This week has been my favourite week of the pregnancy so far!! Slowly, very slowly, I’m starting to feel that perpetual fog of anxiety and fear begin to lift, and I’m starting to let myself get excited about all of this! Up until now, I’ve been careful to not get carried away with my thoughts and plans and daydreams….but this week I’m giving in more and more, and it feels so great!

I’ve been teaching my classes on my own this week, and feeling pretty good overall! I’m still low impact for a significant portion of the class in Attack / Step, but Pump and CX I’ve been almost back to normal. Unfortunately my CX days are numbered because I won’t be able to do most moves once I start to get bigger; but I’m okay with that for now!

My performance at work / in general hasn’t been great in terms of being on the ball and super sharp with details and deadlines like I normally am, but I’m slowly accepting that that’s okay, and I’m just doing my best to get through one day / one obstacle at a time. I’ve made the decision this week that anything that doesn’t serve me and my sweet baby, needs to get let go of. Immediately and without looking back, and without apology.

We had our ultrasound on Thursday afternoon and OMG it was so funny. I was a bit petrified going in (just like the first ultrasound) and just praying that everything would look normal and healthy and that things would be progressing well. I had the exact same ultra sound technician as the first time, and she could still be in the running for supreme court justice with a poker face like hers.

Once again, about 45 seconds in I caved and asked her if everything looked okay (yea, not so great with the “patience” thing). She said yes – that she could see a heart beat, and I was thrilled with that. But then, the appointment seemed to be taking a long time, she was asking me to move around and lie in different positions, and then she started kind of jiggling the ultrasound handle into my stomach as if she were trying to wake the baby up. I started to get really nervous again.

I told her that she was scaring me and asked if everything was okay, and she said right away that yes everything was fine, but the baby was in a bad position for her to get a measurement on the thickness of the skin on the back of his neck (what they need for IPS testing to test for chromosome abnormalities). The baby was in a head stand position….LOL!!!! I nearly died laughing when I heard that.

She asked me to empty my bladder part way and then do some jumping jacks in the bathroom. So that’s exactly what I did. I am happy to report that I did not pee my pants (or lack thereof actually – I was wearing a dress LOL) while doing said jumping jacks. I remember looking around the bathroom while I was jacking around in my pink dress just shaking my head……what, oh what had I come to…..

I went back into the ultra sound room and babe was a bit of a stubborn one it seems (he’s a Libra – I should have known! ;)), and was still firmly performing a perfect headstand. Maybe he’s a Crossfit baby?! Or a yogi?!

Pretty bummed – the ultrasound technician told me that unfortunately I would have to book again because she couldn’t get what she needed in this appointment slot. She went to get Matt from the waiting room so that at least he could see babe on the screen.

When Matt came in the room, the poor guy looked stressed. He had been waiting outside for half an hour and even he was getting worried that something was wrong. And that takes a LOT for Matt to start worrying like that 😦

He was relieved to see me in good spirits, and we explained the conundrum of our head standing baby. While she was showing Matt the screen, he said something and I started to laugh, and kind of made myself start to cough. She kind of jumped and said “do that again, do that again!”…..and when I did, little babe miraculously decided to do a bit of a barrel roll, and flipped into a better position!!! We just laughed and laughed, maybe babe knew that Daddy was in the room, and he better quit acting up?! Too funny….

We were able to get the measurements that she needed after all, went downstairs to do some more bloodwork, and then we were home, feeling SO, so relieved and confident and happy. Week 12 is just about over now, and the second trimester starts on Sunday! OMG – I can’t believe it….I am so glad to say goodbye to the first trimester, and to start the fun of the second trimester. I’ve been told that it is the best by far in terms of how I’ll be feeling, and it’s an important one for babe to grow and develop too.

As far as cravings this week…..shepard’s pie. My mom’s, and my mom’s only. Don’t ask me to explain, I can’t. I haven’t eaten this stuff in probably 5+ years, but I had to have it this week! Egg sandwiches (still)…..and I’ve just in general been really hungry this week, it feels like I can never get enough food (particularly carbs)….sigh…..I’m going to look 30 weeks in the next 2 weeks if I don’t get myself under control!!!!!

Our next midwife appointment is two weeks away (week 14), and I can’t imagine how much will grow and change between now and then! Babe is now the size of a lime, and starting on Sunday will measure the length of a pea pod! I can’t believe the change in size from week to week! The body is truly a miraculous thing.

Here’s hoping for continued good health and good vibes into week 13! The superstitious side of me will be glad to be on the other side of 13?! 🙂

-Sara & Babe xo

 

Hi There!

11 Weeks! The days of single digits are long past, and the second trimester is on the horizon – and most importantly…..the grandparents are in the loop! Wahoo!

It was a bit of a circus trying to get our parents in the same place at the same time, we finally managed to wrangle them all together (along with Matt’s brother Scott and his brother Troy’s friend Jay – LOL) on Sunday afternoon at a Tim Hortons in Wingham, ON after giving my parents a tour of the sugar bush. Too funny……..not quite what I had pictured for when and where we would tell our parents, but hey, Tim Hortons works I guess! 😉

We didn’t have anything elaborate planned, but I did have these cute little onesies to give our moms that say “That’s It, I’m Going to Grandmas!” and one to show our dads that says “I’m Told I Like Hockey”. I kind of ended up just pulling the onesies out of my purse and waving them around like a crazy person LOL – I think they got the message!

Our parents were as excited as I thought / hoped they would be – and we just laughed and laughed at how quickly plans started snowballing: car seats and rooms being re-done in the house…things started moving very quickly! 😉

Back at the sugar bush, we told the rest of Matt’s brothers and took a few pictures which turned out pretty well (I quite enjoy Neil holding a ham and cheese sandwich!) and then my parents had to hit the road right away to get back to Oakville. It was a bit surreal to have the news out in the world! My parents didn’t even make it a half hour down the road before the great-grandparents were called and the news started to spread and my phone started trilling away lol….:)

The rest of the week started out great with a trip down to the Air Canada Centre to watch our Toronto Maple Leafs beat up on the Boston Bruins (really, is there anything more satisfying then that?). This week I’ve noticed that I’ve started to feel a bit of an ever-present mild nausea. Nothing crazy that impacted my activities at all, but definitely enough to notice it. I think that now that I’ve finally started feeling 100% better, some more of those symptoms that I never noticed before have come to the forefront. No complaints here, I’ll take a bit of fatigue and nausea over that hell-ish flu bug any day of the week.

The other massive update this week was that I officially made my return to my classes and spilled the beans to my class participants. That was an even more enormous weight off my shoulders than telling our parents had been to be honest. It’s been really challenging being unexplainedly away from the gym for so long, and I’ve just hated not being able to be fully honest with people.

I was extremely cautious this week easing back into my classes, being really careful to stay about 90% low impact in Attack and Step, and taking most low options in CX. My participants were so super supportive about me taking it easy in class, and I was so grateful for them and the instructors that came to help me as I transitioned back in. Ultimately, everything felt good and I was SO, so relieved to not have any bleeding or scary things after class. I was really starting to feel like myself again by the end of the week. SO, so grateful.

No crazy (new) cravings this week, definitely still loving my egg sandwiches, and I have started thinking about Kraft Dinner this week (what?), but nothing crazy out of the ordinary at this point! We are REALLY looking forward to our next ultrasound coming up next week (it’s technically an IPS ultrasound – but we are more just excited to see babe again and make sure that he’s doing okay in there!). I wonder how much an ultrasound machine costs to have in your home….. 😉

Back next week with our ultrasound report and an update from the official end of the first trimester! Woohoo!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

Double digits!! Wahoo!!

I’ll admit that I am writing this post towards the end of my 11th week actually; since I’ve been feeling better (THANK YOU UNIVERSE); I’ve found myself busy again and time is flying by!

The beginning my 10th week was a little bit rough, especially because we were doing some renovations around the house. I got very sick again over the weekend between 9 and 10 weeks, and was still dealing with being pretty sick for the first half of this week.

In the meantime, we had decided that it would be a great idea to replace all of the laminate flooring and kitchen tile in our main floor with hardwood floors, which meant that our entire world got turned upside down for four days while the work was done!

Oh hindsight. Why are you always so, so right.

As always, the renos got off to a challenging start because the installer wasn’t made aware that he actually had to remove our existing flooring, he thought that that had already been done, so it took him a while to get going. In the meantime, I hid away upstairs and alternated between 30 minute power naps, and 30 minutes working from home trying to keep my head afloat. The one silver lining to having the work done at home this week was that I had the chance to work from home, which was pretty awesome, because well, sweatpants are awesome.

Matt also got really sick early in the week (it was only a matter of time, I mean, the guys been living with me for the past 7 weeks LOL), so we were a bit of a sad, pathetic pair trying to feed ourselves and just survive through the renos!!

Another exciting happening from this week was that we had our first midwife appointment! I got to meet my primary midwife Suneet and her student assistant who was very lovely. I got a great feel from both of them, and even though they weren’t able to find the heartbeat using their Doppler machine, they reassured me that they had done 6 initial appointments at 10 weeks that day, and hadn’t heard any. It was just a little too early. I was SUPER relieved that we had had our ultrasound at 9 weeks 6 days and seen the heartbeat, or I know that I would have been flipping out completely.

I was a bit disappointed that they couldn’t do more at the appointment other than really taking down my medical history and asking me tons of questions. I don’t really know what I was hoping for, but it all just seemed like STILL, it was too early for anyone to really check anything or do anything. Time is flying, but standing still at the same time.

4 days later, and I was feeling much better AND our gorgeous, gorgeous floors were installed and we had our house back! Yay! I spent most of Thursday night setting things back up, cleaning and dusting everything I could get my hands on, and just thoroughly enjoying being able to sit downstairs in our living room again!

I noticed as I was trundling up and down the stairs over and over with armfuls of things to put away that my breathing wasn’t too bad, and that I really was starting to feel a lot more like myself. I made the decision that if I still felt like myself on Friday morning, that I would go to a BodyFLOW class later that evening.

I did! Woohoo!

Renate and Cara taught a beautiful Flow class and I felt good through the whole thing. A couple of times I had to consciously (and sternly) remind myself to choose hope and optimism over fear and pessimism. Even though I know that we are getting so close to being over the worst of the risky part, I can’t help it, I’m still terrified.

After Flow, I got to see a bunch of my friends all together who had come to the gym to do a mock GRIT class in the studio. I was super tempted to just spit it out and tell them then, but knew that it was still probably one week too early. I reluctantly kept my mouth shut.

That’s really hard for me – considering the size of my mouth!!!!

In terms of funny food cravings, my love for chicken wraps is still going strong, as is my love for egg sandwiches. Mmmmmmmmhm. The nausea overall seemed to subside for the most part this week, which was nice.

Overall – this week came in like a lion and out like a pleasant little lamb!! I’ve got my eye on the second trimester…only a few short weeks away!!

-Sara & Babe xo

Time is flying by, and crawling all at the same time! I’m writing this post at the very end of our 9th week, so technically week 10 starts tomorrow…..double digits…umm….what???

This week has been a huge one, and once again, a very challenging one in it’s own way. I managed to shake the horrible virus that had sunk its teeth into me for the past 2+ weeks, and had about 3 days of reprieve. I did a couple of workouts at home, even went in to the gym to do half of a BodyPump class (before I started to get anxious and called it just after the tricep track). All in all, although the fatigue and mild nausea was still there, I was starting to feel a bit more like a human; yay!

And then….I got sick again.

I think I was in denial at first because I just don’t understand how it happened. Not more than 3 days after feeling better, my throat started to ache, and I developed this wicked, rattly cough that I’ve never had before. It’s gotten progressively worse all week, and today (Saturday), I’ve been basically couch-bound all day again trying to keep it together. I finally cracked and took one Tylenol Extra-Strength for the pounding in my head and searing pain in my throat.

I’m trying to change my perspective and to be a bit more positive about the health challenges that I’ve faced so far in my pregnancy. We are so lucky to be pregnant. This is all that I’ve ever wanted; to be pregnant naturally, without medical intervention, and to carry a healthy, happy baby. And here I am! I’m trying really hard to fully embrace the lesson that this pregnancy isn’t about me. It’s nothing to do with me, or my body or frankly what I want to do right now at all. It’s about me carrying our sweet little babe to term and bringing them into this world.

SO….on the health front….it’s back to the couch, and the orange juice, and the steaming bowls of hot water….oh and Manuka honey has been a bit of a god-send for my throat too!

So aside from being sick, this week has been totally amazing because we had our ultrasound on Thursday……….and got to see our little babe’s  sweet heartbeat!!! I nearly had a heart attack leading up to the ultrasound; I was so terrified that they would tell me that they couldn’t find a heartbeat, or that little babe hadn’t grown properly or something like that, but as usual; the things I was worried about never came to fruition.

I went in to the ultrasound room alone at first, and my ultrasound technician had the stone face of a judge. I lasted all of about 45 seconds before I burst out asking what she could see and if everything looked okay. I was hoping that we could hear the heartbeat at this appointment, but she told me that this clinic isn’t equipped to listen to heartbeats like that, BUT, she could see the heartbeat clearly on the ultrasound. That was an enormous relief to me!!

She pressed around on my belly for several minutes, finally telling me that the heartbeat was well within the normal range at 156 beats per minute, and that she dated our pregnancy at 9 weeks 6 days (about 3 days further along then the dating I’ve been following). Matt finally got to come into the room and she turned the screen towards us both so that I could see, and right away we all burst out laughing because little babe’s legs were just kicking away like a maniac in there!!! We could clearly see the head and the little arms and legs, but of course no distinguishing features at this point.

It totally warmed my heart to lay eyes on babe, and to see how excited Matt was to see him too (still convinced that it’s a boy over here!). I just can’t wait until we get a bit further along and can see more details in there!

On the food front, I’m still liking the egg and cheese sandwiches; but that love has given way to a new one: chicken wraps. I’m talking ANY KIND of chicken in a wrap. Grilled chicken, fried chicken, breaded chicken, ground chicken, pulled chicken…….wrap that stuff up in a tortilla and I am one happy Sara these days. TOO funny. I had this Buffalo Chicken Wrap at Turtle Jacks this week at work, and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, to the point that I begged my friends to go to Turtle Jacks for lunch this weekend so that I could get it again.

I’m going to work a little bit harder to get more vegetables and immune boosting foods into my diet; since I’ve been feeling so terrible, honestly these past several weeks it’s been more about getting any food that’s easy into me, and I haven’t had the energy or the will to make any elaborate / overly healthy  meals that both babe and I desperately need. I am going to try to do better this week; even if I’m not feeling well.

Matt’s mom and Scott arrive from Red Lake next weekend, and we are planning to somehow get our parents / as much family as possible together somewhere to tell them the news! By that point we will be just about 11 weeks in….so it’s about time! I cannot believe I’ve managed to keep this from them for so long….it’s been really  hard!!

We have our first midwife appointment on Monday of this week, so I’m also hoping to talk to her a bit about my overall health and see if she has any tips or tricks to help me try and get and stay healthy for sweet little babe. Things are moving!

Healthy thoughts over here for me and for babe!! Here’s hoping for an easier week!! 🙂

-Sara and Babe xo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Friends,

8 weeks + 6 days (9 weeks technically!); we are getting closer to the date that I’ve looked forward to so much for the past 9 weeks: our first ultrasound!

This week, I finally got to go back to my family doctor who sent me for pre-natal bloodwork, and got me setup with the requisition for our first ultra sound. It’s coming up on Thursday March 9th, and I am so anxious and nervous about it. I think that once I hear babe’s little heartbeat, I will be so much more relaxed about things, and feel more able to participate in my life.

Which brings me to some of the struggles this week.

I’ve been having a hard time keeping my head in a good place this week. I am finally, finally feeling mostly better from my run-in with that terrible virus from the past 3 weeks, but my body is still feeling exhausted, sluggish, beat-down. I don’t recognize myself, physically, but also mentally. It isn’t me to come home and sit on the couch for 4 hours, nodding in and out of sleep before trudging up the stairs to bed. It isn’t me to drop the  ball at work, and in my online courses, and in my relationships, and at the gym.

I really, honestly feel like my only accomplishment some days is that I get up and make it through the day from start to finish in some form or other.

We are funny creatures aren’t we? All I wanted, so desperately, was to be pregnant (it’s still what I want)….but now that I am, and so grateful for that….you start to realize that nothing is ever quite enough. I do want to be pregnant; I want beautiful kids, and lots of them. I also want to be athletic and powerful and teach 6 classes per week. I also want to be talented and accomplished at  work. I also want deep relationships with my friends and family.

As it turns out: I want it all.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the “reason” for the first trimester being so difficult (you know, in addition to the fact that your body is literally manufacturing a tiny human inside of itself) is to start to ease first-time mamas like myself into their new altered universe. A universe where it isn’t all about us anymore; where we care about something else enough that it’s worth temporarily shelving our own hopes and dreams and priorities to be sure that that something else is okay.

SO, onto lighter topics: I’ve been pretty lucky as far as nausea goes! There’s been a little bit, and a bit of aversion to food, but for the most part, it’s not been too bad! I’ve been super into egg and cheese sandwiches this week (seriously, like one a day at least), and everything cold, the colder the better! I went through a brief tomato with olive oil and a little bit of salt phase…but I think that’s on the way out now. I find the cravings too funny! Babe doesn’t seem to be a big eater, because as soon as I eat too much, I start feeling super sick and nauseous. I will need to have a chat with him about that, because mama likes to eat.

I’m almost sure somehow that babe is a boy. That’s based on nothing except my gut intuition; but I would put some good money on it! Time will reveal all! We plan to find out as soon as we possibly can (we’re in for enough surprises along the way me-thinks); so we’ll see if I’m right!

This week coming up is a big one for us: our ultrasound on Thursday, and I’m hoping to start back at the gym in some capacity, if only to teach BodyPump for now. Things will be so much easier to explain once I can be open about what’s going on with me. It’s been so hard to keep things from people. I just hate it.

Well – here’s hoping that we’ll have some amazing ultrasound updates to share in Week 9!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

 

Oh this week….it’s been such a challenging week for me and sweet little babe….definitely the most challenging week so far.

We got back from Vegas last Tuesday, and pretty much right away I came down with my second nasty cold of my pregnancy. I got sick almost immediately after finding out we were pregnant, and it’s totally sucked because it’s hard to be excited about everything when I’m feeling so totally awful!

This cold-turned-sinus-infection was much worse than the first go-round. I can’t remember ever being so sick in my life, I was literally incapacitated for at least 5 days. Matt was a god-send, taking care of me, bringing me soup from all over hell and half acre, even going on a drug strike himself and refusing to take any drugs for his own cold as a sign of solidarity (LOL).

I managed to pull it together enough to go with Matt to the Leafs game last Saturday that he had given me tickets to for my birthday. I had had an awful day, and had barely moved from the couch all day, but I knew that he had spent so much money on the tickets, and he was so cautiously hopeful that we would still go that I knew I just had to pull it together.

I felt a bit better at the game, it was nice to be out and to be distracted from how awful I felt for a while. I had a bit of a scary sinus episode in the car when I was trying to clear the pressure in my ears and the whole world started spinning. I kind of went downhill fast after that and felt truly awful until I went to sleep.

Tuesday was the scariest day of my pregnancy to date. I started to fill a little bit better, went to work, and made the decision that I was going to teach my CXWORX and BodyAttack class that night on my own. In hindsight, it was such a stupid decision. Even if I wasn’t pregnant, I still wasn’t feeling well at all, and definitely wasn’t up for the full-on effort of a double like that.

Throughout the entire class, I just felt like something was off. The class wasn’t agreeing with my body, I could just feel it as soon as we started to jump and run. I made it through the class and then went to the washroom right away to check for bleeding. Sure enough, there were a few tiny drops of blood.

I was petrified. I  thought for sure that I had done damage to my little babe, and to be honest, until I hear the heartbeat, I won’t be convinced that I didn’t that day. I drove home in a daze, my heart pounding in my chest.I made a deal with the higher powers in that car ride that if they would just give me a free pass on this one that I would never blow it like this again, I wouldn’t push myself, I would take better care of myself, I wouldn’t let them down.

I called Tele-Health as soon as I got home, and after asking me 100 questions, the nurse on the phone assured me that it didn’t sound like I had done damage, to take it easy and not stress out. After a very stressful night, I woke up to no more bleeding, and there hasn’t been any since those tiny drops that night.

Because of this, combined with advice from my doctor and my totally faltering immune system, I’ve made the decision to take a few weeks off from teaching until I get past the first trimester and get some reassurance that babe is growing well and is totally healthy and secure. It will also help when I can tell people at the gym so that I can explain that I need to take it a little easier than normal.

This is so hard for me; I’m feeling so low in terms of self-esteem on all fronts. I feel like I’m dropping balls in all areas of my life right now, including being pregnant, which is the hardest one of all. I really thought that I would be “good” at being pregnant, that it would be natural for me, that I wouldn’t miss a beat and would just sail through the first trimester. But it’s hard. It’s really been so hard so far.

All that being said – I wouldn’t give any of this up, I am so grateful to be pregnant, so grateful that Matt and I were able to get here naturally and on our own, and cautiously so hopeful and optimistic that our sweet little babe is growing as they should be.

We meet with our midwife for the first time on Tuesday – and I just can’t wait to find out when I can get my first ultrasound to hear babe’s heartbeat!! If all goes well, that will be such a moment of intense relief and happiness for me / us.

Fingers crossed for us….!!

 

When you imagine something in your head for so, so long, it almost feels like it turns into a bit of a work of fiction, doesn’t it? I always knew that Les Mills, Auckland City was a real place, but for some reason I felt like a child seeing Santa Claus in person when I looked down that street. The most enormous rush of adrenaline tore through me and I all but started literally running down Victoria Street towards the big, colourful building (my mom gamely in tow).

I remember getting to that infamous crosswalk (directly across from the gym) and stopping for a second to take it all in. I remember feeling this connection with the ground under my feet, New Zealand ground, and the gravity of the trip that we had taken to get here kind of all hit me at once. It had cost a small fortune, it was taking a big investment of time, but we were all in, and we were here. Here. I didn’t cry, but I think that the only reason for that was that I was feeling so much that it was a bit of emotion overload.

Oh, and the 30 hours of transit probably factored in as well 😉

I had my mom take literally one hundred pictures of me at that crosswalk, before we finally crossed over and made our way up the stairs and into the building.

We had entered Les Mills Mecca.

I knew right away that we weren’t in Kansas anymore because I recognized half of the people in the lobby right away. The Les Mills Auckland gym has a small cafe off to the right hand side when you first enter with some seating, a big area with couches to the left, and then to the far left is a clothing shop named Platinum Sports which sells all of the Reebok Les Mills gear (oh HI there!). People were milling around everywhere, at the cafe, on the couches, chatting at the door….and I found myself gawking away at all of them.

“I know you….and you….oh and YOU! It’s been years since I’ve seen you!”

This dialogue all took place in my head mind you, behind a very cool and casual exterior 😉

I blew my cool, casual exterior IMMEDIATELY when I walked up to the front desk and literally  blurted out at the girl with a thin blonde ponytail:”WE’RE HERE FROM CANADA, WE’RE GOING TO FILMING!!”. Oh my god…..

She took it all in stride, welcomed us to New Zealand, took our pictures for our membership cards, and gave us directions to the change room and up to Studio One. Sweet lord contain me.

We held onto our bags for now as we walked through the gym floor, up a set of stairs and across a small overpass walkway to the second part of the building, where the studios were. We had to take a couple of twists and turns before we finally came to this sign.

This was it.

Up, up, up a couple of flights of stairs (my jet-lagged lungs wheezed in protest), until I could finally hear the sweetest, most familiar sound. That would be the voice of the one and only Susan Renata.

As we made our way up the very last flight of stairs and up into Studio One, Susan was just finishing up the ab track from her regular Friday morning BodyPump class. She was doing a really old track (which I realized later, was her practicing for the big “legends” tour that she was doing with the original five master trainers for BodyPump the following week in Amsterdam!) and there must have been between 60 and 70 people in the room, easily.

I wondered if the Auckland City members really knew or had a sense for how much their instructor means to the rest of the Les Mills world, and how immeasurably lucky they are to take her class every week. I certainly hope so!

I teared up a little bit for the first time yet standing there at the back of Studio One, looking around the room from top to bottom, taking in every blade on the ceiling fans, every fleck in the carpet colour, the fountains at the back of the room. I just couldn’t believe I was here. I’ll say this about 70 more times throughout the rest of this series, but when I close my eyes today, I can still see the scene like it was not ten minutes ago, in perfect high definition. I hope that the images never, ever fade in my memory.

Susan wrapped up her class, gave her class the challenge to help us newcomers put away the equipment properly (“show them how we do it here, will you?”) and then it was time for the SH’BAM rehearsal class with Rach (program director) and Lissa from the USA.

My poor mom was feeling pretty bedraggled by this point, and desperately needed something to eat, so she said that she would go down to the cafe and get something to eat there, if I wanted to do some of the SH’BAM rehearsal. I initially planned to jump in, but fatigue and jet-exhaustion was starting to set in a bit, and I realized how hungry I was too; and still had the intention to do the BodyAttack rehearsal class later that same afternoon. I decided to watch for a few minutes at the back of the room and then go down to join my mom for some food.

Rachel is just absolutely magnetic as a human being, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her on stage. She made me laugh right away cracking jokes about how Tao (the third presenter for SH’BAM 27) wasn’t there for rehearsal today because he was “you know, just off being a boy”. LOL.

The girls were rocking it, but I was feeling pretty guilty about my mom eating downstairs on her own, so after a few minutes headed back down the stairs, reminding myself that we hadn’t yet been on the ground in Auckland for 4 hours, and that I would be back in Studio One very shortly!

At the cafe, my mom was quite happily munching away on some chicken, and I got the most delicious quinoa potato salad that I think I’ve ever had. Tangy and delicious! We went over to the clothing store next, where I proceeded to spend over $1,000 on clothing for myself and every instructor that had asked me for things back home LOL….dear God….

We also met Mary in Platinum Sports, the single most adorable, blonde haired woman I’ve ever met in my life. Mary is the human being equivalent of pop-rocks candy. Effervescent and sweet and tangy and exuberant. She just loved to chat, and we spent nearly an hour in that store with her pointing out all the newest clothing, giving us tips on where the Program Directors liked to eat / hang out in Auckland, the inside scoop on filming…you name it! I think I would still be in there chatting if we hadn’t pried ourselves away LOL!

With our clothing purchases in hand, we took a walk through the Auckland streets over to the closest grocery store called New World where we wandered around picking up some snacks and food to keep in our hotel room. The grocery store was beautiful, and had an enormous wine section that made me laugh! I will never get used to seeing wine / alcohol sold in grocery stores!

With our heavy grocery bags in tow, we grabbed a cab back to the hotel where we gratefully sat down and had a bit of a rest on our balcony over-looking the Pacific Ocean. Paradise indeed. I took another little cat nap, got up and had a quick snack in the room before it was time to head back up to the gym for our first official class in New Zealand: the BodyAttack 96 rehearsal class!!!!

It’s only fitting that my first class in Studio One was Attack, and that it was with Lisa and her presenting team. I knew we had made the right decision to sit out SH’BAM (even though it hurt to!), because we were ready to go for Attack!

I agonized over what shirt to wear. “I have to save my GOOD Reebok for filming classes….but I don’t want Lisa to see me looking like a slob either….OH and I want to be branded Canada because…well then maybe she’ll notice that I’m an international!?”.

Seriously. Ridiculous.

I finally decided on a CANADA shirt that I had picked up at the last minute from SportChek (not even Reebok….WTF), and we were off for our second walk back up that gigantic Nelson Street hill towards Victoria Street and the gym. We noticed more on our second walk, started to pick up landmarks, the streets starting to look a bit more familiar. We would get to know that walk so well over the next 10 days!

We strolled into Les Mills like we owned the place, scanned our cards, and were on our way right up to Studio One.

Moment to pause and re-read THAT sentence please……um, what????

It was Friday evening now, and I wondered if the class would be jammed because it was a filming rehearsal class! I was pleasantly surprised that there were only about 15 people in the room waiting for class to start (we were about 15 minutes early), and that there was lots of space! I started to recognize people right away in Studio One. There was this hip hop music playing over the speakers, and up fiddling with the stereo was none other than Nathan Jones (BodyAttack DVD presenter on several of our past releases), this rounds program coach. Nathan was tossing around a rugby ball in one hand, and fiddling with the microphones and the stereo in the other.

Directly in front of the stage was another very family face, an older member from the Auckland City club named “Johnny”, famous for his loud and exuberant “Woohoo” on the Attack DVDs from years gone by! He was set up maybe one foot in front of the stage and was DANCING to this hip hop music that was playing over the stereo! My mom was totally baffled and confused by this whole situation, but I took it pretty much in stride! Too funny…

In the first picture below, you can see Nate on the stage in all black, and Johnny in front with the red shirt! 🙂

I nearly died when Lisa and the team finally walked into the room. It was cool to see them roll up to class just like any of us instructors roll in to teach our classes, dressed in their own workout clothes that they’ve worn a hundred times before, and whatever makeup has managed to survive on their face from the day; as opposed to the brand new sparkly, matching Reebok and 2 inches of stage makeup that we’re used to seeing them in on the DVDs and at international events. They were all so real and accessible, it was truly wonderful!

Lisa and Nate joked around over the mic for a few minutes (surprise, surprise, the Studio One microphone had been acting up recently!! Go figure!!) and before we knew it, it was time to get going. I had been feeling tired, but this enormous rush of adrenaline poured over me as soon as the music came on. We were ready to rock!!

 

 

It was only about 6 or 7 weeks before the filming that we actually booked our flights, thank goodness, because that gave me much less time to stress out about the whole thing. I went back and forth every other day between being so excited I could hardly function to being so petrified that I didn’t even know if I would go.

I didn’t tell anyone at the gym that I was going. I’m not really sure why, I think part of me was worried that people would be angry at me, upset that I hadn’t included the larger group that had talked about going together for so many years; but I think the real reason was that I was afraid to say it out loud because it meant that it was really happening. I know it seems so counter-intuitive and crazy, this was my dream, and here it was coming true before my eyes! But fear was running through me faster than I could control. I was exactly equal parts petrified and over the moon.

I finally broke the silence about three weeks before the trip to two friends while we were out doing a “paint and cocktails” event. I just blurted it out with no interlude or segue whatsoever. “I’m going to New Zealand for filming”. Thank goodness the girls were amazing and reassuring and so excited for me that I started to get more and more excited for myself. It was seeming more and more like this was really going to happen!

I posted that I was going on social media the week before I left asking if I could pick up Reebok clothing for anyone while I was there, and was rewarded with an absolute avalanche of texts, messages, calls, comments wishing me well, telling me how excited they were for me. At this point, I was excited for me too. In my mind there was only one barrier left between me and my dream: 13 hours of ocean.

As time has this funny way of doing, it kept chugging along one day after the other, and before I knew it, the moment was upon us. I was giving Matt a huge hug, not really sure if I would ever see him again, my dad was dropping us off at the airport and my mom was doing the same with him, and then it was just the two of us, our absolute MAMMOTH suitcases (mine was over 70 pounds – just like it was on our European honeymoon for 2.5 weeks…..oops….) and all the nerve we could muster. We were off to conquer the world!

My angel parents had taken pity on me and upgraded my seat to business class so that I could sit next to my mom the whole way there. Can I get a BOOYAH?! Lucky, lucky girl over here. Our first leg was Toronto to San Francisco, 6 hours. I spent an entire year flying back and forth between Toronto and Vancouver, so wasn’t overly stressed about the 6 hour flight. You know, more so than the usual terror anyways. I remember our flight attendant in Business Class like it was just yesterday. This tall, thin Asian lady named Tracey with a neat bun hairstyle and a great sense of humour. She learned my mom and my names right away and kept bringing us chocolate bars, chips, anything we even hinted that we may be interested in for the entire flight! There was one patch of turbulence that lasted about 20 minutes, and my nerves got a little frayed in that section. My mom got up to use the washroom just after the seatbelt sign turned off, and ran into Tracey in the galley of the plane, and Tracey told her that she had “spoken to the captain, and told him “NO MORE TURBULENCE” because she was going straight home when she got to San Francisco and didn’t have time to re-do her hair”. It got a smile out of both of us, and eased my mind that the rest of the flight would be smooth; which it was.

We landed in San Francisco and I got off the plane feeling like a hero. One leg down! I still couldn’t fathom on this earth how the next leg was going to happen, but we had a couple of hours to kill in the terminal and mull that conundrum over.

We were both exhausted, as by now it was after 1am our time (or 10pm San Francisco time). My mom fell asleep sitting up in the Business Class lounge while I nervously stuffed my face with bite-sized brownies and anything else I could get from the lounge buffet. I also had a nice, long text conversation with one of my instructor friends back home (who should not have been up at that hour!) which killed at least an hour for me. I had so many people sending me messages wishing me a wonderful trip, telling me that I was living their dream as well as my own, and it all meant so, so much to me. I knew that whatever happened on this next leg, that I had made the right decision. I was where I was supposed to be at this moment.

We made our way down to the gate like zombies for our scheduled boarding time. I had been pretty wired upstairs in the lounge, but by the time we got downstairs to the gate, I may as well have been an extra on the Walking Dead. I wasn’t even scared anymore; I just wanted to get on the plane so that I could close my eyes. It was a bit of a torturous wait at the gate, I guess it takes a while to load up a big beast of a plane like this for a 13 hour trek, but finally, FINALLY we were ready to board.

The greatest miracle of all was that our Business Class seats extended into fully flat-reclining sleeper seats (if I haven’t said it already – I am one lucky girl!!). We sat down and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open until takeoff so that I could put that seat down and get to sleep. There was a bit of an adrenaline pickup when we finally did take-off, enough for me to snap these pictures of the crazy flight path (something I’ve never seen before!!), and then I was back to zombie-land, put my seat all the way down and passed out for 6 hours cold. Unbelievable. Who is this girl sleeping for 6 hours on an airplane bound for Auckland, New Zealand?!

I woke up a little over halfway through the flight, had missed the dinner service completely, but didn’t care because we were over halfway there! We were so close I could taste it. There were some issues in the second half of our flight that really left a bad taste in my mouth. My mom’s seat beside mine stopped working properly when she woke up from her snooze (it wouldn’t raise or lower anymore, the mechanism froze completely and couldn’t be re-set in the air). The flight attendants were extremely rude to us and made it really, really difficult on us, when we had done absolutely nothing wrong (and on the contrary, had paid an arm and a leg for the seat). I was really disappointed with the airline (that would be United Airlines by the way – if you thought I was too classy to say the name of the airline, think again). Really poor customer service, and failed to deliver on their business class promise. I would not recommend flying United Airlines if you can at all help it. My mom actually ended up in tears on the airplane because she was treated so badly and embarrassed so much.

Once the calamity had died down, my mom and I switched off seats so that we could each get a little bit more shut-eye. I didn’t really sleep solidly for the rest of the flight, but that was fine with me, because with every minute, half hour, hour that ticked by, we were getting closer and closer and closer. I watched a couple of movies (13 Going on 30 and Miracles from Heaven) which killed a couple more hours, and did a lot of gazing out the window day-dreaming about our destination as well. By the time breakfast was being served, a new flight attendant crew was looking after us, and things were starting to look up a little bit. Plus, breakfast meant that we were so freaking close.

When we first saw land, my heart skipped a beat. New Zealand looked just like I always imagined it would. Green, rolling hills. Sheep. Yes, we saw sheep from the airplane. As we started our descent, my heart was absolutely racing. Was this real life? Had we actually made it all this way? Was the only barrier that stood between me and this dream about to be lifted from in front of me?

When the wheels of our plane touched down in Auckland, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I ended up laugh-gulping a bit. I can’t remember feeling such a sense of relief in my life. My mom was still a bit hot and bothered by the really poor customer service on the flight, and insisted that she wanted to speak to an agent on the ground, but we never did end up finding anyone to talk to us. We were also so exhausted that the sting of the poor treatment was starting to pale in comparison. We had to walk down stairs off of the airplane and then took a bus across the tarmac into the main terminal, which was partially under construction. We were unapologetic tourists, snapping photos at every possible opportunity.

I had been warned over and over again that New Zealand is a country that does NOT allow fresh fruit / vegetables to be brought into their country (something to do with controlling pests and viruses). A friend of mine was charged over $300 for forgetting about an apple in her bag! We waited in a pretty gigantic line-up to go through customs to enter the country, and then had to have our bags x-rayed before we were allowed to exit. The first and only time I’ve ever had to do that on entrance into a country! My mom got held up in the line-up because she told them that she had anxiety medication in her bag (for the flight – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree), which they wanted to see and examine before they finally let her go. They had the most adorable German Shepherds wandering around the area I was waiting sniffing bags, not for drugs but for food! #NewZealandProblems

We finally got through those magical sliding doors, and out into the terminal, and got our first real glimpse of Auckland. I had been getting sweaty and sleepy waiting in the line-up inside, but once we got outside, I was bouncing around and ready to go. We got into a cab to take us to our hotel which was the Hilton down at Princess Wharf, about a 10 minute walk from Les Mills Auckland City. I was SO impatient in the cab; I remember feeling like an 8 year old squirming in my seat, so anxious to get into the city and especially to see the gym. It really seemed like forever, but FINALLY, FINALLY we were in the heart of the city, and the cab driver gestured to his left that the Les Mills gym was “down there”. I knew it was a long shot, but I looked hard….and there it was. I could just barely see it across a gigantic parking lot, tucked in behind some other buildings, but my first glimpse of Les Mills Auckland City was that moment, and it sent this electric rush through me. I was desperate to get there! It was only 8am Auckland time, so we had our entire day in front of us, and I wasn’t about to let a day go by without being in that studio!

We arrived at our hotel which was tucked away down a really cute wharf overlooking the harbour, paid the early check-in fee and we were up in our rooms in 10 minutes or less. The room was beautiful, with two single beds and a balcony that looked just like a cruise ship room overlooking the water. I wasn’t feeling great from all of the motion and the excitement, so we decided to take a quick nap before heading back out to the gym to sign up for our memberships and take a BodyAttack filming rehearsal class with the presenting team. Um, what?

I slept like the dead for about an hour, and then was back up and ready to go! My mom was a champ and gamely came right along with me. We agreed that we would just go and sign up for our memberships right now, check out the gym, maybe watch some of the SH’BAM rehearsal class, and then go get something to eat, and maybe some groceries before the BodyAttack filming rehearsal class.

I must have been half-running from our hotel to the gym. It was only about 2km away, but it seemed to take forever and ever to get there. It was a bit of a meandering path through the streets of Auckland, and one that took us up a SUPER steep hill (oh how many times would we climb that hill over the next 10 days), and just when I was starting to reach feverish pace and think we were never ever going to get there, we emerged on Victoria Street. I looked left first, nothing.

And then, I looked right.

 

 

I wouldn’t call myself a “dreamer”. I’m not one that daydreams very often about going places or becoming things, and over the years I’ve even found myself getting pretty complacent when it comes to setting goals and challenging myself to keep growing as a person.

But for as long as I can remember, I have had one dream.

When I was 17 years old, one of the Les Mills instructors at my gym lent me some of her instructional DVDs for BodyAttack so that I could watch them and see how they learned choreography. I remember taking the stairs two at a time and sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor in my parent’s bedroom (for some reason our only working DVD player was upstairs in their bedroom at that time), popping the DVD in and gaping at the TV as I laid eyes on the BodyAttack program director and master trainers for the first time.

They were perfect.

I remember being absolutely transfixed with the entire class; I sat there and watched it from start to finish. I drank in every detail: what the participants in the class were wearing, the lighting in the room, the water bottles off to the side. Everything. I had no idea at that point that I would ever succeed in becoming a Les Mills instructor, let alone that I would ever have the opportunity to be one of those people in the masterclass.

Fast forward a year later, and my then “dream” of becoming a Les Mills instructor came true. I went for BodyStep training shortly after my 18^th birthday and received my own copies of the instructional DVDs to keep. I watched those things over and over; so many times I memorized the dialogue between the presenters. I knew every affliction of their voices, when they cleared their throats, when they were going to laugh.

A little creepy when I look back in retrospect!

My path with Les Mills continued onwards and upwards as I’ve described many times on this blog. I fell more and more in love with the company, with our programs and with the process with every passing month and year that went by. I started to feel like I had found my purpose; what I was put on this earth to do.

I’m not really sure when the dream to travel to New Zealand was born. It kind of emerged over the course of so many conferences, so many years of exposure to these amazing people and programs, little tidbits of New Zealand culture woven into trainings and workshops and presentations. When you factor in the vacation time, the costs and the registration for the filmings, the dream to travel to New Zealand and attend the quarterly filmings of our instructional DVDs seemed about as likely to happen as a trip to the moon.

We got close a couple of times. About two years ago, it looked like the trip may develop. A group of my friends and I got serious about looking into the costs and the time to make the trip. The travel agent was the bearer of bad news. It was thousands of dollars for the flights, and it would take over a week of vacation for sure to get down there and really enjoy the country. We seriously looked into the trip twice, but wrote it off each time because it just wasn’t feasible.

Fast forward a few more years, and in the era of social media, I was starting to see more and more instructors take the leap, get on the airplane and make the trip to New Zealand for filming. Every time that someone made the leap and went, my heart swelled for them. I was so happy to see our Canadian instructors go, and each one of them came back with the most full heart and happy soul. The dream was itching in the back of my mind.

I never in a million years considered going to New Zealand in 2016. It’s been a crazy year for travel. I’ve been to Vegas and on a huge 2+ week honeymoon all over Europe this year, so I definitely wasn’t planning on any more big trips. Until the Summer.

It was Sunday July 24^th and Matt and I were on a Go Train into Toronto to watch a Blue Jays game with my mom and dad. We couldn’t get seats together, so my mom and I sat in one foursome and my Dad and Matt sat in a separate foursome talking about pumps (yawn). Out of absolutely nowhere, I found myself blurting out “I think I’m going to go to New Zealand this Fall. On my own”. To my absolute surprise, my mom wasn’t shocked at all; she nodded appreciatively and said “I would consider going too, if you would have me come with you.”

Just as quickly as the thought came, it was gone. Evaporated into an afternoon in the sun drinking Iced Capps and eating foot-long hot dogs. I didn’t think about New Zealand again for at least another month.

As Summer drew to a close, the thought bubbled up again. I (once again!) pulled up the accommodations and the flight information that I had looked at so many times. Looked at options to use my Visa and my Aeroplan points, looked at options to stay in an apartment-style hotel instead of a full-service one. And for some reason, this time, it seemed to make sense. We had some money from our wedding that Matt had earmarked for me to use on something or other (he bought a $3,000 canoe, don’t feel too bad for the guy!! ;-)), the flights made sense with when I needed to be in Auckland for the filmings, and the timing worked perfectly, being right over Canadian Thanksgiving weekend which gave me an extra day there.

I knew things were different this time when I actually booked the hotel. It was a Saturday morning before I went out the door to teach my BodyAttack class, and hitting “Book” on Expedia sent this huge rush of adrenaline through my entire body. It was probably one of the most energetic classes of all time!

There was full cancellation insurance on the hotel, so I wasn’t too concerned about changing my mind. It was the flights that really scared me. I got my Dad’s travel agent looking into options for the flights and anxiety started to set in. How could I do this? Me, the terrified flier. Sit on a plane for 13 hours? Surely I would die of a heart attack. I started to feel sick to my stomach whenever I thought about it.

I changed my mind at least 15 times. I actually sent an email to the travel agent telling her thanks, but sorry (once again), I can’t do it this time. Too much money, too much time away, too far to travel. My mom was all in to go; all she needed was the okay from me to book her trip. I couldn’t give her the okay, my anxiety was sky-high.

It was Matt that made the difference. He was all over me. “Why wouldn’t you go? For what reason? Because you’re scared of flying? You need to do this now, this is the time. Stop thinking and book it. Now.” I went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

And then one afternoon, in a sudden rush of courage, I typed the email to the travel agent, closed my eyes and hit Send before I could change my mind.

“I’d like to proceed with booking – please go forward with charging my credit card.”

The second I sent it, I was flooded with regret, panic, anxiety. What have I done, I can’t afford this, I can’t survive the flight, I can’t afford the time away from home, from work. Mistake, mistake, mistake.

Before I could change my mind, the travel agent replied with my tickets. It was done, booked. I was going. My mom was shortly behind me. And then it was done. We were going to New Zealand for filmings. For filmings!

At some point, my panic and anxiety transitioned into jittery, nervous energy and excitement. I still had no idea how I was going to survive the flights. But I knew what was waiting for me on the other side, and I was flooded with hope that I would get there and get to experience it all. The hard part was over, now I just had to make it happen.

Stay tuned for Part 2 in this  mini “Dream Chaser” series!

 

 

 

 

 

I just can’t believe that it is December 15th. Where has this year gone?

I feel like I’m grasping at 2016 like sand through my fingers, feeling like I have nothing to show for it; like I didn’t accomplish so many of the things that I wanted to, didn’t make any of the changes or grow the way that I wanted to. All in all, although 2016 had some truly wonderful moments to it, I’m feeling like I’m ready to turn the page and start fresh in 2017. I know that a new calendar  year really doesn’t represent anything except a different number, and that really December 15th is no different than January 1st, so in all reality, I’m trying to start working on things that I want to achieve in 2017 already. Not tangible things (although there are a couple for sure), but mostly things like trying to slow down, prioritizing what matters and who matters to me, dealing with stress and anxiety a little bit better and most importantly, shifting my mindset and becoming a more positive person that other people can draw inspiration from.

All of that is a great segue into today’s writing challenge assignment (yep, I haven’t given up yet….surprised? LOL).

Write about 5 blessings in your life.

I don’t love the term “blessing”, but I do like the notion of gratitude, and it’s something that I’m trying to focus more and more on these days as we’ve been faced with some more difficult times over the past couple of months, and I’ve just been finding it so much easier to fall into a slump and get my head down about things.

Tough times aside, I’ve always been a person that naturally tends to get frustrated easily and look on the negative side of situations. I don’t think it’s EXTREME, but I’m certainly not a “glass half-full” person like my husband Matt.

But he’s a Golden Retriever in a human’s body, so he’s a different breed all together 😉

While I don’t think I’ll ever go “full Golden Retriever” (you can’t have two Golden Retrievers married to each other…that would just be ridiculous), I’d sure love to be at least part Golden Retriever by the end of next year. Hell, by the end of this year. So I’m working on it! Trying to find the positive in negative situations, trying to train myself to see those things before I see the negative. It’s a process, and it’s not easy. But I’m working on it.

Today’s post asks me to list five blessings in my life, or five things that I’m grateful for. So here goes:

1. My Golden Retriever husband who keeps me laughing, in line and ruffles my feathers when they need to be ruffled and sticks by me even when I’m being a royal pain in the ass
2. My health, and the health of my family and friends. I’ve seen first hand what life is like when you or your family doesn’t have your health, and it is pure misery.
3. That I found something that I am so passionate about, that fulfills me and picks me up on days when I truly don’t think that anything can (I’m talking about Les Mills, of course!)
4. My good job and financial independence. Yea, you’ve heard me complain lots on this blog about my corporate job, but the truth is that without it, I wouldn’t be typing this post in my own home, or be driving the car that I do or taking the vacations that I take. I’m grateful to my corporate job for paying the bills and allowing us to live a life full of fun extras on the side.
5. A recent, spontaneous, and absolute dream come true of a trip to Auckland, New Zealand to live out my dream of attending a round of Les Mills filmings. Yep. I did it. And I am so, so grateful for all of the things that fell in line to allow me to do it. My mom for coming with me (and for helping with the costs!), Matt for pushing me out the door to go, my body for staying healthy and strong enough to do everything I asked of it…..I’m grateful for it all. Eventually I’ll get around to documenting that entire trip on this blog, but for now, here are some pictures of my dream come true.

Life is good, and I’m a lucky, lucky girl. Even when I can’t see it!

-Sara xoxo