind, I said 4 hours. Probably in the low 4+ hrs.  I thought she'd be really upset with that.  Instead, she asked if I planned to take walk breaks or breaks generally.  I told her short breaks at the end of each loop, and then I planned to do the whole thing with 1 minute walk breaks for every 5 minutes of running.  She said, "Oh, okay."
• Then I told her it was at midnight. Again, thought she'd be really concerned.  But no, she seemed relieved, said that it was at the coolest part of the day then.

After all this, she said I've obviously thought seriously about this, I'm taking all necessary precautions, she thinks so far I've demonstrated that I listen to my body, and as long as I stay smart, she's fine with me doing the race.  In fact, she's so fine with everything that I don't have to do another ultrasound in four weeks as originally intended under the premise that I'm running, she's okay waiting for 6 weeks!

Oh, by the way, did I mention this will be the longest race I've ever done? I haven't done a long run of over 13.1 miles in about 4 1/2 years.  And the Susan G. Komen 3-Day walk (20 miles per day for 3 days) wasn't a race, so it doesn't count, and that was 5 years ago.   So this is all so exciting.

All in all, what a big appointment this was.  Steve and I now need to focus on baby names.  I'm so relieved that I can stop stressing over the whole "things are too good" feeling and no more worrying about my weight gain.  I'll see how long we can keep this running thing going, and I'll now focus on how happy I am with how good I feel and knowing the baby is so healthy too!

Happy Running, and wish me luck on Saturday night!  And if you feel like coming out to cheer, I would welcome the distractions, and I'm sure the other 499 running this race will too!