Ramblings of an emotional pregnant woman.

I am an emotional person already but all these crazy hormones put me over the edge. I have cried many times in the last couple of months. My poor husband probably wonders what he has gotten himself into. Well the other day I went down to the church distribution center to pick up a few things. I was standing in line behind a family who had just gone through the Temple for the first time. I could hear them talking with the cashier about how happy they were and what a great experience it was. Ok, cue the water works. Luckily, I was able to hold back and only I knew that I was on the verge of tears. (Imagine trying to explain to one of the cute little old volunteer ladies why you are crying) At that moment it hit me so hard what an amazing adventure we are about to embark on. My family is growing and I am so thankful for the blessings of the gospel and of the Temple. I've read billions of articles and books about the physical care of babies and children but at this moment I also realized how important it is to also prepare to take care of your family spiritually and emotionally. As a parent, you need to be able to have a balance in all aspects of raising your children. I hope that I can remember this experience. I am so excited for this adventure to begin!!

A new chapter

Today is my first day of maternity leave. I think the reality of my new role in life hasn't sunk in yet. I still feel like maybe I am just on a short vacation or something. It is hard to imagine my life where I am not working full time. For those of you who do not know, I have worked as a pharmacy technician full time for the last 10 and 1/2 years of my life. It has been part of my daily life for so long that it feels like part of who I am, a working woman. My job has been a social outlet for me too. I have made many great friends over the years, some of whom have truly influenced my life and helped make me who I am today. I am not leaving work completely. I will be working about 36 hours a month but that is a big change from 38 a week. Although I am still in the limbo of full time working woman and full time mother for probably about another week or so, I am looking forward to the adventure to come. I have always imagined myself as a stay at home mom. I know it won't be easy as I am sure many of you can attest but I am definitely ready for the change.

Update

I would first like to start out by telling my sister-in-law Mckenzie (pictured with me above)

Happy Birthday!!!

She is the big 21 today and my advice is to cherish it while you can because 21 goes by so fast and before you know it you are staring down 30 and it isn't pretty. Actually, every year is great, the trick is to not take any of them for granted. I am actually bummed because orginally my brother and Mckenzie were planning on coming up here this weekend to see the baby but all's well that ends well because there is no baby yet.

On the baby front, I told everyone I would keep you updated. If only there was something to update. I went to the doctor this morning and he delivered the harsh news. Nothing has happened since my appointment last week! So before I was being told that our little girl was most likely going to come early, sometime in the end of January, now I am being told I will most likely still be pregnant at my due date and may have to be induced. I guess I will just wait and see what they say next week. This news though does make me feel like I have a little bit more time to get everything done and that I can take a much needed nap today instead of running around like a crazy woman trying to get some cleaning done. Hurray for naps!! (I still think we should observe siesta in the United States) We will keep everyone posted!

Just another day!

Today is January 17th. For those of you who do not know, today is my original due date. While I knew this day would come and go with about 99% chance of nothing happening, I thought I should still commemorate it. I have decided to do that by sharing what I will and won't miss about pregnancy.

What I won't miss:
I have been really lucky and haven't had any major issues such as swelling or bed rest so the things I won't miss are Heartburn (I honestly believe I didn't know what heartburn was until I was pregnant), not being able to move like I used to and all the general pains.

What I will miss:
I have learned a valuable lesson from pregnancy. All through my major in school, body image was a topic that came up quite often. It is a well known fact that rare is the woman who is completely happy with how she looks and wouldn't change anything. I (as well as probably many of you) am not one of those women but pregnancy helped me be more accepting of myself. It is one of the few times in your life when:
a. The doctor tells you to eat more fattening foods because you aren't gaining enough weight.
b. You get on the scale in the doctors office and see numbers so high you didn't think you would ever be that big and the doctor tells you your weight is great.
c. Your waist is larger than any other part of your body and people constantly tell you how cute you are and how great you look.
It is like a new found freedom where you know you don't look how society says you should yet you still feel really good about yourself. I hope I can take this lesson with me into motherhood and remember that it is more important that I take care of my health than to look a certain way (although it would be great if I could be healthy and a size 6.) I also don't want to pass on body image concerns to my daughter. At a conference once, we watched a video from Oprah about this 5 year old girl who was worried about her weight. The mom couldn't figure out why but then they showed the family eating breakfast and the mom was in the corner drinking slim fast. It is amazing what children pick up on. Well, that is enough of my rambling for now, we will keep everyone posted.

Doctors appointment

So I think I have been to the doctor more in the last couple of months than I have in the last 5 or 6 years of my life. I am down to the weekly appointments so I should probably keep everyone posted on how things are going. My last appointment was tuesday. I am still dilating although it be very slowly. It will still probably be a week or two though before I actually go into labor. Oh, the waiting game. It is not good for the psyche of someone like I who has to have everything planned down to the hour. I definately don't want to be induced but it would be so nice if mother nature just had a way of telling you "This is the day and expect it to happen in the afternoon". Hopefully this will be a good learning experience for me in the art of going with the flow. Other than that, not too much going on. Still trying to get the baby room put together. The hard part is that there are many large things to move. I definately can't move them and Jason is hardly ever home to be able to do it as well. My next appointment is wednesday (my beautiful sister in law, McKenzie's, birthday) so I will keep everyone posted.

There are many women in my life who I admire for their amazing qualities. One of these women is Jason's older sister Carly. Carly and I were originally due a week apart but they have moved me all over the calendar. Carly had her baby boy on Saturday, the 11th. We now have a new nephew named Caleb. One of the reasons I admire Carly so much is her strength and her positive attitude. Thursday night I called her to get some tips on what to pack for the hospital and ask general questions about labor and delivery. (She is a pro, this was baby number 4 for her). While I am sitting here in complete fear and anxiety of what is going to happen to me, she was so ready and excited and kept telling me I could do it. She really did make me feel a little better (one of my not so admirable traits is I am really good at worrying so I don't think I will feel really positive about the whole labor thing until afterwards when I see our new baby.) We talked to Carly on Sunday and she was still so upbeat and positive so that makes me feel even better. Thank you Carly for your strength and encouragement.
When I went to the doctor last Wednesday, they said I was starting to dilate and I have been having Braxton Hicks contractions a lot. Who knows though when our little girl will come. I hear first timers can be dilating for weeks. We will keep everyone posted on how things are progressing.

Resolutions

So here it is, once again, way too early in the morning to be awake and I am. This leads me to my first New Years Resolution (which I am just now compiling)

GET MORE SLEEP!!!

Seeing as how the baby will be here soon though, I probably won't succeed on that one.
The problem with my yearly resolutions is that I write them down and forget what they were a month later. Hopefully putting the not so private ones on here will help me remember them. (especially if some one asks "by the way how are you doing with ....."). So here they are.

1. Plant a garden in the spring (and remember to take care of it. I tried growing herbs last year and forgot about them. oops. if they had grown larger I would have had dried herbs with no work)

2. Build our food storage with foods that will actually make a meal (right now, i have just been buying a lot of cans when they are on sale so I have alot of canned chicken, corn bread mix, green beans and pineapple among other things. I'd have to get pretty creative to make a meal out of that!)

3. Try to keep the house in some sort of presentable order.

4. Once I am cleared to work out again, go to the church aerobics class and get healthy!!

5. Start having family home evening every week.

I'm sure there are many more things I can improve on but this is a start. Don't want to overwhelm myself (which could happen quite easily).

We hope that everyone had a great and safe New Years. Our New Years Eve was alot of fun. We went over to the Barth's and enjoyed the company of good friends. However, at 2:00 am on New Years Day, Jason started to get the stomach flu or something. He was pretty much out of commission all day. Between that and having to work Christmas, he did not have the best holiday season. Hopefully next year we will have a better one.