Simply Bike

cycling while pregnant: the first trimester, the second time around

{cycling at 12 weeks pregnant}

As I write this, I am seventeen weeks along in this pregnancy. I’ve made it through the difficult first trimester that seemed to leave me paralyzed with fatigue most of the time. I don’t remember feeling this tired with my first pregnancy and I definitely did not feel any such strong pregnancy symptoms with my second pregnancy that only lasted 7 weeks. Despite the nausea and fatigue, I still made it out for the occasional bike ride and now that the first trimester fog has lifted, my bike and I are back on track. Since this pregnancy (and my relationship to cycling) seems to be pretty different from when I wrote about cycling while pregnant before, I thought I’d add to the dialogue with a recap of how cycling through the first trimester the second time around is going.

(I’m going to refer to this as my second time cycling while pregnant, but technically, it’s my third time as I cycled the entire seven weeks that I was pregnant with my pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage. In retrospect, it’s interesting that I felt completely fine during those seven weeks and experienced no fatigue or nausea and had absolutely no trouble biking as much as I wanted to on our Florida vacation. Since that pregnancy ended shortly after it began and since I didn’t experience any pregnancy symptoms, I’m going to refer to this experience as my second time of “cycling while pregnant.”)

Reading my previous post on first trimester cycling, I’m struck by how different of an experience that was compared to this one. I felt strong, energetic, able, barely affected by the pregnancy. The tiredness was manageable and my nausea mostly came in the evenings. I was also in a much different place when I became pregnant: I had been running regularly before that and cycling regularly as well. Although I had scaled back my work-outs considerably from the previous year when I had trained for and run two half marathons within two weeks of each other (and set a new PR for myself), I was still in great physical shape. That stamina stayed with me as I continued to bike, run, and walk during the first trimester albeit at a slower pace.

Fast forward to this pregnancy: Picture a long cold winter with much time spent indoors. Add to it a toddler keeping me on my feet all day long. Throw in a part-time lecturer position at the university. Now picture the “for sale” sign in front of our house and imagine all of the work required to sell a home. Am I exercising regularly….? Ha! Am I exhausted? You bet! It’s hard to say whether the first trimester this time around was so much more brutal because of the nature of the pregnancy or the fact that life has changed for us. Life is crazier, busier, harder, and also fuller. I sink into bed exhausted each night but in a good way. I wouldn’t change a thing about this but I also am far away from those earlier care-free days of just me, my excitingly new pregnancy, and the schedule of someone still relatively unencumbered by many of the responsibilities still to come.

As a result, I tried to rest as often as possible and only cycled or walked when it felt good. My longest bike rides during the first trimester were on Kidical Mass days when I biked far more than I would on a regular day (often around 10 miles round-trip) but with the added help of having T. pull our daughter in the trailer.

Oh yeah! That’s another thing: cycling while pregnant this time around meant cycling with TWO on board: one growing baby inside my belly and one excited toddler in her bike seat or trailer. Add that to the mix and there you have it: cycling this time around just wasn’t as easy.

But it was still very much desired and I tried to bike as much as I could, my body permitting. I accepted my slower pace and the fact that some days (or weeks) I just couldn’t muster the energy for it. But when I could, it was glorious.

{bike ride to the botanical garden for Mother’s Day, 12 weeks pregnant}

Lest you think that cycling this time around (and being pregnant this time around) is all work and no fun, let me add that things have drastically improved as I have made my way into the second trimester. I have more energy again and I feel good. Last week I started attending prenatal yoga classes and I biked there and back. I’ve been going to free Saturday morning yoga sessions at a near-by park and I’ve been biking there too. Another thing that has helped: our recent home move put us in a much more central position to all of the businesses and amenities in town so where it used to be a 4+ mile bike ride to get to most of my destinations, we’re now within a mile or two of most places I’d want to go. This means that I can bike or walk to everything and that I’m slowly building up endurance and strength again.

{heading to prenatal yoga at 16 weeks}

{free yoga in the park. I biked there.}

I mostly want to record this experience for those who come to this site looking for information on cycling while pregnant (one of the most popular searches bringing readers here) and find my account from two years ago. If you read that and thought, must be great to be her and feel so good, I don’t feel great at all so I guess I shouldn’t try to continue biking because it’s just not fun anymore… to those women I want to say: hang in there! Even if the first trimester is kicking your ass, it won’t necessarily stay that way! It will likely get better and you’ll be glad you tried to stay active when possible. Take things slowly and listen to your body (and health care provider) and trust that your body knows what it needs and how much activity it can handle while its growing another human being. Walk, swim, bike, run when it feels good and don’t when it doesn’t and know that you’ll likely go through many stages and levels of (in)activity during these 40 weeks.

As for me? I feel good enough that I’m going to bike to the pool today (a first! – combining a bike ride with some light swimming). And I hope to have many more bike rides left in me this trimester and the next. Happy cycling!

Are you cycling while pregnant? How has it been going for you? What would you tell someone wondering about cycling while pregnant? Please leave your comments below! I’d love to hear your impressions!

For more cycling while pregnant testimonials, check out these reader profiles and stay tuned for a new profile coming later this week! Would you like to participate in the series? Send me a message and I’ll provide the details!

Posted in Biking while Pregnant, Family, Helmet Head, Life in a Small Town, Pregnancy, Summer Cycling | 6 Comments

on the move

I appologize for the lack of posts the last couple of weeks but we have been completely consumed by our recent move. Our families came into town to help out (which was hugely helpful!) and many of our friends came over on Saturday to help lift all the heavy furniture. We’re still wrapping up things at our old house and unpacking at the new house and getting our toddler and dog acclimated to their new home. We have no internet access at home yet and our days are still chaotic and busy but we absolutely LOVE our new home and neighborhood. We keep pinching ourselves to check that it’s real. We are now the happy wardens of a nearly century-old home in the historic district, a short walk or bike ride from parks, shops, restaurants, and the library. This move has been so much more difficult than any move I’ve undertaken in the past (I guess that’s what happens when you’re moving three individuals and a dog rather than just one girl out of a dorm room or tiny appartment). But despite the work and the exhaustion, we’re thrilled to be finally home.

Posted in Family, Food and Home | 3 Comments

may’s baby book club meet-up

For May’s baby book club session, we read What Makes a Rainbow by Betty Schwartz with illustrations by Donna Turner. The night before our book club met, C. and I spent an hour in our basement along with our dog as we took shelter from the tornadoes that swept the country. In Oklahoma, its presence left devastating damage and loss. Here in Iowa we were much more fortunate to barely feel its graze as the tornado swept through our communities. Nonetheless, we were all a little shaken by it the next morning when we came together to read the serendipitous selection of What Makes a Rainbow.

We made rainbow fruit plates and rainbow ribbon bookmarks and spent the morning basking in the sweet mundane, not taking a moment for granted and feeling so fortunate for our safety and well-being.

You can see more photos from our book club meeting here and read what “Baby Book Club Mama” had to write about May’s book club selection.

Since I last wrote about our book club, my post was picked up by Offbeat Families and featured on their site. I hope our club inspires other book-loving parents to start a similar group for their tots as it’s really a lot of fun for all of us; kids and parents alike.

Because we realize that not every parents is as able to provide books, snacks, and craft supplies for their child, we started the Book Club Pals. With a small donation made by each of us in the group, we are able to put together a goodie bag each month that includes the book we read, the ingredients for the snack we made, and the supplies for the craft or activity themed to the book. My friend S., who organizes our book club and who writes the blog under the moniker “Baby Book Club Mama” is also the one who spearheaded this initiative. Each month, she takes the good bag to a community organization that selects a family in need to be our “pals” for the month and to receive the book and supplies that allows their child(ren) to have his/her own book club party at home.

You can read more about our Book Club Pals program here (and see what we donated in March, April, and May).

If you’re inspired to start your own Baby Book Club or already have something like this going, I’d love to hear about it! What children’s books do you read or would you love to read if you had a book club for your little ones? I’m really excited for June’s book and meet-up as it’s going to be a field trip to somewhere extra special… more on that next month!

Posted in Baby, Family, Food and Home, Reading Recommendations | Tagged baby book club, reading with kids, what makes a rainbow | Leave a comment

travel with kids: two things we LOVE right now

We just took a seven hour drive from our home in Iowa to St. Louis for graduation at my alma mater this past weekend. Seven hours in a car with an energetic 21-months old is quite a feat. To make the long trip easier, I uploaded a few cartoons on our iPad and gave C. some much appreciated screen time while I drove. I haven’t written any “travel with kids” posts in a while, but I thought these two much loved items were worth sharing.

Two things we LOVE for travel with our nearly two-year-old are:

1. The iPad headrest mount that allows us to hook the iPad unto the seat in front of her and turn it into a TV screen. It’s easy to use, fairly inexpensive, easy to unhook, and invaluable in turning the iPad into mini cinema for the car.

2. The Califone Toddler Headphones (we got the tiger ones as seen above but there panda bear ones available as well). These headphones are wonderful! They’re meant for toddlers so the volume is capped at a reasonable level and they’re just the right size to comfortably fit their heads. C. doesn’t mind wearing them at all. She’s now able to put them on and take them off on her own. The beauty of using these is that they allow her to watch a movie without filling the car with the sounds of her cartoons. This allowed me to either drive either in silence or while listening to my audio books or NPR. They’re are also great for flying as it lets C. to watch something on the iPad without subjecting all the neighboring passangers to her cartoons.

What are some of your favorite items for traveling with kids?

PS: For those of you who followed our blog, here’s the reason for my trip to St. Louis:

Congratulations to A & E who received their PhD’s!! I was thrilled to celebrate with them although it was also a bitter-sweet ending to an era. We’re now all graduated and moving on to new life adventures and projects. While I’m really happy for my friends and their accomplishments, I’m also a bit sad that we’re all going to be separated by many miles from now now and that our days of grad school companionship are truly over. Thank you, A & E, for a truly wonderful friendship that I know will continue to grow through the coming years despite the geographical distance between us.

Posted in Family, Product Reviews, Travel with Kids | 6 Comments

slowing down

To say that we are stretched thin right now would be a massive understatement. This morning, after attending May’s baby book club, I dropped C. off at daycare and returned home to unclog a kitchen sink, unpack from a weekend trip to St. Louis, put away two loads of laundry, do another load of laundry, apply for two jobs I came across over the weekend, and pack. Not pack for a trip but for a move. Our move that is happening in roughly a week from now.

That’s just today. Everyday is similarly full of things to be done, some more urgently needed than others but never with an hour to rest or spare.

When C. started daycare last week, I thought it would open up this huge amount of time for me. That I would have time to tackle all of those chores and life to-do lists while still finding the time to finally read a book again or take a nap or go on a walk. Maybe even do some prenatal yoga to start my days. Somehow, that time between dropping her off and picking her up in the afternoon flies. Before I know it, I’m back in the car and heading to her school. I write another list of things to do for the next day and add that to the one from the day before.

The last few months were busy because I was teaching a course and taking care of our daughter full time. The only childcare I had was for the time actually spent in the classroom and one additional two-hour slot a week for some lesson planning and grading. I did most of my lesson prep and course-related work in the evenings or during C’s naptimes. Add to that first trimester nausea and fatigue and I was definitely feeling overextended. I thought that finishing the semester and starting daycare would take care of everything.

But it doesn’t. And the truth is that it’s as much my fault as it is external circumstances. Because I’m a prodigeous over-achiever and over-committer. I take on way too many projects at once and I have a hard time saying no to anything. I love a good challenge and thrive on being active and engaged with lots of things at once. I’m sure that’s why I was able to survive grad school – a time during which you’re expected to teach, be a student, conduct research, write, travel, submit grant proposals and fellowship applications, mentor undergrads, serve on committees, and oh yeah, if there’s any time left in there, have a personal life. Because these are your prime years, so go ahead and get married. Start a family. Just, you know, don’t get too behind on your comps.

Maybe it’s a lingering case of grad-student-itis, maybe it’s just my personality, but I need to slow down. And nothing’s a better reminder of that than a tired, achey, pregnant body.

I know things won’t slow down a whole lot with our new home once we move because we’ll still need to unpack and get settled and plant a vegetable garden and make the space our own. And I still want to lead monthly Kidical Mass rides and volunteer at the library. I’m also still applying for jobs that come up and are a good fit and that takes time. Job applications and cover letters take lots of time. So does maintaining a blog and answering reader emails (although this is a thousand times more enjoyable of a time committment than applying for work). And editing submissions for Flyover Feminism and answering those reader emails also takes time.

I’m not really sure where to cut back (cutting back is not my forte, taking on more is my forte) but I recognize that it needs to happen. I want to be able to enjoy this time before the baby comes and I need to find a more balanced rhythm to my days: one that includes reading a book, taking a walk, attending a prenatal yoga class, or simply sitting still with my eyes closed and my mind blank. I also want to enjoy this coming summer, the last one with our daughter as our only child. I want to be there, fully present and awake, savoring this time for what it is before the chaos and sleep-deprived fog of newborn parenting sets in. I want our weekends to be relaxed and sponteneous and free of urgently needing to be done chores.

So I’m slowing down. And I’m cutting back. And I’m intentionally doing less. I’m going against every grad school/academia-ingrained instinct and aiming lower. Much more lower.

I’m taking a deep breath today, looking around, seeing what really needs my attention and vowing to live each day with a little more room for unplanned life.

Posted in Academia, Family | 9 Comments

bike ride to the first farmer’s market of the season

Thank you all for the congratulatory wishes on our announcement! I can’t wait to share more thoughts on cycling while pregnant in the coming months. Here are some photos from a recent bike ride with C. and baby in utero to the farmer’s market…

{we rode through a nearly deserted campus now that the semester is over}

{we stopped to watch the train go by and to wave to it of course. C. is obsessed with trains right now}

{we parked our bike, sampled the goodies, stocked up on farm fresh lettuce (the only produce available right now with the recent snow and all of the cold weather we’ve had), and ran into a ton of familiar faces (including my new friend and awesome biking mama who I met at our first Kidical Mass ride of the year)}

{we packed all of our belongings back into my bike crate – I’m constantly amazed just how much stuff fits into something as basic as a rear rack crate}

{and then we rode home with bear rescued from the crate and safely tucked underneath the seatbelt bar because these two are inseperable!}

♥ More farmer’s market bike rides from last summer and fall.
♥ And a farmer’s market visit in Ohio

Also:

♥ I use the Tom Bihn Snake Charmer (packing cube) as a diaper pouch and I swear by it. Perfect size for diapering essentials and can easily go from purse to car to bike basket to where have you. Best trade for a diaper bag I ever made.

Posted in Biking while Pregnant, Biking with Kids, Spring Cycling | Tagged farmers market | 7 Comments

new life

New life is all around us. Our backyard exploded overnight and looks like this now…

Also, there’s THIS new life!…

Yay!!!!

We’re thrilled to be welcoming baby #2 into our lives this November! We finally heard the heartbeat this week and caught a glimpse of a very mobile and very active little baby that we can’t wait to hold in our arms this winter! We are so excited about this and so thrilled to be giving C. a little sister or brother. ♥

Posted in Baby, Family | Tagged baby, pregnancy | 49 Comments

this eight feet {a short film about parklets}

This Eight Feet from Seamus Harte on Vimeo.

Thanks so much to Meli of Bikes and the City for sending this my way: an awesome six minute documentary about parklets in San Francisco and their story of origin. I recently shared some photos from our very first parklet here in our college town in Iowa, which will hopefully reappear as the city writes street ordinances allowing for such people spots were parking spaces used to be. So thrilled to see that our own town is welcoming such awesome people-centered projects!

Love the different examples of parklets shown above, especially the one right around 2:44 of film. Enjoy!

Posted in Inspiration | Tagged parklet | Leave a comment

the trailing spouse

I really appreciate all the feedback you gave me on my recent post asking you what you’d like to read more of. It feels like I’ve been at a sort of cross-roads with this blog and I haven’t been entirely certain how to proceed. Do I keep writing about biking or has that been exhausted? How much of our daily family happenings should I keep writing about? Do I even have anything of value to add on the topic of academic motherhood now that I’m barely making a career in that field…?

While I contemplated narrowing the focus of the blog on just biking and outdoor family adventures, several of you wrote that you appreciated and wanted more posts on balance and life/academia.

So here’s a post on balance. And academia. And motherhood and family and community:

When it comes to balance, the overarching theme of many things written on this topic seems to be how to make more room for your personal life amidst work and career requirements. For me, it’s the opposite that I struggle with: how to built more of a career to compliment my identity as partner and mother.

I feel a whole range of mixed emotions as a result: guilt that I’m unsatisfied with working little or less than others (after all, isn’t that what everyone seems to be after: more time for personal goals and less time at work?). (And here I’m talking about paid work, which our society often sees as the only kind of “work” that counts.) I also feel shame that here I am, after nine years of grad school with a PhD in hand, struggling to make some sort of career happen. But I also feel fortunate that in this tough job market one of us has a great career going and that I don’t have to worry about putting food on my child’s plate or a roof over her head despite job rejection after job rejection.

I’m sure my story isn’t unique: it’s the story of many a trailing spouse who’s made sacrifices to his or her own career so that the other partner could follow a promising path. I’m happy that we’re not both struggling and that my husband has effectively and efficiently established himself in his field. He works very hard and he’s more than worthy of where he is now. And we had always agreed that we would follow the career path of the person whose job seemed most promising and could best provide for our family. (Naively, I thought that an advanced degree in the Humanities could somehow compete with one in the Sciences and that that person could be me – ha!)

So here we are: my quest for balance is one that pushes me everyday to embrace all of the good in my life while patiently waiting for the one missing puzzle piece to fall into place. I love our life and our community and am very happy with where T’s job has landed us. It’s not where I ever imagined myself being but it’s a place that I’ve come to love and appreciate. And most of all, I love the people we’ve met here and the friendships we’ve made.

I love that we’re able to live a simple life in the best possible meaning of that term: close to friends and neighbors with little traffic and short commute times and a whole lot of parks, green spaces, and activities for kids. I appreciate that despite it being a small city, our town boasts diverse and rich cultural events: everything from music and theater performances to a small but wonderful farmer’s market to annual art fairs to free community classes at the coop to a whole lot more. The university brings with it regular cultural events and nationally renown speakers, most of which are free to the community at large. And what we lack here we can easily find in larger urban areas such as Minneapolis or Chicago, which are only a half a day’s drive away.

Life here is pretty good and finding balance – in the traditional sense of the term – in such a family friendly place is not that difficult. Most of our friends work hard but also make it a priority to spend evenings and weekends with their families and children and are actively involved in adding to our community. It’s been so (surprisingly!) easy to put together a monthly community bike ride because people here are interested in healthy, outdoorsy, family focused events. It’s also been relatively easy to fill our days with things such as our monthly toddler book club, our babysitting co-op, trips to the park with other families, and regular meet-ups at the library for story time (where I now also co-lead a monthly German story time as part of the world languages story time program).

So is it fair for me to complain that it’s still hard being a trailing spouse? Should I not admit that I struggle with where I am career-wise? That I sometimes feel lost and angry and resentful? Well, there is it. The ugly truth. Being a trailing partner – even when everything else in your life is going great and you know you have so much to feel thankful for – still sucks.

As I put in my daily time looking at job listings, polishing my resume, and crafting hopeful cover letters, I’m try to stay optimistic and patient. And I would love to hear from you if you’ve ever found yourself in a similar situation – how did you resolve your trailing spouse status? How did you build a career while geographically immobile? How did you stay sane during a seemingly never ending job search? (Or, more importantly, – do you have a job for me??)

Posted in Academia, Family | Tagged trailing spouse | 36 Comments

in which we biked to the botanical garden for mother’s day

This year’s Mother’s Day was truly the best day ever. We kept it simple – no gifts, no fancy dinner – just breakfast out at my favorite restaurant, a nap, a bike ride to the botanical garden (free admission to moms on Mother’s Day means we’ve gone every year since I became pregnant with C. We’re not ones to pass up a good deal ;), concluded with home made pizza by request.

This year I received my first Mother’s Day card from C (made with a little help from papa) which proudly showed off her crayon coloring skills and completely melted my heart. It now rests on the fridge where I can see it every time I walk by.

Amidst a busy month of moving, starting daycare, a couple of out of town trips, and preparing our current house as a rental, yesterday provided a much appreciated respite from the chaos. The gorgeous weather, the bike ride, and the delicious food was just icing on the cake. I hope we can continue our tradition of bike rides to the botanical garden for many more Mother’s Days to come.

{I didn’t post any pictures from last year’s Mother’s Day outing but here are some from two years ago when I was pregnant with C. Looks like we did pretty much the same thing as this year just in reverse order: Reiman Gardens and The Cafe for a meal out. We’re nothing if not predictable (ahem, … boring?).}