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!

31 Weeks

I'm into my 31st week of pregnancy. It is kinda weird to think how soon Eric and I are going to become parents to our little girl. Just a few holidays and she is here! I'm noticing the tiredness of the third trimester, but am still feeling pretty dang good overall. I'm not quite as mobile as I used to be and bending over to put my shoes on is nigh unto impossible. I wear shoes I don't have to tie laces on or have Eric help me out. It is hard to imagine my belly being able to stretch any further, I feel like I'm already out of room. The rib kicking is much more noticeable now that baby girl is getting stronger. She tends to stay on the right side of my body, so my belly is typically lopsided and my right side gets a little sore from all the kicks. Don't get me wrong though, I LOVE the kicks! I already love you lots baby, and we're excited for you to be born :)

This may be the last ride of the season....

Isn't this a sweet picture? The jump is obviously sweet, and I think the colors are pretty dang neat. Someday I'm going to buy me a nice camera that will make pictures like this even better :)

Last weekend we went over to our friend's dirt biking track in Wallsburg. I didn't ride this time, my belly is now to the stage that the weight bouncing around isn't horribly comfortable and when I just sit on my dirt bike when it is running the baby goes crazy, probably because of the noise and vibrations. I got to enjoy watching Eric and Don ride around, and it was fun! I'm thinking this may have been their last ride of the season, now that winter seems to be setting in....but you never know! One of my favorite parts about dirt biking is talking to Eric about them on our way home. He gets so giddy when talking about it...can't blame him, it is FUN!

Here is a video of Eric jumping the canal. (My mom recorded this and she is so freakin' cute, listen to her at the end - she is totally worried that she didn't get it recorded, such a sweetheart.)

Donny boy enjoying one last ride before his mission!

Not excited about this...

I love the snow, but really dislike driving in it (and cleaning the snow off the cars, etc...). Good thing Eric drives me most days!!!

Happy Halloween

At work, my team is in charge of accounts located in the Eastern U.S., so the girls on my team decided to dress up as the Wicked Witches of the East. My costume wasn't very creative at all, assembled it at midnight the night before :) As you can see everyone else went ALL out, especially my boss! (The one with the green face). Kids came and trick-or-treated at our work and they were all so afraid of her.

Later that night Eric and I went to a Halloween party and dressed up as I love Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. I unfortunately forgot to take any pics of that, hopefully we can steal one from one of our friend's cameras.