Back to Running + The Rest of my Sister’s Trip

This morning I had my 6 week postpartum checkup.

The doctor said everything looked good and is healing nicely. Yeah! I asked her what the odds were of having to do another C-section for any successive births. She said the width of Cullen’s head fell in the 87th percentile on his 27 week ultrasound, so it wasn’t the circumference of his head but the width that prevented me from delivering vaginally. She said we could compare the dimensions of any future babies to see if there is a chance I could have a VBAC (vaginal birth after C-section). I’m not sure how promising this is, large heads run in my husband’s family.

To celebrate being cleared to exercise, I went for a run this evening!

I actually started running 4 weeks postpartum, but I have a hard time calling it running because there was a lot of walking and very little running. The first day I went out, I ran maybe 0.25 mile. Then two days later, I ran somewhere between 0.5 – 0.75 miles, which was broken up by walk breaks. I would only run for one to two minutes at a time before taking a walk break. I have not wore my GPS and go by how I feel these days.

Overall, I’ve been feeling pretty good. It will be a slow recovery, but hopefully I will be able to get back to where I left off. My incision has never hurt, but I can feel it. I also can feel my abs working differently as they are still separated.

My sister’s (Kristy) trip concluded on Saturday after a 10 day stay during Thanksgiving. There’s always so much anticipation when I go home or when family comes to see me, but it is always gone before I know it. We had a lot of fun together, and I miss her dearly already.

We spent a lot of time just hanging out, but those are some of my favorite memories. We also took Sadie to the dog park a few times. On one of those trips she must have found a dead animal because she smelled awful when she got in the car. Craig bathed her immediately when we got home.

One of Craig’s favorite foods is gummy bears, and lo and behold my sister found these gummy bear brats. She got them from Grundhofer’s Meat Market in Minnesota, where they are known for their gummy bear brats along with 100 other unique flavors. I can’t say I would recommend them, but it fun to say I have now eaten a gummy bear bratwurst.

One morning we attended an Advent brunch with my mother-in-law. We had brunch, sang Christmas hymns, and watched a reenactment of The Nativity.

Kristy made sure to hold Cullen as much as she could while she was here. She changed his diaper, rocked him, and watched him while I went running. So thankful for her help.

We put my Christmas decorations out and decorated the Christmas tree we chopped down the previous weekend.

Yes, it is a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but it’s all good.

And of course no trip together is complete without a run. We did a Christmas lights run through the Turnagain neighborhood. I had to stop a walk a few times, but it was so much fun running with Kristy. The time literally flew by.

In honor of our Christmas lights run, I wore my Christmas-themed compression socks.

Afterwards we went to Bear’s Tooth for one last meal together before she flew out. Look at him look at his auntie.

I am bummed she left, but next week my parents will be here for 10 days. Cullen is getting so spoiled. (As am I with the extra help I’ve been able to have!)