Ah man.

Well... my doctor's appointment yesterday was a little disappointing. I haven't progressed ANY since last week, my doctor said he wants to induce me but that I'm currently un-inducable. I'm grateful for his wisdom, because he said if he were to induce me right now, there would be a large chance I'd end up needing a c-section because my cervix just isn't ready. Now my countdown to my due date is exactly that - a countdown to the date my baby is due, but not necessarily the end of my pregnancy. I was hoping I wouldn't go past my due date, but it looks like there is quite a big possibility seeing as the due date is in 9 days and I haven't progressed any in the last 7. Guess we'll see what happens.

I'm hoping that sometime this week, my body will all of a sudden decide that it is ready to shed this extra weight lying on my abdomen, and my cervix will start dilating like crazy and baby girl will be in my arms :) Ah.... the thought, it is PURE BLISS! One really good thought: She can't stay in their forever! Sometime within the next, what 3 weeks, I WILL have her in my arms! That's wonderful! I just CANNOT wait to see what she looks like!!!!!!

The Holiday Break

The 25th COVERED us in snow! Tons of fun, but also tons of work for Eric (snowblowing our driveway for 4 hours - BLAH!) We got pretty bored Christmas night so we went and enjoyed the snow covered roads in the pathfinder. Up in the area we live there was like a foot of new snow on the already snow-packed roads, so it was quite the adventure driving up to our friends' cabin. Then we drove into town, delivered some treats, and broke humongous icicles off of a building on Main Street. It made for a really fun date night! On the 26th we had some family and friends up for a slumber party. My sister Aubrey and her family came up and our friend Derek and his lady, Becky. We played games, visited, snacked way too much, and enjoyed each other's company! Eric , Derek, and Becky went snowmobiling and I played with "potato" (Play-do) with Chelsea.Chelsea liked our kitty

Merry Christmas

This year we spent Christmas at my parents house, which of course was a lot of fun! On Christmas Eve we all put on our new PJs and had our traditional shepherds' meal (cheese, bread, juice, beef stick, grapes, and olives) while we watched the Living Scriptures Nativity Story. After the meal, Eric and I had a slumber party with Camla.On Christmas morning we walked over to Aubrey and Jeremy's house to watch Chelsea and Eli open their presents. Santa got Chelsea a power wheels Jeep and we were excited to see her reaction. Her reaction wasn't ideal. Let's just say she woke up on the wrong side of the bed and wanted nothing to do with the Jeep until after she had had her fill of the chocolates papa and grandma gave her. I've heard reports that she now loves the Jeep and enjoys driving it back and forth in her kitchen. Kids are funny!!At least Eli would get in it :)

Chelsea did enjoy her Belle dress and princess shoes!

Then we all went to my parents to open our presents.

Eli was astonished by Teddy Ruxpin - I was too, I had no idea they made these still!

Handsome Eric - I had to add a pic of him in this post because I just like him so much

Camla is fun to shop for now because she loves clothes - and who doesn't love to buy clothes for a darling teenage girl!!

37 weeks 4 days

I had my 37, almost 38 week appointment today. Good news: According to Dr. Judd I have a 2% chance of going over my due date, 20% chance of having her this month, and 80% chance of having her between New Years and my due date. Supposedly I'm pretty "far along" for a first timer - I'll spare you the details in case you are squeemish, and because that would probably just be weird to disclose that kind of info on a blog.

Dr. Judd said he thinks I'll probably have her around the 4th - 6th of January. I'm ok, with that. I'm obviously overly excited about having my little girl outside of my belly and in my arms, but I personally would like her to have a birthday not so close to Christmas day, which means I either want her here by tomorrow (which ain't gonna happen) or wait to come until maybe three days after Christmas. Guess I will just sit back and enjoy the holidays, spend some quality time with just Eric, and try not to get too FAT on the holiday snacks :) Here's a pic.

Fire & Ice

My little sis and her friend (who is one of my young women in my ward) slept over at our house Friday night. They and Eric thought it'd be fun to bounce between our hot tub and the snow on our deck. They tried many variations of rolling in the snow, here are just a few pics. I opted out of the snow rolling and was in charge of picture taking. I was afraid that if I got down into the snow to roll around I wouldn't be able to get myself back up - probably a good idea!

Are you cold Eric??

Farewell Little Bro

My little brother entered the MTC last Wednesday. He will be there until February and then will be on his way to France to serve the people there. I'm so proud of him! He is such a good example. He has already written one letter home and he is loving it, which doesn't surprise me at all! Here are some pics of just hours before he got set apart.

Just enjoying hanging out - Cam, Mom, and Eli

I was hoping my girl would come before he left so he could meet her. Oh well :( Stubborn little miss will come when she wants.

Chelsea following her aunt Kita's footsteps - playing horse with oats and all! Yum!

A little Wii before 2 years without

This is how I work...

My team doing the snow angels our manager talked us into doing (she is the one in the red jacket and awesome moon boots). At least she joined us :) We formed a Christmas tree, I got to be the star - and yes, I look more like a bloated teddy bear than a star! I'm 37 weeks pregnant - Give me a break.

Just in case anyone is wondering...

Baby is still camping out!

What will tomorrow bring??

I love surprises, but not this kind! Tomorrow is the last day of Nifedipine and what in the world will happen once the meds are out of my body?? No one knows! The nurses at the hospital made it sound promising that labor would resume once I stopped taking the medicines. Doc told me that baby can come out anytime after tomorrow because she'll be fully developed and functioning, but said he's seen just as many girl stay pregnant until their due date and beyond after stopping the meds.

I kinda feel like an emotional wreck right now. After almost having our baby a couple weeks back I'm dying to have her here. And knowing that she is healthy enough to come makes me all the more ready for her! I was totally content waiting 40 weeks plus for her, but the little teaser has made me very impatient and all of a sudden discontent with the idea of waiting much longer!

All I know is that Thursday will be full of long walks and other things to help get labor going again. I know that Heavenly Father knows what is best for us and baby and he'll give us to her when he thinks is best, but oh boy, my unknowing state is getting the best of me! Breathe in... Breathe out....

Baby Showers

I have had a couple baby showers that I still haven't blogged about: my ward baby shower and my family and friends baby shower!

Thank you to Terra, who threw me my ward baby shower! Poor Terra is pregnant and quite sick, yet she still pulled it off, and beautifully at that! I owe her BIG! I won't bore you with the billions of pictures I took of all my gifts, but check out these darling boots from my next door neighbors!

My mom and sisters (with the help of other friends and family) threw me a marvelous baby shower a few days after! Thank you so much Mom, Aubrey, and Camla!! We enjoyed delicious chocolate, yummy food, great guests, and I enjoyed getting cute things for my little gal! Thank you guys!!The Sweet Table

Aubrey, Mama, and Me

Camla

Whit and Me - She's do in March with a little gal of her own! So exciting - did someone say "play dates"??

In case you didn't notice...

My pics are a lot better quality these days thanks to my honey who gave me my Christmas present early! I love my new camera!! Thanks Eric!

Love Hate Relationships

I have a couple of love hate relationships right now:

1) Nifedipine: LOVE that it has stopped contractions for the most part!!! LOVE that it is keeping my baby inside my belly for at least 6 more days!!! HATE how it makes me dizzy, hot, and makes my ankles sore!!! HATE that it makes my heart race like CRAZY, and makes me feel BLAH!!! I'll be excited for my last dose next Wednesday evening!
2) Dirtbiking: LOVE the adrenaline rush, and the excitement it brings!!! LOVE that it is something Eric and I enjoy doing together!!! LOVE the places it takes us!!! HATE wrecks!

Before: Happy Eric enjoying riding

Good Form
Um... I think you can tell this is gonna be bad!

Conclusion: Nifedipine will be out of my life in 6 more days. Dirt biking is probably out for the rest of the season, it is starting to snow anyway.

Morals I've learned: Don't take Nifedipine on an empty stomach - you'll feel like you're going to pass out! Have someone else take pictures of your husband dirt biking, that way the photographer won't be too freaked out to continue snapping pics throughout the crash, and your husband will be overly happy that he has the crash documented in pictures. :) Cheers!

Prego Pics by the one and only WHITNEY TAYLOR

Whitney Taylor is by far the most talented photographer around! She was so sweet to take some pics of me after my baby shower (which I have yet to blog about) the day before I went into labor! Good timing?? I'd say so! Here are a couple of shots I stole off of her photography blog, go check out her work - she is honestly AMAZING!! I love these Whit! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

The past couple days

Sunday evening we went down to Provo to eat a DELICIOUS dinner with Micah and Rachel. Eric and I decided that we'd stay in Provo overnight since we were going to have to come back down early Monday morning for work and school. Something weird happened with my body Sunday night that didn't cause me too much worry. In the morning I asked my mom about it and she said I probably ought to call the hospital to see if they thought I needed to come in. I called, they told me to come in. I got hooked to some monitors to keep track of any contractions and the baby's heart beat. What I'd been thinking were braxton hicks and just tightening from baby moving around so much were actually contractions coming on every 2 - 4 minutes and they measured me and found that I had already dilated to 2 1/2 cm, which isn't the best news at 33 1/2 weeks pregnant. Great! Pre-term labor. They gave me three rounds of shots to stop the contractions and a shot of steroids to help the baby's lungs develop quicker in case she were to come.

After that they sent me home with a prescription for meds to keep me from contracting. They told me to take some pills but call if I had contractions of 4+ per hour. Well I waited things out for a few hours and the contractions were still the same so I called in and they told me I needed to go back to the hospital to try something else. They monitored me some more and decided to give me a shot of morphine to keep me from contracting at least through the night so that I would be able to keep my baby in at least until my next scheduled steroid shot at 10:15 am the next morning. The morphine knocked me out pretty well, but still contractions. Well, I went and got my steroid shot in the morning and then went to my Docs for my check-up. He told me that although I'm still having the same types of contractions, the prescription he had ordered must be working fine enough since I am still pregnant. I have to be careful until December 11 so as to keep her in, but starting Dec 11 he said to throw away any remaining pills and start doing whatever because by that point the baby's lungs will be developed and at that point wouldn't have to stay in the hospital for longer than the required 2 days or whatever after being born.

Anyway, pregnancy hormones don't help anything, but I've had a lot of mixed feelings. Tons of excitement when we found out that she might be born really soon, a lot of nervousness knowing her lungs probably wouldn't be well enough developed to come home with us for a bit, some confusion having the belief that my pregnancy was probably one of the healthiest out there, yet for some reason my body was going into labor. All in all it has been a fine last few days, but also quite the emotional roller coaster - just waiting to see what would happen. For now, baby is still cooking, things look good, and we'll try our best to keep her in until Dec 11. Who knows... maybe she'll decide she likes it in the womb so much that she'll camp out for much longer than we're expecting and finally come after her due date. Much unknown - which I HATE - but I guess it keeps life exciting :)

On some high notes: 1) Doctor felt baby yesterday and said she is quite a big baby, which doesn't suprise me since my mom has HUGE babies, so at least if she came early she'd probably be bigger and heavier than the average premie. 2) With the thoughts of having the baby soon we have our hospital bags pretty well packed, figured out what we still need to get done, and Eric and I decided on a name for our little girl, it wasn't any of the names that we were debating over all along, but we both love it. We will announce it once she is here :)

Happy Birthday Pops!

You are the best dad anyone could ever have! Thanks for being the best husband to mom, the best father to us kids, and the best Papa to the grandkids! We all LOVE you SO much and think the world of you! Thanks for being such a HUGE influence in making me the person I am and for teaching us all how work hard and play hard!

M-O-A-B

This last weekend we got to go on a fun vacation to Moab. My family all went down, as well as my aunt and uncle and some cousins. Eric has the flu, so he didn't feel very good, but we still had a great time! And we got to celebrate our 1-year anniversary! I LOVE being married to Eric! Most of the time was spent off-roading and oh man... off-roading is the best with a man who turns into a giddy little boy while driving. I love that flu or not, Eric brightens up as soon as he is off the beaten trail and driving over the mountains. Off-roading was the cure (though sadly only temporarily)! We had a ton of fun spending time with everyone! Baby girl got a kick out of the bumpy trails, I had more braxton hicks on Saturday night than I've ever had and baby kept kicking me HARD, couldn't sleep a wink :)

ROCK

SANDWATER
Tires off the ground and everything ;)

Chelsea loves uncle "E-wick"

Camla's face is priceless in this pic - is she scared???

On the way home, we were in no rush, so we decided we'd take a more scenic route home. We typed in our address in our GPS and told it to take the "shortest route", which means shortest distance, not shortest time. We wanted to take the back routes home. Well, as you can see, we ended up way up in the mountains, and couldn't get any farther because the snow got too deep. Luckily we got to do a little sabbath day service though. (Well Eric did, I watched from the car :))

(This couple reminded me of me and Eric - just like 30 or 40 years older than us! Babe, we'll still be adventurous when we are as old as that couple!!)

We tried a couple more back routes, but sadly snow and seasonal gates stopped us from progressing. We ended up back tracking a lot, and added like 4 1/2 hours onto our trip home :) It was actually a ton of fun, we thoroughly enjoyed one another's company and listening to "Into Thin Air" on tape. Plus, we got to stop at some fun places on the way home and see some pretty sights.

Sweet abandoned structures

"I think my Tractor's SEXY!"I think this was Starvation Reservoir, but may have been Current Creek - I'm telling you, we were all over the place!Beautiful Strawberry Reservoir

Anniversary Numero Uno

Happy Anniversary Eric! In some ways I can't believe we've been married a year, but in many more I can't believe it has only been a year! My love for you has grown SO much over the last year, I can't wait to see what the future holds for us! You are my best friend and the best husband I could ever imagine! Thanks for being so wonderful!
I'm excited for us to start a new chapter in our lives, with our little girl coming soon! I can't wait to learn how to be parents together :) There is no one I'd rather be experiencing this life, and all the things it has in store, with!Thanks for the FUN anniversary! You are my very favorite person to spend time with and I'm SO happy that I get to be with you for all ETERNITY!