Month of the Flower Full Moon

This month's full moon is called the flower moon. The names comes from the fact that in most parts of the country, flowers are in full bloom. Well, now wouldn't that be nice? We have tulips and green fuzz on the trees. We're only 2 months behind the rest of the country (other than Alaska haha). Anyway, tomorrow night is the full moon. I'm hoping it'll have a strong gravitational pull and help this little baby come. It always helped my rabbits...we'll see :)

37 Week Checkup

Had a good check up today. Will be very nice not driving to Evanston all the time though...the gas is ridiculous! She said the heartbeat sounds perfect and checked me for dilation. Said I'm not quite 'there' yet, but my body is working on it and I am starting to dilate, just not at a 1 quite yet. Should be by my next appointment though and I must be progressing enough because she told me she'd see me next week or sooner if I needed her. She said that regardless of what happens with me, I'll have this baby by the end of the month! I'm very excited!! I also asked her what 'medically necessary' meant as far as epidurals are concerned, as our insurance will only cover it if that's the case. She said she considers labor in and of itself to be medically necessary, which I thought was funny. At least I won't have to worry about insurance not covering one if I get one.

Well, that's about it for this week.

My Epic Baby Shower

The full room

We had my baby shower on April 30 at 2:00. It was great! My mom found a great room at The Holiday Inn and not only was the staff incredibly nice, they did an amazing job setting up the tables too. My mom and Diana Metz hosted it and the three of us planned it, we had great fun! Starbucks is such a fun place to have meetings :)

There were probably about 20 guests that came, so it was the perfect size. They all seemed to have fun and everyone found tables where they knew someone else. We even had what I called The Western Table - everyone sitting there was from WWCC, it was kind of funny actually. There were 5 Western employees (plus two of their kids) at my shower, that's even more than we had at the 'Family Table'.

Thanks to one of Diana's friends, my cake was absolutely to die for! It was not only incredibly adorable, but it was one of the best cakes I've had. I opted for a vanilla cake with raspberry filling and butter cream frosting. Mmmmm! Needless to say, what I did take home was gone in about 3 days. I had to freeze my sister's piece right away to avoid it disappearing too.



Isn't it awesome?!

We played three fun games. The first one was a matching game about how well everyone knew the parents (weird thinking of Derek and me as parents). It had questions like when were we both born, how much did we weigh, things like that. The second game was trying to remember all the items in the diaper bag. Everyone was given 20 seconds to look in the bag, and then they went back to their seats and wrote down everything they saw. The last game was guessing how big my belly was (stole this one from Angela's shower). Everyone had to cut a piece of string and then come measure me to see how close they were. Dayna Folks was literally right on, it was impressive!



Derek's Grandma Willa and McCreary playing the matching game.



Diaper Bag for the game




Dayna measuring belly

 I got a lot of great presents too! Some clothing, which we don't need so much but was still just as cute as everything else we have, and then some great practical things like nursing pads and diapers and baby tubs and car seat covers (hand made!).

Bath tub, bath set, and clothes from my mom

Dress from (Great) Grandma Davis

It was also nice seeing friends I hadn't seen in a long time along with just being with friends I see more often.

Me and Angela



Me and Diana




Me and Mom




Me and Sandy DaRif




Candace Dove with Creed

 All in all, a great shower!

3 Weeks and 3 Days

Just because I like the number 3 and because 3 weeks and 3 days ago it was April 13...and it seems like it was just here!

I'll do a baby shower post soon :) So for now, I'll just include the one maternity picture we've gotten back so far. Angela did an outstanding job! Seriously, don't know why she doesn't do it as her profession.

Me and Derek
April 28, 2011
35 Weeks, 4 Days

35 Weeks and Counting

Tuesday was my 35 week appointment. Starting this coming Wednesday, we'll be going to either Mountain View or Evanston once a week until she's here. Hard to believe we're already to this point in the pregnancy. According to the baby tracker and my due date, I have 33 days to go! According to my calendar and how the doctor would have originally calculated my due date before doing an ultrasound, I have 20 days to go...wow! 33 days ago, it was March 26 and it seems like April just got here.

My appointment went well. She did some minor tests and then did an ultrasound. I was really surprised about the ultrasound, I was told she didn't do any after the 20th week. The baby has gotten bigger, but she still isn't really in front, so it was still not easy to see her. She is now head down, so I was relieved about that. The doctor said she's going to strongly recommend inducing if I pass my due date. Her reasoning is that we live 100 miles away. I understand her reasoning and I really trust her, still don't want to be induced, but even Derek said he's more comfortable with that than just hoping we make it to the hospital in time. We'll see what happens. Hopefully, she'll just come early and we won't have to worry about it.

The nursery is all done. Now, we just need a crib mattress, some bedding, and a baby :)

My baby shower is on Saturday so I'm really excited about that. My mom and I made the diaper cake today.

32 Week Check-Up

Today was my 32 week appointment. It went really well. Had a nice early (9:30 a.m.) check-up and since Derek had the day off, now he's able to paint the borders and trim in the nursery a very bright, fun pink! (We should have the floor put in by the weekend!)

Dr. Evans said the baby's heart sounds perfect, my blood pressure is perfect, and I'm just doing perfect! And, I don't think I gained any weight! Must be from not eating quite as much, not eating quite as poorly, and going on 1.25 mile walks 3-5 times a week. This week I was slacking too because of the horrible wind we were having.

Then we took a tour of the maternity ward at the hospital. We were SO impressed! Everything we have experienced in Evanston (other than the 1.5 hour drive) have reassured us over and over again that we're going to the right place and that Rock Springs is just pathetic! The doctor even said she understood if there were a few complaints about a place. After all, even Harvard will have people who don't like it. But she said when it's from multiple people all the time, something is wrong. She said they don't mind having the Rock Springs people though :)

Back to our tour: the nurses and RNs were super nice! They were very excited for us and very personable. We first took a look at the labor and delivery rooms. Below is a picture of Derek's recliner (you even get to see Rambo chillin' on it when he was young, cute, and thin).

Now, the leather recliners in the labor and delivery rooms put this chair to shame! So, Derek was happy haha. Once I've had a little time to recover, I will go to the recovery room where we'll stay until we go home. Those rooms all have baby themes. One had cute little baby pictures everywhere and the other one had stars. Each room has two beds, one for the mom and one for the dad. No crummy, cheap pull-out couches like they have in Rock Springs.

If the baby has to stay, but I am discharged, we get to stay at no extra cost to us. The only thing we have to pay for would be the extra care of the baby, so I thought that was really neat. And every baby gets a homemade blanket that we get to pick out along with a homemade hat that the nurses make for the babies. Now, how personal is that touch? We also learned that our 'allowable' hours to stay (stated by our insurance depending on the type of delivery) don't start until after the baby is born. So if I'm at the hospital in labor for 12 hours, my 48 hours don't start until after she's here. That made me feel much better. The labor and delivery rooms are also just feet away from the surgical ward, so if anything were to go wrong, no running down long halls. It's just outside each of the room doors.

We also happened to both know the nursery nurse who was on staff today. Derek knows her from high school and I know her from when I worked in Registration at the college. We thought that was so cool. Especially since I know her husband too. Small world. And she was wonderful!

Getting even more excited now! It's great feeling like we'll be taken care of. Well, until next time.

It's nice and small too :)

The Countdown is On!

So, I knew the pregnancy was going fast, but it didn't really hit me until I realized I'm now down to single digits on how long we have left. I have (according to my due date) 8 weeks and 6 days to go! Which, I guess, really means I have anywhere from 6 weeks and 6 days to 10 weeks and 6 days. Still though, it's coming so fast it's hard to believe. I don't feel like I'm ready to have a baby in 2.5 months! Not even that, she's due 2 months from tomorrow!

We have one more week of birthing classes. Of course, our teachers are very new at it and don't exactly know what they're doing, so we aren't sure it's worth the money we paid. I'm sure they'd be better anywhere else, but we couldn't see going to Evanston once a week when we're already going every other week as it is. I do feel like I was well-informed before going to these classes now though, so at least I'm comfortable knowing I did my own homework well.

We're still debating names. Everytime we say we need to just make a decision another one pops into our heads. She may be nameless until we have her...



Just 9 more weeks!