Better

Recently someone invited me to join a book club. I was a little taken back by the invitation, I didn't really know what to say, and it embarrassed me a little but to admit that I have not read a single book since I had my daughter over a year ago. They seemed a little shocked by my confession, but it is what it is. I find some time to read, it's just that I mostly read articles on mothering or marriage or recipes, in the few minutes here and there when Noelle is contentedly playing with her toys on the floor, or for a few minutes when she is napping before I get dressed or make myself lunch or put dinner in the crock pot. Honestly, I don't know how mothers have time to read a book and hold on to a story line with only a few minutes here and there. It made me feel like I'm not doing such a good job being a multitasking mother because I can't do it. I know that was not the intent of my friend, but it made me want to do "better" for a little while. I put the word better in quotation marks because when I think back on that, I feel a bit silly, because thinking that I needed to be a "better" mother because I don't find time to read books (ones with more than 10 pages that is) or go to craft night or even fold and put away the laundry is silly. I am a good mother. So what if I haven't read a book in over a year, I've read every weekly article on my child's development since I found out I was pregnant, I don't usually find time to go to craft night because I like to be home to put my daughter to bed and spend the evening with my husband, I may currently have 4 baskets of clean laundry in my bedroom begging to be folded and put way, but you know what, that is not my priority right now, today I played with my daughter, I laid down on the floor next to her for 2 hours because she wanted me to. Yes I know that I need to fold the laundry, but it's not going to get done today, and that's ok, David and Noelle still love me, even if we have to fish through the laundry basket for a week or more before it gets put away. It's ok. I'm proud of the mothers that find time to read books and go to craft night and fold their laundry, they are good mothers, and so am I, even if I don't do those things. I do my best and I love my family and I can't do better than that.

Times Marches On

Remember how it's been over a year since I've written anything on here? Ha ha. Yeah, I have a beautiful baby girl, Noelle Hailey Richardson, who is just over a year old now... And she is the reason I haven't written, she likes to take up all of my time, in the best way. I love her guts! She's my bestie, she's perfect and I love being her mama. Being a mom is great, seriously, it's so amazing being able to watch  this beautiful human being that I created go from being able to do nothing on her own, to being able to walk and feed herself and understand what I say. It's incredible and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to do that. I love that I have a husband that will support me in staying home with our daughter and being a stay-at-home mom. I can't imagine having to leave her with someone else so that I can go to work, I know tons of moms do that, and it's fine, but it's not for me. I love that I get to stay home and take care of my best girl everyday.

Well, seeing as how it's been a million years since I've written anything I suppose a little catch up is necessary. We live in Lafayette, Indiana now. It's not as small as you probably think... Well at least it's bigger than I thought it was. It's a great place to live, we actually really love it here, minus the horrible winter we just had and the tornado thing, also the smell is pretty bad sometimes because of a local corn syrup factory, but like I said, we love it here. If you watch the show Parks & Rec, we basically live in Pawnee, the parks here are amazing, we have our very own Sweetums factory and the people, though a bit eccentric at times, are really great. David is in school at Purdue and rocking the socks off of his first year. We teach the 7 turning 8 year olds in Primary and we love it, I mean we literally have the best class in the entire Primary, and I'm not just saying that because I'm biased... Although I may be a little biased. Noelle is amazing, although sick right now, she's been surprisingly happy and even tempered. We are looking forward to summer vacations and swimming as soon as the pool opens. We've been taking full advantage of the free zoo and have been several times a week since it opened. We love to visit all the new baby goats in the petting zoo.

Let's Get This Show on the Road!

Ok, well David is back and I'm still pregnant! Yay! Heavenly Father answered our prayers and kept our little girl inside my tummy until he was able to make it back. Now we are excited again for her to make her long awaited arrival. At the doctor on Friday they checked me again and I'm still at a 3 and 80%, so I haven't had any more change since our stay at the hospital. Now that I'm 37 weeks, I'm officially off bed rest! Yay! She said that now that I'm off bed rest she anticipates the baby will come soon, so we're hoping this week. I read up on ways to naturally induce labor, so I'll be taking a walk everyday, maybe even two walks a day if I feel like it! Perfect timing too since the weather has significantly improved recently, it's supposed to be in the 40s or 50s outside everyday this week, which will be so perfect for taking a nice enjoyable walk. I also found out that massages are a great way to induce labor because it releases the hormone oxytocin which can trigger contractions, so if David will cooperate, I hope to get a back massage every day this week :). Also there are some pressure points that are supposed to help, particularly the webbing between your thumb and pointer finger, so I'll be giving myself a little acupressure treatment in the form of hand massages throughout the day, it actually feels quite nice.

My mom spent the weekend here with me, so we did a little shopping at stores she loves but doesn't have down in St. George. I was able to get some nice curtains for the baby room that are supposed to block out 99% of light... Well, they definitely don't block out 99% of the light, but that's ok, it still makes it significantly darker. I honestly didn't really want it to be pitch black because I don't want her to only be able to sleep when it's super dark, so I think it'll be good. I also found a really cute baby book. I'm not a scrapbooker, I think scrapbooks are super cute and everything, but I know myself and I know that I would never spend the time to scrapbook, so I needed something simple and easy that I would actually do. Well, I found the perfect solution. There are these books called Smash Books. A Smash Book is basically a really cute book that is ready for you to glue your pictures in. It has really cute pages already set up in there, so you just go through and glue your pictures where you want them and make your notes and whatever, it makes it really easy and fun. They even already had a baby themed one, so it was perfect. Now I have a book to bring to the hospital and have them stamp the baby's footprints in the day she's born, yay! So shopping with my mom was a success, I got a few things I wanted but didn't have to spend a lot. We went out to lunch a few times and then just hung around at home the rest of the time.

As fun as it was to have my mom here, I'm so happy that David is back! I missed him so much! I don't think I slept as well without him here, so last night we both got an awesome nights sleep, which was well needed. David's visit to Purdue was a great success! He was able to meet with several professors that all said they would love to work with him! All he has to do is email the ones he's most interested in working with and they will email him back with an offer, an offer for funding that is! Which means if we decide to go to Purdue, we will basically have school paid for plus get a stipend every month to live on! I mean, we'll have to see what they offer exactly, but they basically told him that they would set him up, so that is really exciting! I knew that David would do a great job, so even though it was hard having him gone, it was totally worth it! I'm very proud of him.

Alright, well, I think I'm going to head out on a walk and try to get the ball rolling on contractions and stuff. Hopefully it works, although our little girl has already showed us that she is calling the shots around here, so I guess it'll be whenever she's ready, not us, but if I can help her be ready any sooner, why not?!

The Waiting Game

So, tomorrow I'll be 37 weeks! That's considered full-term! Which is great since I went into pre-term labor at 34 weeks. Yep, we almost had a premature baby. So about 3 weeks ago I woke up on a Saturday morning and was having some back pains in my lower back. They were really uncomfortable and kind of rhythmic, it was really weird and they weren't going away after a few hours of waiting it out and laying down. I remember I had read something about getting lower back pain like this when your pregnant, so I looked it up because I couldn't remember what I had read about it. Well, turns out it is a sign of pre-term labor! What?! Yeah, so I started getting worried and convinced David that we should go to the hospital and get it checked out at labor and delivery. David didn't want to go, he thought I was overreacting and being silly, but he humored me and we headed off to the hospital.

When we arrived they let me in and took me to a room and had me change into a hospital gown. They put monitors on my stomach, one to monitor the baby's heartbeat and one to monitor contractions. They did a cervical exam to see if I was dilated at all, took a urine sample and then just had me lay down. I wasn't dilated at all in my cervical exam, but I was having a lot of uterine irritability and I started to have some pretty regular contractions, probably every 2 to 5 minutes apart. After about an hour or so they came in to check my cervix again to see if there was any change, well, there was, I went from not being dilated at all to a 1+! So they kept me there and watched me for a while longer and pumped me full of meds to try and stop my contractions. I hated those meds because they lowered my blood pressure a ton and skyrocketed my heart-rate! At one point my heart-rate was up to 150 beats per minute! I was super shaky and it felt really weird. And the meds weren't really doing anything to stop or slow contractions. David and I were just watching tv and chilling the whole time, it was pretty boring, but it was ok. My back was hurting me the whole time, but I didn't want to take anything for pain because it wasn't unbearable or anything and I'm pretty used to my back hurting, so I just dealt with it. Well, after we'd been there for about 3 or 4 hours and giving me all that medication they wanted to do one more cervical exam before deciding to send me home for the night. Well, the nurse came in and checked me again and I was dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced! Holy cow! That's when they decided to admit me and told us we were going to have a baby that night! Yeah, didn't expect to hear that! It made us a little nervous, but the nurses and doctors were really reassuring about the fact that I was already 34 weeks along, which I guess is kind of a mile marker in pregnancy, because if a baby is born at 34 weeks she may be in the NICU for a few weeks to monitor her ability to suck, eat, gain weight, breath effectively on her own, and maintain her own body temperature, but she will have no long term problems, so we weren't really too worried, we just felt peaceful about the whole thing and knew that if our baby girl was coming that night, then everything would be just fine.

Well, they kept me all night, I decided to take the pain killers so that I could try to get some sleep, but although it helped with the pain, I wasn't able to sleep at all! They gave me a steroid shot in my hip to help with the development of the baby's lungs, so that was good. What was weird about the whole thing though was that overnight my contractions basically stopped altogether and when they checked me again in the morning I was still at a 3 and 80% and had had no more change. They kept me until about noon and after I still didn't have any more change they decided to send me home! Weird huh? To progress that much in such a short amount of time and then just completely stop! Well, it happened! They sent me home on bed rest, I had to quit my job a whole month before I had planned to and stay home, in bed. Well, it hasn't been too bad, I mostly have just watched shows on tv and played Nintendo 64. Somehow I have managed to keep myself pretty entertained. I learned why they want me to stay down, because on days that I try to get up and do stuff I start to have a lot more contractions and it gets really uncomfortable. I think they are mostly just braxton hicks contractions because as soon as I sit down again they usually subside, they aren't regular, and they aren't terribly painful, just a little painful and really uncomfortable, but they don't get increasingly more painful.

35 weeks.

35 weeks 6 days. Even though I'm on bed rest, I couldn't miss my best friend's baby shower! Her due date is the day before mine, March 21st.

36 weeks, didn't think I'd make it this far!

Well, ever since they sent me home on bed rest we have been expecting our little girl to arrive any day! You get kind of excited when they tell you that you're going to have a baby that night and then you get impatient when 3 weeks later you still don't have one! I mean it's good because now she will be full-term and shouldn't have any health issues, so she should be able to come straight home with us! I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so since I will be full-term tomorrow, I'm going to ask if I still have to be on bed rest, and hopefully they'll let me off and grant me some more freedom.

David and I are so ready for our baby girl to get here! We just want to play with her and cuddle with her and give her all sorts of lovin'! She is going to be one spoiled little girl! We still think she can come at any time, the only thing that we're worried about now is that David left town this morning and won't be back until Sunday morning... So she can't come until Sunday afternoon at the earliest! We have been really nervous about him leaving town because we haven't had the baby yet, so we've just been praying really hard that we won't have her until after he's back. He flew to Indiana to visit Purdue University, he got accepted there and they paid to fly him out there for the weekend to meet with the professors and other graduate students and tour the labs. He'll have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with the professors he's interested in working with, and hopefully he will get offered some funding to work with some of them. I'm super proud of him and I know he'll do great this weekend and impress the snot out of Purdue. I miss him already though, this will be the first night since we've been married that we will spend apart. My mom is coming up to "babysit" me (because apparently nobody thinks I can be alone) and keep me company while he's gone, but I still can't wait until he gets back! And then I can start looking forward to our baby again instead of being paranoid that she'll try to come while her daddy is out of town.

Baby Shower!

Well, we have our nursery all set up and it’s so pretty, I love it. It’s all neutral colors, pretty much just dark brown wood with beige and white accents, I’ll try to throw in a few colors when I make the curtains, but I haven’t even picked out fabric yet, so we’ll see what I can find, maybe I’ll just stick to the neutrals, I think they look really good, very classy, clean and fresh. 

Last Saturday Julia and Marianna (my sister and mother-in-law) threw me a baby shower, with some help from Clara and Deborah too, my younger sisters-in-law. Well, let me tell you, it was beautiful! It was more than I had hoped for! The colors were perfect, not just all pink, which I liked, she used yellows, greens and some oranges too, it was really pretty. The food was delicious, the games were fun, and the company was great! A lot of my friends were able to make it, which I really appreciated, and a lot of David’s family came to support me too which was really sweet, two of David’s aunts came and several of his cousins, so that made me feel really good. I received a lot of gifts for my little girl, which was so great! I’m so grateful for everything that we got and really felt blessed to have received so much. We got a lot of clothes that are so so cute! Our little girl is going to be stylin’ for sure! We got a beautiful, soft, homemade blanket from a sweet sister from my mission, an adorable homemade dress from an old mission companion of mine who recently learned to sew. We got crib sheets, baby wash, toys, and books! It was so amazing and we really are very grateful for everything that we received and for everyone who came, and of course for David’s family for hosting such a wonderful baby shower for me.

On Sunday we went over to Maile and Michael’s house to watch the Super Bowl! It was fun, I got to cuddle with David the whole time and eat yummy food, so it was a good night. As soon as we got in the car to go home though, I think I got my first contraction! Yeah, weird! It was in my upper abdomen where the top of my uterus is, it was a sharp cramping pain that lasted for about a minute, it wasn’t really severe or anything, but it was definitely uncomfortable. I haven’t felt any contractions since then, just the one, so that was kinda weird. 

We are still really hoping to get a local internship for David this summer, so since I work at a sheet metal fabrication company, we work with a lot of different engineering companies, so this week I decided to ask my boss at work if maybe he knew of any of the companies that we work with that are offering some kind of summer internship for mechanical engineers. My boss thought he might know of a few, so he made a few phone calls and had me talk to a gentleman who said he wanted to see David’s resume! So I’m feeling pretty good that I may have helped David find an internship, so we’ll see how it turns out! 

We are still waiting to hear back from the graduate schools that David applied to. This week he got a really interesting email from Purdue University, who is interested in flying him out to visit their school and check it out! Isn’t that so awesome?! We are so excited! David has already accepted and will be flying out there on February 28^th and coming back on March 2^nd. This is obviously a good sign for us, because they probably wouldn’t offer to pay to fly him out if they weren’t really interested in him, so we’re thinking that this means he’ll get accepted! So that was some really good news for us this week, especially because Purdue is ranked #8 in the nation for his graduate program! I’m super proud of David, and I can tell that he’s really excited. So, we might be moving to Indiana in August! That would definitely be an adventure!

Getting Ready for the Baby!

Well, we took a birthing class at my doctors office last Saturday, it was really informative. I always thought that you should go to the hospital when your contractions are 5 to 7 minutes apart, but boy was I wrong! I guess now they want your contractions to be 2 to 4 minutes apart, consecutively for 2 hours before you go to the hospital! What?! Well, when I was telling my mom about that she was a bit shocked because I guess when she had my sister Lisa, which was her first baby, she had her in just 2 hours! They say with your first baby that it always takes longer, but that wasn’t the case for my mom! The longest labor and delivery experience she had was only 6 hours, and it was with her second baby. When she went to the hospital about to have my sister, they checked her out, she was 3 cm dilated and they told her she was going to have a long night ahead of her and told her to go home. Well, when she couldn’t walk down the hall to leave because of the intensity of her contractions they admitted her. Good thing they did too because she went from being 3 cm dilated to 10, one or two pushes and my sister was here within the hour! Now, I don’t know that it’ll be the same way for me… Although I’m hoping a little ha ha. I’ve read about it and I guess it just depends, so I’ll talk to my doctor about it when the time gets a little closer and then I’ll just have to wait and see! The only downside I can see with having such a quick labor and delivery is that I may not have time for an epidural if I decide I want one, which would suck, but oh well!

We have all of the big stuff we need for baby now! My mom and dad bought us a stroller this weekend, David and I bought ourselves a Pack N’ Play a few weeks ago and then this weekend we ordered the rest of the stuff we need for the nursery! We were planning on borrowing a truck from David’s parents and going to Ikea and a few other places up in West Jordan area to pick up all of the furniture we needed for the baby and then hauling it all back down to Provo and then returning the truck to them in Alpine. Basically it was going to be an all day affair, and we weren’t even sure on the items we really wanted yet. But the other night I was browsing on the internet checking out other stores prices for cribs and rocking chairs and dressers. Well, I went to Walmart.com and found myself quite a good deal. I found a bundle for a crib and mattress for $135! Which is really good! We were going to spend $120 on the crib alone and then another $55 for the mattress! So yeah, that saved us like $40 bucks just on those. Also, they will deliver it to our house, which means we don’t have to borrow the truck anymore! Yay! So after we found that deal we thought we might as well order a dresser and a glider chair too! Everything came by yesterday and I was really excited for them all to arrive so that we could set them up and have our nursery all ready to go and beautiful for the baby! We were so excited that we set up the crib and the chair the same night we got them! Now all we have to set up is the dresser and we’ll be good to go! They are all beautiful and they match really well despite the fact that they are all different brands, you can’t even tell! There are a few things I’m going to make for the baby room still too. I’m going to make some curtains that will block out light, so since I’m doing that I thought I could make a matching crib skirt and pillow to sit on the chair out of the same fabric. I haven’t picked out fabric yet, probably won’t even go looking for a few weeks still, but it’ll be fun. 

Yay for the baby! She’ll be here in just 8 weeks now. We’re both getting really excited. I went to the doctor today and he said everything is looking great! He said I’m measuring right where I should be and my weight gain is right on track. I was starting to get a little worried because everyone always comments on how small I look still, so I was starting to think that maybe my baby was too small and not getting enough nutrients or something, but the doctor said she’s totally fine and that it’s probably just the way I’m carrying. I think it might be because I have a longer torso, so she has more room up and down to stretch out, rather than only growing out. Oh yeah, and David’s mom and sister Julia are throwing me a baby shower in a few weeks! They are so sweet to do it for me! I’m excited and I love them for offering to do it for me!

Adventure Time!

So there is this show on the Cartoon Network that David and I really like called Adventure Time. Seriously, we love it and I think the people that wrote it must be geniuses. It’s funny, cute, clever, and really entertaining. They have the funniest expressions, they say funny stuff like “Oh my glob!” instead of oh my goodness, or “Mathmatical!” Instead of awesome. Well, it’s about these two best friends named Jake and Finn. Finn is a human and Jake is a magical dog and they go on adventures all the time and fight bad guys and protect princesses and stuff. David always says how he’s like Jake the dog, which I can totally see. Well, he says I’m like a character named Lady Rainicorn (a magical rainbow unicorn), which I’m not really, but the reason he chooses her is because she and Jake are in love, ahhh. But in all reality I’m like Finn, the best friend… And they love each other too, so it still works. David is still adamant that I'm Lady Rainicorn though, so I guess I'm starting to accept it.

Jake and Finn in the foreground, Lady Rainicorn, Princess Bubblegum, and The Ice King in the background.

Anyway, we were watching the other night and Jake the dog had some new pups. It was so cute because he was obsessed with them! Like he couldn’t sleep because he was so worried about them, they were sleeping and he thought they were dead because they weren’t moving and then he freaked out and woke them all up to make sure. He got up extra early to make them breakfast, he took them on a walk and was paranoid when they started playing that they would get hurt. Basically it was adorable! We both thought that it was really funny and cute… Especially because we’re both probably going to be like that when we have our baby ha ha. We laugh about it, but we are pretty sure we’re going to be obsessed and paranoid about everything our little one does. It was cute, just the next night, out of nowhere David says, “I can’t wait to be like Jake.” He’s excited to be a dad and be obsessed with and paranoid about our baby… And I think that’s really adorable. Oh my gosh! Only 10 more weeks! 

Jake with pregnant Lady Rainicorn.

New Year, New Adventures!

Well, this is going to be a year of change for me and David. And I mean a lot of change! It’s so weird to think that our baby girl will be here in 2 ½ months! Holy cow! I’m 30 weeks pregnant now, that means there’s only 10 weeks to go! Becoming parents will be our biggest change for sure. I’m super excited of course, but I’m nervous too. When I think about it too much I start to realize how scary it is and start to think that I’m not going to know what to do or that I won’t like it or that I’m just not ready. I’m sure all of that is normal, but yeah… Also giving birth scares the crap out of me… So I’m trying not to think too much about that just yet. We have signed up for a birthing class that is in a few weeks, so I think that should be good. The class is offered at my doctor’s office by one of the labor and delivery nurses at the hospital I’m going to be delivering at, so I think it should be really helpful.

30 weeks! Only 10 more to go!

It’s so funny how now that I’m pregnant it seems like everyone I know is also pregnant! I guess I’m just at that point in life though where most of the people I know are getting married and starting their families. I’m pregnant, my best friend is pregnant, my sister is pregnant, my sister-in-law is pregnant, my good friend from high school is pregnant, my good friend from the mission is pregnant, my old visiting teaching companion is pregnant, my old roommate is pregnant, one of the girls I currently visit teach is pregnant… I think you get what I mean, I could even name more, but I won’t.

Our Christmas break was great! We got to spend time with our families down in the nice warm St. George, Hurricane, and New Harmony. Well, most days it was warm, it did snow like 3 times, but it wasn’t anything like what it’s been like in Provo, so it was ok. We were down there for 10 days. We got to rest and relax, hang out and play games with family. We saw tons of movies, ate really good food and got to see my dad sing at a local restaurant, so it was definitely a winner of a trip!

At the Brigham Young House with David's family.

David's adorable slider

David with our nephew Noah.

Now we’re back and David started school yesterday. I’m happy I don’t have school this semester. I’m just at work, I’m working Monday through Thursday from 8:15 to 4:15, so it’ll be nice to have Friday’s off to get stuff done for the baby, clean the apartment, run errands, see friends, and David has short days on Fridays too, so we’ll get to spend some more time together too which is always nice J. I had a lot of catching up to do at work  after I got back, so it was crazy for a while there, but now things are settling into their routine, for me anyway, I think David still has to get in the swing of his new schedule. David is going to graduate with his Bachelor’s degree in April, crazy! He’s really excited. Then we’re going to move to who knows where for grad school and start a whole new chapter of life. Man, we have so many new things coming up! It’s fun and crazy and we both wish we knew the specifics, but we just have to wait a little longer for that, so it’s ok.

Did I mention that I’m learning to sew? Yeah, I’ve made like 6 things since Thanksgiving. I think I might be nesting a little bit ha ha. I made 3 Christmas stockings, 2 maxi skirts and a maternity shirt, all with a little help from my mama. Next I want to make some burp clothes, curtains, and a little shirt or dress for our little girl, these will have to be easy because I won’t have my mom in the next room to ask for help and I’ll be using my own machine which I’ve never used before, so I’m sure I’ll hit a few bumps. I’ll put up some pictures of the stuff I’ve done soon and maybe even tell a little bit about how I did it.

My Mom's Experience

So I’ve been asking my mom a lot of questions about her pregnancies to get an idea of what I might expect, because I’ve been told that you have similar pregnancies and labor and delivery experiences as your mother. This is what I’ve learned.

• My mom had all of her children natural, no pain killers. She’s a rockstar, I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. My plan right now is to go as long as I can without anything… But “as long as I can” is very flexible… I mean, I might have one contraction and be like “forget this! Where’s the epidural?!” So yeah, I have a very flexible birth plan to say the least.

• My mom has short labors. I mean, it’s not unusual to be in labor for 16 hours. They say that 12-20 hours is normal for a first time mom. Well, my mom didn’t have anything close to that! When I was asking her about it she told me I was here in an hour after starting labor and the doctor barely got there in time to catch me. My siblings were not as anxious to get to the world as I was, but when she mentioned one of her birthing experiences lasting a long time I asked what that meant, “like 12 hours long?” She said, “oh no! Nothing like that!” So, I guess, I may have a short labor and delivery experience. Which would be nice… Unless I take too long to decide I want an epidural and then it’s too late… That would suck, but I’ll have to deal with that if it comes.

• My mom did not have gestational diabetes. I’m happy about that because you’re more likely to have it if your mom had it, so I’m feeling pretty good about my upcoming glucose tolerance screening.

• My mom got very little stretch marks. She said she only got them at the end of pregnancy, they were mostly just on her hips, and that they weren’t very bad. I’m ok with all of that. 27 weeks and so far so good! I put cocoa butter on my tummy and hips every night right when I get out of the shower, so I’m hoping that will help as well, it is definitely a lot less dry and itchy, so that’s already a benefit… And it smells good too :).

• My mom had most of her children past their due date. No preemies for her! This isn’t my favorite news because surely I’ll be dying to get my little one out by March 22^nd, I can’t imagine having to wait another week or two! From the sound of it I might have to though, and I guess that’s good, I’d rather have a late healthy baby than have her come early when she or I aren’t ready.

• My mom has big babies. I was 8 pounds 6 ounces and my siblings were likewise. I guess they're big, but not too big, at least they weren't like 10 or 12 pounders! Then I would be scared. 

• My mom had cute kids. Lets be honest, we're not a bad looking bunch! Ha ha, just joking. I just know I'm going to have a beautiful little girl though. She's going to have brown eyes and brown hair. I hope she gets David's lips, he has great lips. I guess this one doesn't have so much to do with my mom as it does me and David, but that's ok.

This is me as a baby, pretty cute huh?

27 Weeks and done with school!

Well, I’m 27 weeks pregnant now and loving it! I’m so excited for our little baby girl to come! I know it’s still a while before she gets here, but the second trimester has been awesome and it has allowed me to enjoy being pregnant and look forward to what we have coming. The first trimester… Well, the first 16 weeks or so actually, were really difficult. I was throwing up multiple times a day, I had no appetite, no energy, and I lost about 10 to 15 pounds. I finally got some anti-nausea medicine from my doctor and it saved me! I was actually able to function again, which was good since I started school and work again. I had to take the pills everyday for a long time and then I finally started to feel better and would only take them when I needed them. I still get the occasional fits of nausea, but they are few and far between, which I am very grateful for.

I feel our little girl practicing flips and kicks all the time now, she’s very active, which is fun for me… and sometimes a little weird. Sometimes a thought pops into my head that it feels like I have something living inside my stomach… And then I’m like, “Oh, I do have something living in there!” That’s kind of a weird thought, but it’s awesome… Sometimes it even tickles a little. David has been able to feel her move a lot now, the other night as we were lying in bed before falling asleep he had his hand on my stomach and she was going crazy! I think it was pretty exciting for him because that’s definitely the most he’s ever felt her move.

Other things, I’m pretty much hungry all the time, but I can only snack and eat small portions, if I try to eat a normal sized meal I feel super gross and bloated because there just isn’t a lot of room in there anymore. I’m starting to show pretty good now, at least I think so. David says it still looks like it could be a question of “is she just fat? Or is she pregnant?” Which I guess is true. It depends on the shirt I wear. I always think that people who don’t know I’m pregnant must think I look fat and wonder why I would wear the clothes I wear that accentuate my “fat” tummy, but in reality they probably don’t even notice ha ha, I’m just being paranoid. I’ve been trying to take pictures every week for the last few weeks now that it’s getting more noticeable, so here are the last few:

24 weeks.

25 weeks. 
(Note to self: That pattern makes me look huge. Good to know for future reference.)

26 weeks.

I can’t believe that I start my third trimester in a week! That’s so crazy! We’re planning on doing a birthing class in January, which will be good. They offer one at my OBGYN’s office, so that’ll be nice. We’ve also talked about maybe taking one with Maile and Michael, my best friend and her husband, who are due with a baby boy the day before us! So that would be fun, but we have different doctors and aren’t delivering at the same hospital, so I don’t know. The one they offer at my OB’s office is taught by one of the labor and delivery nurses at the hospital I’ll be delivering at, which I feel would be more beneficial to me, so I’m leaning more toward that one for now.

I was able to finish up school and pass all of my classes! I got pretty decent grades too… Which was my goal, I wasn’t too worried about getting all A’s this semester. I pretty much just wanted to pass. This is my last semester of school for a while. I “graduated” with my associate’s degree in “pre-professional” which is basically like pre-nursing or pre-dental. Now that I have my associates, I can transfer later to another school wherever we will be living, which will be nice. I’ll be stopping with school now because we are having our baby in March! I’ll keep working up until a few weeks before we have the baby, but after we have our little girl I’ll be able to stay home and take care of her, which I’m very grateful for.

David and I are both SO happy to be done with this semester of school! It’s been quite a doosy! We were both so busy it felt like we never got to see each other, and when we did we were so tired we could hardly enjoy it! But now we are enjoying life, catching up on sleep, and looking forward to the Christmas break! I’m still working this week, but we are headed down to Hurricane on Friday afternoon where we’ll be staying for almost two full weeks! We’re both excited to see both of our families, because conveniently they will both be down there only about 20 minutes apart from each other.

This next semester will be a lot better for both of us, I’ll be working about 32 hours a week until the beginning of March, no school, and David will be in school and working, but his classes this semester will be much easier than they have been in the past. Rather than taking all Mechanical Engineering classes like he has been, the majority of his credits will be in generals! That will make his last semester a little less difficult and busy which will be great in preparing and having a baby! He normally TAs for a math class for work, but this next semester he will be able to work as a research assistant instead, which will also be better, and might even pay a little more. This will make for a good last semester for David before he graduates. David has been turning in his applications for graduate school. He’s already applied to the University of Texas – Austin, and to Cornell University in upstate New York. He has two more schools to apply to, Purdue University in Indiana, and BYU. We are hopeful to hear back from all the schools and know where we will be going before March, but we’ll just have to wait and see!