Things I Can't Help But Eat/Do Anyway

When you're pregnant there is a list a mile long of foods your not supposed to eat, things you're not supposed to do and substances you're not supposed to take.

For the most part I'm being a good girl and adhering to the pregnant girl rules, after all it took forever for us to be in this position the least I can do is not indulge in harmful foods/behaviors.

That being said there are certain things that I just cannot be bothered with and honestly there is no good data supporting the avoidance of these.

So, I still indulge in:

Coffee - I still have a cup of coffee every single morning - the data that says you should avoid caffeine is done with woman that have somewhere in the 5 cups of coffee a day range, yes that much caffeine is likely to stress your tiny baby. But there is NOTHING out there that can support a cup of coffee a day as being a danger to your baby. Some midwives and Dr.'s even suggest a caffeinated beverage to help with headaches that can sometimes plague pregnant women because most painkillers are off-limits.

Wine - Ok, I'm avoiding wine this first 13 weeks but in all honesty it's because the smell of wine makes me want to gag, not because I believe a small glass of wine once in awhile will hurt my baby.  Tomorrow night I'm going out with friends and you can bet your ass I'm ordering a glass of wine, no I probably won't drink the whole thing since the smell is gagging me, but I will definitely TRY to drink it. Again NO data to support a glass of wine once a week or so is harmful to your baby specifically after the first trimester when baby is done developing and starts the growing phase.

Deli meat - I try, but every once in awhile a turkey sandwich just hits the spot.

Soft cheese - This rule is for UNpasteurized soft cheeses but for some reason a lot of women just quit all soft cheeses altogether. Here in the good old US you can't sell cheese in supermarkets that are unpasteurized, so it's not much of an issue if you're buying cheese for consumption at home BUT check the label and if you're in a restaurant, ask someone if the buffalo mozzarella is pasteurized, the answer is almost always YES, so soft cheeses have stayed on the menu for me.

Fish - Ugh, so many rules! I am not a huge fish eater anyway, but I do love me some tuna fish, so I keep my tuna sandwiches down to once a week and only eat fish at restaurants if I'm really craving some fish.  Recently my midwife recommend I put MORE fish on the menu because fish has some great benefits for pregnant women.  And here I was thinking I was being a good girl.

Sex - Really? People really abstain for 9 months? Seems silly and yet everytime I have a Dr. or midwife appt they make it a point to mention that sex is ok...as though people think generally it is NOT ok and they have to reassure them.  I have to admit though the weird "mini-contractions" that happen afterward are unpleasant and a bit of a deterrent for me.

Nail polish - Again, really? Sorry, my nails will continue to be painted. And I can't be bothered to buy special organic nail polish when I have so much already.

Dye my hair - I'm still getting highlights, though I'm careful to mention that I'm pregnant so they keep away from my scalp.

Kitty litter - My husband is gone for several days at a a time there is no way I can NOT clean the kitty litter.  I make sure not to touch anything and wash my hands immediately after and this is husband's chore when he's home, but when he's gone I take over and really don't worry about it.

Baths - I take a bath Every. Single. Day. and I never check the temperature.  As long as I'm not sweating I don't worry about hard boiling my baby.

In general I really believe babies are heartier than we (specifically the infertiles who have waited and struggled longer than most to get to this point) believe them to be.  All the drinking and smoking during pregnancy in the 50's did little to deter birth rates, if babies couldn't survive all these small things I just mentioned our population would be in TROUBLE.

What else am I missing?  And since there are SO many of you lately who just got your BFP's there is an assload of you who can join in this convo!  What have/do you guys indulge in (or plan to indulge in if your BFP is new or if you haven't go yours yet) that "they" recommend you stay away from?

Napa

One great thing about San Francisco is that wine country is a mere hour and a half away. AND it's not plagued by the fog that is ruining my summer here in San Francisco.

So in honor of my husband turning the Big 3-9 at the beginning of July (ie. the last year before he's an old man!) we decided to head out to Napa Valley for some delicious tasty wine.

You may remember that last year for Dom's birthday we did almost the exact same thing and went to the Hunter Valley in Australia for some wine tasting. Man, I'm original in my Dom birthday weekend planning!

Regardless of that fact, I did plan this trip out a little different in that we went bike riding!

You see, Dom likes to bike ride and Dom likes wine and it's Dom's birthday, so obliging wife that I am I arranged bike wine tasting.

Little did I know when planning said bike ride that the temperatures would be dipping into the 100's in Napa that weekend. Had I known, I would have planned something a bit more...air conditioned.

Nevertheless bike riding we went. Hundred degree heat be damned!

The day started off well enough in that it was only 80 or so degrees out, which is tolerable, and away we went, hoping to get the bike riding over and done with before it got too hot out.

Looking awesome, don't we know it!

We made it to exactly 2 vineyards before the heat really caught up to us and wine tasting no longer seemed like a viable option in that we were sweating so profusely that regardless of how much water we were drinking the wine was just going to dehydrate us and then you know...we would have died.

We did however stop off at Mumm, which is strictly champagne and sat ourselves down in their fabulous deck with mist spraying on us for an hour while we alternated between sipping champagne and guzzling bottles of water, dreading stepping back into the baking heat and away from the mist sprayers.

Aw...the mist.

By the end of the day my ass hurt from not being used to riding a bike and I thought I was going to die from heat stroke, and I don't recommend riding bikes in 100 degree heat, BUT when we finally made it back to the hotel and sat ourselves down in our swimming pool I have nothing but fond memories of biking through Napa Valley.

Maybe next year I'll come up with something besides wine tasting for Dom's birthday, maybe I should start thinking now, anyone got any brilliant ideas?

Bushwalking, wine and kangaroos

The weekend began on Friday night, which was Dom's 38th birthday, he arrived home from NZ just in time for us to go out to a fancy dinner at Altitude, which has a gorgeous view of the other side of the harbor from our apt. In fact you can see our apartment from Altitude...which was amusing, I'm sad I don't have a picture of it.

Anyway, we got a fancy 4 course meal with wine pairings and at the end of the night Dom looked like this:

That is Dom going to bed with the cool tie I bought him earlier in the week, which wasn't for his birthday, because ties are boring presents for birthdays, but it's still a damn cool tie if I do say so myself. Anyway, he'd been running on 4 hours of sleep for the last week and he went to bed as soon as we got home.

The next morning we got up late and got on our merry way about noon. We had a very chill, relaxed drive to Hunter Valley wine country, stopping in a little town called BROOKLYN for some gas (petrol to Aussies).

Who knew there was a Brooklyn in Oz?

An hour or so into our journey we started to see these signs:

but still no kangaroos (or wombats for that matter) EXCEPT DEAD ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD! And amusingly enough, we saw one of those kangaroo crossing signs with a dead kangaroo RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT and then later down the road a wombat crossing sign with a dead wombat RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT! I figure they were admiring the pictures of themselves from the middle of the road...using the light from the oncoming car of course and just didn't have time to get out of the way. I almost took pictures, it was THAT amusing, but thought better of it, because who really wants to look at pictures of dead kangaroos and wombats?

Anyway, aside from the dead ones we hadn't seen any kangaroos and then suddenly we hit the kangaroo jackpot! A whole shitload of kangaroos...just hanging out...I squealed, literally squealed! I sounded like a pig...yes I'm awesome like that. Seriously, one of the coolest things about Australia so far is these goddamn kangaroos. Over the weekend we saw many more and I got excited each and every time I saw one. THEY ARE COOL.

Yeah it's blurry, whatever, they're still kangaroos!

Moving on.

Sunday we headed off for our wine tour. Now, we've done our fair share of wine tastings, both in Sonoma, California as well as Portland, Oregon and let me just say that the Aussie experience was somewhat different.

First and foremost, most people take a wine tour on a wine bus, this is brilliant for about 7 different reasons, the most important of which is that it keeps you from drinking and driving (or as they say here, drink driving). Also, YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING. The driver has your tour all laid out for you, so you literally just sit back and enjoy. All the vineyards are expecting you and set up special group tastings, which means EXTRA WINE! Seriously, we visited 5 vineyards and tried at least NINE different wines at each vineyard. In a word, AWESOME. Now, keep in mind that the tour lasts about 6 hours and starts at 10am, so for the first time EVER, I found myself dumping out wine that I didn't enjoy. They were just so generous with their wine AND ALL THE TASTINGS WERE FREE.

In both Cali and Oregon the tastings are anywhere from $5-$10 so i guess you feel like you paid for that wine and thus don't want to waste a drop and by the end of a day of wine tasting, YOU ARE WASTED. I gotta say I enjoyed this way better, we came home with a bunch of yummy wine and we did not end up totally smashed at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon. Not that I mind being smashed on a Sunday afternoon, a proper NYC brunch is not complete without ending up so, but we were supposed to go out for a fancy dinner at 7:30 and I wasn't sure I could muster up the energy for that after a heavy day of drinking.

We toured around in a "Cheers" bus

Monday, we packed ourselves up and headed back towards Sydney, stopping off for a quick bushwalk. Now, I don't know about you, but I had it in my head that a bushwalk would be different than hiking. For future reference, IT'S THE SAME THING. They just call it a bushwalk because they call their forests "the bush" for some reason. So, anyway, we went for a "bushwalk" in the rain, which honestly was more fun than it sounds.

Setting off on our "bushwalk"

Us and Mel (the car)

Random carving in the rock

We have a wide angle lens and like to take cool pictures of ourselves, what can I say the two faces in the camera gets boring and we are exciting.

See, I am "bushwalking"

Monkey Face Road led to Monkey Face Lookout, Australians have awesome names for things.

And that concludes our first trip outside of Sydney together, I didn't even mind the fact that it was the 4th of July and we did absolutely nothing that has anything to do with America whatsoever. In fact, I completely forgot it was even a holiday at home. What did everyone else do this weekend for 4th of July?