2015 was one heck of a year, wasn’t it? Packed with adventure, struggle, success, pain, joy, learning, love – the stuff of life, really. A great year.
Let’s wrap it up month-by-month. I like to do this to look back on and remind myself of all that happened. It really goes so fast…take some time to re-live it a little.
January: Mostly what I remember from January was being nauseous and never knowing what I wanted to eat, ha! I was in 1st trimester of pregnancy (not that it seemed to matter…) and felt nauseous basically all the time and NOTHING tasted good. Oy.
It would be one of many times I presented to a group of people feeling like this, too. I helped co-host the 1st annual Empowered Woman Project event in Calgary at the end of January.
February: More of the same in the food realm, really. I kept hoping the nausea would GTFO and it didn’t…haha. This was actually a great learning experience, though. I realized that I had put in the mental work, regarding my mindset with food, over the past few years.
I didn’t beat myself over all the carbs. I didn’t worry that I was eat too much fat or not enough protein. I knew that this was just a chapter, and whatever I was doing was fine (because it had to be fine).
I announced that I was pregnant in Feb, when I was around 18 weeks. Let the fun begin 😉
March: March kicked off a couple months of more frequent travel than my normal life entails. We first traveled to Florida for family fun! The nausea and food aversions took a reprieve from about 21/22 weeks, and I thought I was in the clear.
Stand up paddle boarding in Florida!
Then, I went to Edmonton for the teacher training course in Hypopressives – Level 1. Incredible weekend learning from Trista Zinn and Tamara Rial.
Trista (left) and Tamara (right) demonstrating a basic posture and apnea.
April: I traveled to the Toronto area for some top-secret Girls Gone Strong fun! You’ll get to find all the details in 2016 – that’s all I can say 😉
On set in Toronto…!
From Toronto I went home to Kingston to co-host an incredible event called Reignite & Revitalize, with my friend Pam Fountas.
If you’re in Kingston, Ontario, I highly recommend you take a group fitness class with Pam and her crew from Limitless Living.
And, we capped off the trip with a baby shower!
Celebrating little baby Steele who was still #bmg at this point 😉
May: This was a really fun month. Randy and I went to San Francisco where I first presented at a fantastic conference called the Nor-Cal Fitness Summit. I spoke on strength training in pregnancy, which was fitting because I was around 27 weeks pregnant now!
Unfortunately, I was nauseous again and couldn’t stick around for too many of the festivities between presentations.
In the San Francisco area for the Nor-Cal Fitness Summit.
From there, we went and spent a couple of days in San Francisco. Very cool city.
We went home for a couple weeks and then it was off to Florida again, but this time for the 1st annual (a big year of firsts!) StrongSmartMama event. This was incredible to see it all come together.
June: June saw the launch of my online group personal training program for pregnancy and moms called, To Pregnancy & Beyond! FINALLY. This had been in the works for a solid year prior to and I’m so proud of what it’s turned into since.
So grateful for everyone who makes up our TP&B community. Those trying to conceive, pregnant, and mama’s (of 1 or many!) all following workout programs.
At the end of June we moved into our new house! Wahoo! I was 36 weeks pregnant and it was the hottest weekend of the summer. Needless to say, I did a whole bunch of “lie on the couch and supervise”.
36 weeks pregnant. Would still be pregnant for another 6 weeks at this point!
July: My due date was July 27th but I full expected from the beginning we would have an August baby. I kept working out 3 days per week, coaching my mama’s, and preparing for baby Steele to join us.
Quick little photoshoot to get some more prenatal exercise photos before this pregnancy came and went.
August: An August baby we did have! Steele was born at 42 weeks. And, wow, things went extremely differently that I imagined they would have.
We planned for a home birth with midwives and a doula. She was born via C-section under the care of a fabulous OB, nurses, and our wonderful midwife. It was the best C-section experience I could have hoped for.
Mama and Steele. Our first night at home.
Then came the recovery. It was very challenging – physically, mentally, and emotionally. But, it was what I needed. You can read the birth story here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 (you need that many “parts” with a 37 hour labor, haha!).
That really fun time at 9 days postpartum when I got an infection in my C-section incision and had to be on IV antibiotics for 4 days, and oral antibiotics for 10 days. Luckily, they sent us home with 3 bags for the IV and my husband changed them for me.
September: Recovery + rehab + newborn life. Little sleep. So hungry all the time.
I started back to “workouts” (very much Core + Floor Restore based). I had my first session of pelvic floor physiotherapy in September (Calgary – go see Gayle Hulme at Lakeview Physiotherapy) and started walking daily again.
October: I was definitely starting to feel more normal again, in October. My C-section recovery was going well, by all accounts. I was still being ‘aware’ of the amount of time I was spending on my feet, how intense my workouts were, etc.
I was starting to get more sleeeeep! I noticed that as the sleep went up and we decreased the frequency of night nursing that my cravings were not-so through the roof most days. And, my hunger was becoming more “manageable”, ha.
Thank goodness for a partner who cooks (great food) because I definitely wouldn’t have made this meal myself. This is definitely what postpartum mama’s need.
November: Life felt like it had more of a groove to it. Every week seemed more like…real life (in a good way!).
We took our first plane ride with Steele back home to Kingston. Had an early Christmas of sorts!
My bro-in-law, sis, Randy, Steele, and I!
December: One milestone, fitness and health wise, was that I squatted with a barbell for the first times in MONTHS. And, did (assisted) chin-ups for the first time postpartum. Probably since April, actually.
It was Steele’s 1st Christmas and our 1st Christmas in our new home. Magic made simple.
The Mundell George family, 2015.
And, here we are. Ready for 2016. I’m so excited for a new year. 2015 was so many incredible things. So many BIG lessons. Experiences that I couldn’t have imagined I would go through. We shall see what 2016 has in store 😉
Jess
