Bleeding / Spotting While Pregnant

I like to believe I’m an expert at MY life. I mean if I’m not then who is? But I’ve never been pregnant before. I also haven’t bled while pregnant before, until, the eve of my 12week mark. Spotting while pregnant is a lot more common than most women are aware of. Of course it is not an ideal situation. It’s a serious situation that needs immediate medical attention. Bleeding and especially fresh red blood can be associated with miscarriage. Miscarriages also do happen, a lot more often than we think. People often say that miscarriages are more common nowadays because of the stressful and demanding lifestyles we lead. I honestly think, that our mothers and their mothers never really spoke about those types of things. We on the other hand are a generation comfortable with talking about sex, pms symptoms and our period. So it would make sense we would hear about these occurrences. I do believe that health, weight, stress and living conditions play an important role in growing healthy babies. But that being said, there are many homeless, poorly fed and intoxicated moms who bear children too. Life is ultimately in Gods hands and he knows best.

I discovered I was 5 weeks pregnant at the height of my summer fitness. I periodise my training or go through phases, as one should, you can’t just chase a peak all year. This is very different to changing your mind on what you’re doing in the gym or on the road etc. I put in the same types of work all year, for all the years. The only thing that changes is intensity and frequency. From conception of the bean I was putting in the most sessions in the gym and with my boxing coach and outdoors. My fitness was peaking and my running was pretty strong. Keep in mind I wouldn’t consider myself a runner, but high intensity bouts is my jam. Moving at speed and not for long at all. The last time I ran 21kms was 8 years ago. I’m just not interested in being on my legs for that long. I also don’t like big crowds of people and I hate taking myself so seriously. I just want to be alone and free, but little did I know my bean was living his fittest life too.

I continued running, in the mountain and smashing stairs, all the while I took it easy, running behind my girls and holding myself back. Always concerned and worried about nonsense I had read and the silly things that people have said. This is after all my first time at the rodeo. Until one Saturday I climbed Platteklip Gorge with my girls, we were about to do one of my fave express contour runs. I was so frustrated that day – my emotions got the best of me and I smashed the trail and flew down the cable car steps. ‘Flew” is an expression I use when I’m hardly touching the ground but “moering” my way lol. The wind was howling and I ran back on the road to the car at a speed. For the rest of the day I had violent cramps, I rested until the next evening. I found I had bled a large amount of old blood. I was admitted overnight to the hospital. Thankfully, all praise to the Highest, the baby is alive and healthy. I was spotting old blood for the next few days and I definitely felt internal trauma. I’m so used to living in pain, being bound with muscle that I have a high pain threshold and I always push through – because time heals all, right? Internal bleeding is a sign of internal trauma. Trauma to one’s internal organs brought on by external activity is not very smart. Although running is not a contact activity the jarring down the mountain and the intensity I was performing at caused an internal rupture.Never to be repeated again. LOL. The only time I didn’t feel completely ill, moody, seasick, tired and drunk for the first 11 weeks was when I was TRAINING. Some days it was all I wanted to do because it was the only thing that settled me. Even light movement on the elliptical for 20 minutes made me feel like I wasn’t in the tumble drier.

I’ve stuck to the rest of my routine, kettlebells, light weight, body weight, skipping, fat burning cardio, boxing (no sparring of course), cables and free weights etc. I’m going to save my high intensity cardio work for November. I’m not perfect and I never said I was going to try to be. I don’t live by any books. I write my own story, and in this  chapter I made a mistake. First of the many mistakes I’m still going make in the next couple of months. Mistakes that will become insignificant when I make bigger fuck ups as a parent. So what. Like I said many women do bleed… the first question the Doctors and nurses asked was if I had sexual intercourse. Apparently that is a commonly associated with bleeding in pregnancy. A family member told me that she had pushed her bed in her first pregnancy, which led to her spotting. I guess we all need to find our new physical limits and survive within that. Deal with what we have too, work with what we can and still make it look easy. Because the benefits of that snore fest that is a 60 minute cardio session on that elliptical or treadmill, far out weighs sitting on the couch moping about what you cannot do for the next few months. Adapt or die. There is middle ground in all the highlights of our lives. Don’t just stop completely because your doctor was born in the stone ages. Don’t grow a baby in fear because you heard a horrible story. The benefit of basic movement goes beyond anything terrible you can imagine.

HAPPY MOM = HAPPY BABY (rushtush:2017)

Yours in Health & FitnessRush xx