Still Waiting . . .

I think I'm learning a good lesson in patience. It's like waiting those last few days before Chad came home from Egypt, only a little worse. At least I knew what day he was coming home and when exactly I would see him. It's hard to remember sometimes that I won't be pregnant forever. But, I am learning. Patience and prayer go hand in hand I think.

My visiting teacher came over today, and she brought a little pamper party with her for the two of us :) What she said as she dragged me to the sink to prep our hands for some lovin': "I'm not really in to this sort of thing and you probably aren't either, but we're going to do it anyway." Haha. So she had a little Mary Kay kit that we went through to give us "satin hands." It was nice. My cuticles have never felt so loved.

I was over on Simplify today and found this. I had heard the story before, but I didn't know there was a video. It's a good one.

Hope you enjoyed it. Have a great day!

Waiting . . .

Chad's Aunt LeeAnn had a good analogy for pregnancy the other day. She said it's like a marathon, but when you get to the finish line, they tell you, "Just keep going; we'll tell you when to stop."

Sigh.

We are so ready to have this baby in our arms. And I'm sure Chad is ready to not need to haul me out of chairs and hear me whine about my feet. They have been getting soooo swollen; I even have a stretch mark on one because of it. But I digress.

We learned at our doctor's appointment yesterday that I'm still just 2 cm dilated, but now I'm 80% effaced. (Last time I was 70%, so that's progress, right?) My blood pressure was a little higher than normal (the second number was in the 80s; my blood pressure is usually about as low as you can get), so my doctor sent us over to labor and delivery for non-stress tests and a couple labs. From what it sounded like, she was getting two birds with one stone: being careful about preeclampsia and doing the NSTs to make sure we're ok to go overdue. So they strapped me up to two monitors: one that kept track of the baby's heart rate and one that kept track of any contractions. I also had a blood pressure cuff on that took readings every 5 minutes and kept track of my heart rate too. I laid there for an hour, at the end of which my blood pressure was basically back to normal, my labs looked good, and the baby was just fine. So... we went home. Chad had to sit there in an uber uncomfy chair the whole time while I got to lay in a nice cushy hospital bed. Poor guy :\

I'm scheduled to be induced on the 29th. At that point, I'll be 41 weeks and 4 days. I think my doctor would have done sooner, but she's going to be out of town all next week. I think she's also thinking that he'll come on his own. We really, really hope she's right.

Have a good day everybody :)

Graduation!

This past Friday was awesome. Chad and I graduated! We got to walk together from his college. His sister came and walked with us too so his family wouldn't have to split up between the different ceremonies. Not only did we all graduate, but my brother Jess graduated too! In Texas, so I don't have any pictures of that :( But basically, a great day all around.

My face with about 5 extra pounds of... we'll call it water weight. That sounds better than donut weight.

The graduating class. All 27ish of us. It was a nice and short ceremony :)

Gma Jones and Gma Mc

An epic picture of Gma Mc that Chad took. I really like this one :) 

It was a nice day. Kind of surreal. It still doesn't really feel like we graduated. Not until I remember that I now have to say that I went to BYU instead of that I go to BYU. And you know, it's a little bittersweet. Not that I'm asking for more classes or homework. But still. I'm done with school. Weird. 

Other news: nothin' much on the baby front. He's still sittin' comfy. Although last night I had a really big contraction. It even made my back hurt. I got all excited and decided if another one like that came, I'd start timing them. But another one didn't come. Just the one big one. Sigh. 

Chad has a job for the next few months while we're here! Our neighbor Robert has been working with a landscaping crew for the last several months, but he's quitting for school in the fall. Anyway, he told Chad that his boss was going to hire a few more people at the end of August, gave Chad his boss' phone number, and now Chad has a job :) Yay! 

And I think that's about it... my little brother Alex is supposed to be sending some pictures from Hungary soon. He hasn't been able to email any because the computers there are so old that none of them have USB or SD ports for him to download and send pictures. But hopefully soon :)

Have a great day everybody! 

Baby Shower

So first off, I apologize to anyone who wanted to come and didn't get an invite. We could only fit family and friends from the ward in my apartment. And actually... I'm such a space case nowadays, those are the only people I thought to invite. So, to old roommates and friends who occasionally pop in to check out the blog, I'm sorry! I still love you. You'll understand about pregnancy-brain when you get there, I promise.

So, Chad's little sister Katelynn threw me a baby shower! She did a great job and it was really fun. I had never been to a baby shower before (yeah yeah, *gasp* and all that :) so I didn't really know what to expect, and I was nervous, but it turned out great. We were left with enough cupcakes and ice cream to feed a small village, but who complains about that?

We played an A to Z baby things game where you had to come up with something baby-related for every letter of the alphabet first. I totally bombed this one; I thought the words had to be baby things, whereas everyone else understood that they could be anything to do with babies. Don't know if that distinction made sense, but just know that I failed miserably :) Next we played the string game. Katelynn gave everyone a piece of string and they had to estimate how big around my belly is. That was fun :) It was funny to see how accurate all the girls with kids were compared to all the girls without kids. All the future mothers waaaay overestimated, which was really funny. Plus I'm not as big (stomach-wise) as most pregnant ladies. My friend Rachel was spot on. No kidding. Muy impressive. It spanned from there to pieces of string that were about 150% my actual size. Haha :) Then everyone made teeny babies out of play-doh and I chose which was my favorite.

Constructing the babies:

Marley and Kristee in the middle

Katelynn and Aunt LeeAnn

Rachel and Alisa

I didn't get a picture of Jessica and Jennifer, who were right next to me (it would have just been their backs).

The babies (which were all much cuter before they dried out on my counter for two days):

Aunt LeeAnn and Katelynn made this one. Awesome, huh!? The little legs and glasses crack me up :)

Jennifer and Jessica made this one; they decided to make a toddler instead of a baby (really cute, but for the record: I'm really glad I don't have to give birth to a toddler)

Kristee and Chad's cousin Marley made this one, which I thought was adorable! 

And Rachel and Alisa made this one. They even gave him a life-like little cone head and everything :)

Notice how they all have red hair? :D

So I picked the third one (Marley and Kristee's). The cute little face got me. 

Then we opened presents and had cupcakes and ice cream. I specifically told everyone not to bring presents (because we're all in the same poor-college-student-boat and half of my friends are pregnant too), but they did anyway. I knew that was going to happen.

Pics with a sampling of the awesome gifts:
(Warning: I'm a total cheese bucket when I have to pose for pictures)

Rachel made a hooded towel! I've always wanted to try that. She also hit up a yard sale and bought us a couple stacks of really cute clothes, blankets, and bibs.

The print Katelynn gave us for the baby's room. I love it.

With Jennifer's pacifier clip and singing birthday candle :)

Jessica gave us all sorts of bath stuff! (Including the wash, shampoo, and lotion on the couch) And chad especially likes the elephant.

Kristee gave us a whole outfit (pants, onesie, socks, and mittens), pacifiers, and a big package of wipes. Awesome.

Just a piece of Aunt LeeAnn's gift, which was really cool. Handmade burp cloths with really neat stitching around the outside of the one on the right, CUTE outfit, nifty diaper disposal bags, and--wonderful of wonderfuls--a big bottle of honey from their own bees. Then we went to visit them that evening (so we could see Gma Jones too, who's staying with them for a while) and they gave us veggies from their garden and a whole carton of eggs from their chickens. I felt so at home :) 

So, we had a pretty good weekend :) The next two weeks are going to be rather awesome as well. Graduate on Friday and hopefully have a baby by next Thursday. Gosh I don't want to go late. I've been having lots of contractions and as of Thursday I was already dilated to almost two centimeters, so hopefully those are all good signs. I choose to ignore the parts of my pregnancy books that say I could dilate to three and sit there for a couple weeks before labor. 

Have a great day everyone!

Good advice

38 weeks!

So close! I've been full term for a whole week. Basically, he could come at any time. But I'm still thinking he'll probably come a little later. Not that we don't hope. Chad tells him every day that his time's up :) That started when my good friend from the ward who was due on August 16 had her little girl last Monday. I thought I'd take that as a good omen, but I'm pretty sure our little guy is comfortable and in no hurry to go anywhere. 

He's so big now though. And believe you me, he's not letting the fact that he's short on space stop him from stretching those limits. Holy moley. I tried to get a video of my belly moving around the other day, but he stopped moving when I stood up to get the camera. Yes, a video of my bare belly. That's how impressed I was. Sometimes at night he'll kick so hard that it rocks me, which rocks the bed a little. He's a strong little guy. Sometimes he pushes so hard that I can almost squeeze the little knob that is his foot or knee :) When I do, he pulls his foot back in and then pushes out again nearby, and we go through the game until he gets tired. I like that one. 

So babycenter has some pretty good articles. I read one recently full of parents giving good little tidbits about their experiences with a newborn. Not all of them were helpful (like the mother who suggested hiring someone to clean the house so you don't have to worry about it.... Um, no thank you), but I really liked a few of them. So here are the pieces of advice I liked, in neat little list form.

I especially like 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8. I'd been thinking a lot about the idea of #8 long before I read the article, and I already know everything's going to pass too quickly for me. You may not know this, but I can be just a bit sentimental at times. (That's like saying Texas is pleasantly warm in August. I'm good at reeling myself in nowadays, but big things like this are fair game.) I can hardly believe I've only got two more weeks of this pregnancy. Believe you me, Chad and I are both so ready to finally be able to meet and hold this baby (and I'm ready to be able to turn over at night without hurting myself), but I'm going to miss certain things about pregnancy. It is the most amazing thing in the world to be able to feel your baby from the inside. The first flutters and pokes are amazing, and then when your baby's big enough to interact with you... it's indescribable.  That I am definitely going to miss. 

Now, however, I'm ready for the next part. As Chad would say, "Time's up little dude. See you soon!"

PS. And just so you know, I am totally going to be one of those moms to make everyone wash their hands before they can hold the baby. And if you're sick or have even an inkling that you might be heading in that direction, come another time please. I may be sentimental, but I'm also paranoid like you've never seen.