Born to Run? Running after Birth...

I am starting to wonder how you get any real exercise with a baby. I know, shocking, right? I can walk all over the place with the baby. But I want to start running again. This isn't working out very well so far.

I was able to get to the gym twice and get on the treadmill. I think I posted about that earlier. I realized that I needed to get a new sports bra to accomodate the milk jugs. So I did that a few weeks ago. After getting a few good supportive sports bras from Title 9 (love them), I have been unable to get out to run since. I started to go the day after getting the bras (it's been 2 weeks now) but my husband needed to do some work and so I had to watch the baby. Since then I haven't had any time to do it. Either no one else is available to watch the baby, or I have a zillion other things that have to be done. (I haven't been able to go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription in the last week, either.) It's frustrating, because I really do want to get out there and get moving again. It's just not happening. Anyone out there have any great ideas? She's still too little for a jogging stroller--she has to be 4 months old, or is it older?, to have the neck strength necessary.

I did return to work this week. It was so hard! We are lucky to be able to have a nanny come to our house, so we don't have to wake her up early and get her ready and take her somewhere. But it was still very, very hard. I get up at 5, pump, get ready for work, and leave by 6. Baby is still asleep, and usually so is my hubby. I don't get off work until 8pm, and get home between 8:15 and 8:30. By then it's time for her to be going to bed (and that's now, in a couple months her bedtime will have moved up even earlier...she'll either be in bed when I get home or she'll be way overtired and needing to be there). Again, I'm not exactly reinventing any mommy problems here. But it's tough.

Not only was leaving Lucy all day hard, but getting back into the job was also very tough. I'm in a new career. I was in my new job for two months, then was off for 3 months. I wasn't really feeling proficient by the time I left, and coming back felt very rough. The second day was better than the first. My job isn't really normal--you don't want your anesthetist to be preoccupied with her newborn baby, or to be feeling like she's off her game for any reason. And then there was the pumping. The closest location I can pump in is the shower stall in the locker room. I get two 15 minute breaks and two meal breaks in my 13 hour work day. During those breaks I have to pump and eat, and getting there and back takes almost 15 minutes in itself. Then there's setting up, pumping (which requires relaxing, ha!), washing everything up, and getting back. Plus the joy of eating in a shower stall on a little stool. This country is so messed up when it comes to supporting working parents. And this is at a big hospital, one that is supposed to be supportive of lactating moms. Needless to say, on that first day, I was only able to pump a little over half what I usually do. Very frustrating.

I think next week will be better, though. I'm orienting to the areas I couldn't work in when I was pregnant next week. The nanny has the lay of the land, more or less. I hear this gets better, and everyone says that eventually I'll be glad to get to work and get away from the demands of parenting for a little while. I'm sure that's true, but for now it's definitely hard!