Swimming during Pregnancy, Birth, and make the Olympic Team?

If anyone thinks I exercised a lot during pregnancy, how about training for the Olympics? My new hero, Dara Torres, did swimming workouts during her pregnancy and will attempt to make the Olympic team, AGAIN but this time with a 3 1/2 month old. Oh yeah, and Torres is 40 years old. Please, if you want to feel inspired, read this article. Just for your information when I was 7 years old I could swim 25 meters in 20 seconds allowing me to be make the "B" meet. My best friend, Kathleen, could swim it in 19 seconds. Dara Torres does 50 meters in 24:63 seconds. Thanks to Karla, my sister-in-law, for sending me this article.

In my "Mommy exercise news," which seems to pale in comparison, I completed my first mountain bike ride yesterday: 1 hour 45 minutes. YEE HAW! It was the inaugural ride on my custom made Coconico bike, which is pink, thank you very much. It felt great to feel the cool Flagstaff mountain air rushing through my lungs again. I was smiling the whole time. Owen slept at home while Mommy got to stretch her lungs, I mean legs. I can feel the residual fat melting away. On a weigh loss note... I'm down to somewhere around 145-147 pounds. I don't have a scale but occasionally stop by the midwifery to weigh myself (it's 3 blocks away). I have lost approximately 33 pounds in 8 weeks! I assure you I haven't done anything special to accomplish this. I have been walking about one hour a day maybe 3-4 times a week. My "usual" weight is about 135lbs, so I've got 10 pounds to go (I was 140 when I got pregnant, which is WHY I got pregnant but we won't get into that). I can't say I'm chomping at the bit to get back to teaching spinning (indoor cycling) but perhaps in July I'll be ready to put the mic back on. It depends on if Owen can handle the nursery and if it fits with his schedule.

Bottle update: Owen is still fighting it but I have another short wedding on Saturday (my last until June 6). I just got a Playtex drop in style, so we'll try that one today. I've spent a small fortune on bottles.

Sleep update: Owen is now sleeping 3-4 hour stretches at night. Yippie. Ex: down at 7:45, up at 11:45PM, down at 12:00 up at 3:30, down at 3:50 up at 6:30. He did wake at 1AM but Matt put him back down quickly and quietly. I accomplished this by focusing on Owen taking a full feeding on a single breast each nursing and having quality daytime naps. For nursing: 12-18 minutes each time. I have always done single side nursing to avoid the extra lactose (can make for colicky babies) that is found in the 'fore milk*,' but hadn't been watching the clock or him closely enough. Now I try to offer the breast to him until he's at least reached 10 minutes and usually he'll go for an extra 2-8 minutes. This affords him the 'hind' milk, which is rich in fat, proteins and apparently stuff that makes them sleepy. I also focus on nursing when he awakes from a nap during the day and conclude the session with playtime, so that he's more tired when he goes down for a nap, thus he naps longer.

* if you didn't know, one of the most amazing things about breast milk is that it's composition not only changes as the baby gets older, (ie: milk for a 6 week old baby is totally different than milk for a 3 month old baby) it changes as the baby is nursing. First comes the fore milk, which is mostly water, next up is the richer creamy hind milk, which has more protein and fat. If you find your baby gets hungry quickly, you might focus on single side nursing with some burping or diaper changing to keep him alert. You can witness this phenomenon by expressing some milk. If you cannot see the difference with your own eyes during expression, try refrigerating it and you'll see the hind milk separate and rise to the top. Note how much time it took to express that milk and you might have a guideline about how long your baby should nurse. Take into consideration how the pump relates to your baby's suck.