Bean it up, girl!

So for those who may not know, back in the very early stages of this pregnancy, months before this whole bed-rest gig, I had some other, unrelated, rather serious complications. Without going into too much detail, lets just say that the baby wasn't attached to my uterus quite right, and much of the blood that should have been going to her, ended up pooling and clotting and, well, coming out. Which was heinous. And horrifying. And soooo painful. I ended up in the ER 3 times before I even reached 11 weeks, each time thinking we had for sure lost the baby. Luckily she figured out how to really grab on in there, and that problem resolved itself completely around 14 weeks. Phew.

So why am I sharing this now? Because during that time I lost a lot of blood, and my red blood cell and hemoglobin counts were waaaay low. And it would appear that I really haven't recovered from that, as my latest blood tests show that these levels are STILL a little below the "normal" range. Being a lazy vegetarian doesn't help. Nor does not having much of an appetite these days (I'm told this is due to the bed-rest and my body not doing enough to require much food). I'm doing my best to eat 3 good meals a day and some hearty, healthy snacks in between, but I really need to start focusing on my protein and iron intake. I already take my prenatals and an additional iron supplement every day, so there's no more "supplements" I can take. So I am heeding my cousin Lauren's advice, which is to: "Bean it up, girl!"

Tuesday night's hodgepodge dinner ended up being one of the most delicious things we've eaten in a while (we being me and Eric, as there's no way Owen would touch a "salad"). It was a healthified (I use the term, which isn't even a real word, very loosely) version of the McMillan's summer Taco Salad. And it went a little something like this:

Tempeh Taco Salad

Head of iceberg lettuce (I know, but I hate most other kinds of lettuce and iceberg is traditional taco salad lettuce!)

Half package of tempeh, sliced to 1/4 inch pieces

Can of black beans

1 cup cooked corn

1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, diced

1 cup shredded cheese (we used pre-shredded nacho/taco cheese)

1/2 cup black olives, sliced

A few generous handfuls of crushed tortilla chips

Catalina dressing

Saute up the tempeh, chipotle pepper, and black beans in some olive oil until the tempeh is nice and browned. Meanwhile shred the head of lettuce into a big bowl (or just the individual serving bowls if you're lazy like us) and cover it with the tortilla chips, black olives and cheese. Once the tempeh was a nice golden brown, add the corn to the pan for a minute just to warm it up. Then add the tempeh/bean/pepper/corn mixture to the top of the salad, add dressing to your liking, mix, and serve. Delish!

Also, a few people have commented lately that they haven't SEEN me in a while - either due to distance or just the fact that I'm not super social right now and haven't been to any parties lately. So here are a few shots from yesterday - we'll call them 29 week belly shots. The second one cracks me up because it shows, without a doubt, this baby's preference for my right side (and yes, those are my blurry feet way down in the distance - I can still see 'em!).

She's definitely cooking in there! About 2 1/2 pounds this week. Time to start getting that nursery put together!