I have cankles. I'm not kidding. I just noticed last night and it could possibly be the most depressing thing that's ever happened to me. (At least my belly button isn't sticking out, right?) Plus I have at least one conversation each day where someone tells me some horror story about how they were dilated to 3 and 100% effaced for four weeks before their baby came, or how they were 2 1/2 weeks late with each and every one of their 10 children. Come on people! Are you trying to get me to stab myself? I just wish someone would tell me how huge I am so I could say, "Oh yeah? Well you're huge too and you don't have a baby as an excuse!" I think that would make me feel better.

Baby Update

I didn't quite get the response I was looking for from the doctor. In fact she said, "You're still dilated to 2 cm." (AHHHH! Kill me now!) "But it looks like you're 75 - 80% effaced. You have a great cervix for a first baby." So even though it wasn't what I was looking for, at least I'm progressing. And I'm having a lot more Braxton-Hicks too.

Futile Efforts

We decided we were going to try and induce labor today. (It's the first day that I'm officially full-term.) There was no way I was going to drink Castor oil because that's disgusting and I've been told that jumping on a trampoline is a really bad idea, so we tried spicy food first. We went to a super yummy Mexican food place and I ate a ton of salsa. On the drive home I had one measly little contraction. No go on the spicy food. So then we went to Wal Mart so I could walk around for a while (again, just one tiny little contraction) and also so we could pick up my sexy new lingerie for the hospital.

Yes, I know, I am one hot momma. Any how, we're out of ideas for now. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow and I'm hoping she'll say, "Holy cow! I have never seen any one this ready to give birth when they still had three weeks left. You should probably go straight to the hospital and have your husband meet you there. In fact, let me drive you. I'm not sure you can make it across the street in time." I'll let you know how it goes.

Good Stuff

I've had two of my sisters tell me recently how good the recipes are from http://www.pickypalate.blogspot.com/ so this morning I tried one out for myself. Of course, I didn't choose a healthy, family-friendly dinner recipe. Instead I went with Puffy Banana Peanut Butter Cup Sweet Grilled Sandwich. Oh yes, it is as good as it sounds. Basically it's a grilled cheese sandwich minus the cheese. Instead you fill it with peanut butter, bananas, marshmallows and chocolate. Then you sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Can I just say delicious? It doesn't really require step-by-step instructions (though you can get them at Picky Palate if you want) because you really just slap peanut butter on both pieces of bread and then load on the other stuff. And her pictures are way better than mine too.


We also got to baby sit today. A woman in our ward just had a baby, then she got sick. And her husband is studying for the bar exam. We decided to give them a little break and took their three older kids for a couple of hours. All we did was go to the park and then watch a movie, but it wore me out! (It was really hot today.) I ended up taking two naps. :) It was fun though. I'm glad babies generally come one at a time so you can get to the multi-kid stage gradually.

Funny Story

We had our second prenatal class tonight. At the end we watched a video of four different live births: one with an episiotomy and epidural, a c-section, a forceps assisted and a natural. Can I just say that it was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen? And I've watched births before, but not like this. Maybe the fact that I'm going to be there in a few weeks made the difference. The best part was looking around the room and seeing the looks of horror on every one's faces. The girl sitting behind us almost started crying. After the first birth I heard her say, "I don't think I can do this" to her husband. I must admit, I had the same thought cross my mind. Isn't there a better way? I guess if there were we would have come up with it by now, huh?

Progress

I went to the doctor today and found out that I'm dilated to 2 and 60% effaced. I am way excited about that. I know that it could mean nothing and I can still go four more weeks, but it could also mean that its starting. I really hope its the latter.
Any how, yesterday I made Ty go with me to buy a puzzle. It was way too hot to do anything that required moving, but I was super bored. Well we got home and I started putting it together, only to find out that it's too big for either one of our tables! Guess I didn't plan that one out too well.

Heat Wave

Okay, I am officially hotter than hot here in good ol' Utah. Today it was 96 degrees, which isn't all that bad by AZ standards, but we have no air conditioning. It makes me want to die. I spent all of last night with a wet wash rag on my tummy in an attempt to get cool enough to sleep. Every couple of hours I would have to get up and get it wet again. At least until around 3 a.m. when it cooled off a little. Fortunately Ty's family gave him this for his birthday.

It's a shaved ice maker. It gets used multiple times every day. Unfortunately shaved ice only lasts so long. Then it's back to melting. Four more weeks.

Nesting and Other Random Happenings

Ty Here: So the other night when Kristen and I went to the pre-natal classes one of the signs that the birth was getting closer was called "nesting," where the mother to be would suddenly get a burst of energy and start cleaning and prepping the house. Today, I walked out into our living room and I saw a crazed Kristen, with scissors, hacking apart our couch cover. This is a couch cover that we got when we first moved in, and it has always worked fine, though it admittedly didn't look nice, but she suddenly couldn't help but to spend the day fixing it.

Back to Kristen: I gave our couch cover a complete makeover today. Most of you didn't get a chance to see it in all its hideous glory, and I didn't think to take a "before" picture. We bought it months ago (at least 8) and it was just way too big and the complete wrong shape. Instead of returning it or fixing it we just stuffed all the extra fabric into the cracks. It really was horrible. Any how, today I decided it was time to do something about it. At first I was just going to try and alter it a little, but I ended up just hacking it to pieces and starting almost completely over. Six hours later it looked so, so much better. (The fabric in piles on the floor is what was left over when I was done.) When Ty walked out and saw what I was doing he said, "Oh babe, are you nesting?" (The only reason he even thought to ask that was because they mentioned it at our class on Thursday.) I told him that I was just bored and didn't have anything better to do.

And yesterday my sister Julie was up here. We got to hang out all day and even took her boys to the park. It was a lot of fun and they're super cute so I had to put in some pictures of them as well. (She also said that I'm not as huge as that picture from a few days ago makes me look. Hallelujah!)

Then this morning we went by the Provo Farmer's Market and decided that we're going to try and sell some of my stuff there. We filled out all the paper work, now we just have to figure out where we take it. Wish us luck!

Impending Parenthood

Ty and I went to our first prenatal class tonight. It was pretty much a bunch of stuff that we already knew, but interesting none the less. The teacher was showing us a bunch of stuff that we're likely to see during delivery (catheter, IV, fetal monitors, etc.) and she pulled out the epidural kit. Holy crap, the needle looks like a drill bit! I don't even want to think about that thing being in my body. I'm guessing that the pain of labor will get me over that real quickly though. Hooray for local anesthetics. Also, there was this guy there with his wife and he was taking notes like a mad man. He literally wrote down every word the teacher said and made little diagrams of all the posters and visuals that she showed. At one point we were talking about contractions and he said, "I know they're called contractions and everything, but what exactly is contracting?" (I'm not kidding or exaggerating. I might have said "Okay, he's an idiot" in louder tones than I meant to. Oops!) Any how, I'm super excited to get this kid out of my HUGE belly. And I found out that any time after Tuesday I can go into labor and they won't consider it pre-term, so my hopes are high. (But my expectations are low, so don't worry.)

Belly

As promised, here is a new picture of my belly taken just moments ago. Honestly, even I'm shocked by how big it is. I guess I've been wearing a lot of black and not looking in the mirror much. Any how, it's a good thing I've only got 5 weeks left!

Re: Makeover

In response to the comment on yesterday's blog, I was feeling a little green. The "blah" feeling I woke up with turned out to be some sort of stomach flu and I spent the day in bed/barfing my guts out. The worst part is that we had plans to go out to eat for Ty's birthday. Ty and Krystal went without me and I stayed home and sucked on ice. Fun times.
And the new background was kind of a fluke. I decided I wanted to change things up and then I totally messed up the entire layout. By the time I thought I had it figured out again I just grabbed the closest background to try it out. This is what I ended up with. It may or may not be staying, like I said, but I'm going to give it a few days.

Makeover

I woke up feeling totally blah and fat this morning. Since I can't really do anything to change the fact that I'm fat, and there's only so much I can do to get rid of the blah, I decided to give our blog a makeover. I'm still deciding if I like it, so we'll see if it stays. And I'll be posting updated fatty pictures of me later. Be excited.

Outie

I am pleased to announce that my belly button still points inward. (The way it's supposed to!) I know I still have 5 1/2 weeks left, and it's a battle I still may lose, but I've seen lots of people who are far less pregnant than me and they have outies already. I like to think that it's a result of my amazing willpower and my slight (or not so slight) hatred of the thought of my belly button sticking out. I'll let you know if I make it all the way or not.

Working Girl

So I went a little crazy with the embroidery machine today. I made some really cute stuff though. I was able to embroider some of the burp cloths to be samples and then I made a couple of other fun things. Here's pictures:

YAY!

That's right folks, you're looking at one of our first peas. YAY! I cannot tell you how excited I am. I've been keeping an eye out for veggies on the pea plants for at least two weeks now. All of a sudden I noticed that there were tiny little peas sprouting up all over the place. Hooray! Also, we have a miniature squash on our little squash plant. Unfortunately our green beans aren't doing so hot. We're probably going to pull them up and replace them with watermelon, which tastes better any way. :)

More Pregnancy Whining

So I've decided that the 3rd trimester really sucks. I tried to clean my house today. It's really not that big and wasn't all that messy. I washed the dishes, wiped of the stove and counter, picked up the living room and then had to take a nap. It's 9:30 in the morning and I've already taken a nap. And I'm too tired to clean the rest of my house. How annoying is that?