35.4

The first thing our doctor said to us at our appointment on Wednesday was, "You made it to 35 weeks! Your baby will be going home from the hospital with you." Obviously, there aren't any guarantees, but at this point, NICU time would be unlikely. The best part is, we should be able to do skin-to-skin contact as soon as she's born! Earlier preemies need to be immediately rushed to the NICU, but at 35 weeks, as long as she comes out screaming, (which she should) they'll be able to lay her right on my chest when she comes out. I've read up on how beneficial that is for babies, and it must be so scary to be born. I just want her in my arms as soon as possible. So I'm incredibly grateful to be at such a safe point, although I really want her to stay put and grow for a few more weeks. The longer, the better! I do have a feeling it may happen sooner than later, though. When the doc checked me today, she immediately said, "Wow! Her head is... right there." Which I already knew, because sometimes it feels like she's just going to fall out of me. Lovely, I know. Let's hope it doesn't happen exactly like that. I've also had some pretty intense contractions lately, but luckily they are few and far between. Even though I'm off bed rest, it hasn't been much different. Joey still won't let me do much; bless his heart. He is determined not to let this little girl show up too early. I am so spoiled by that man. He loves me and our baby so much. I could not have found a more loving, responsible, amazing guy to spend the rest of my life with. When I imagine him taking care of our daughter, I get teary-eyed. I always told myself growing up that when I did finally have kids, I wanted their dad to be just as amazing as my dad is. I grew up with the greatest dad imaginable, and I am overjoyed to know that Noelle will have that same blessing. Her daddy is incredible. Not to mention, a saint for putting up with my mood swings. Speaking of which... I LOVE being off Nifedipine! I absolutely love it. I truly think that medicine has had a lot to do with why I've been so miserable the past couple of months. Constant headaches, chills, hot flashes, insomnia... the past two nights of sleep have been the best I've had in months. I feel so much better emotionally, as well- almost back to my regular self! Nifedipine turned me into a beast, but it also gave our angel 11 extra (crucial) weeks of growth. So as much as I hated those pills, I will also forever love the darn things for working so well. 31 days- or less- until we meet our little princess. We love you so much, Noelle! See you soon. =)

Survey says...

It's a pregnancy survey! I found it on a bed rest website. Enjoy if you wish. =) {How far along} 32 weeks, 1 day. {Total weight gain/loss} 23 pounds. I was only mildly horrified when I stepped onto the scale at my doctor's office this morning. {Maternity clothes} Both my mom and Joey's stepmom have been angels and taken me on maternity shopping sprees... however, most of those clothes were more summer-y than winter-y, so I get cold very easily now while wearing them. I guess I didn't realize I would be hugely pregnant during the winter months? In any case, I also didn't anticipate being on bed rest for the last few months of my pregnancy, so now more than anything I just wear Joey's sweatpants and jackets. Or my Snuggie, which I finally busted out today. The good thing about most of my maternity clothes, though, is that they're cute enough that I'll totally still wear them postpartum. Especially the skinny jeans with the amazing waistband... you can't even tell they're maternity unless you pull my shirt up over my belly, and why bother with buttons and zippers if you don't have to? I may never go back! {Stretch marks} Yes, but oddly enough, not on my belly. I've gotten a few on my hips, but they're really not that bad. {Sleep} Couldn't possibly be worse; I dread it every single night. (See my most recent, total Debbie Downer post.) {Best moment this week} My doctor telling me that I'll be off bed rest at 35 weeks instead of 36- and the statistic she gave me that most babies born at week 35 and up get to go home right when their mommy does. Awesome! We can totally make it 3 more weeks. {Movement} It's no secret that I am not a person who enjoys pregnancy, but that is the one thing that I absolutely love and will miss about being pregnant. Every time she moves, I can't help but giggle like a little girl. It's just such a strange- but awesome- feeling. {Food cravings} Basically anything unhealthy that I probably shouldn't be eating. Slurpees, popsicles, puffed Cheetos, Dr. Pepper, Cafe Rio. Don't worry, though. I don't just feed my baby crap. In fact, I now eat more apples and bananas per week than I ever have in the past 26 years. Barney would be proud. {Gender} Girl. {Labor Signs} Well, I've been dilated and having contractions for 2 months now, but this past week contractions have been virtually non-existent! Such a relief. {Belly Button in or out} Still in. Although you should see the scar from my belly-button piercing which I took out years ago. Not exactly attractive. {What I miss} Not having to drink water! I despise water, but I need to get at least 64 ounces a day. Human contact. Going to the store or on walks. Working. (Certainly not at the job I most recently had, just working in general.) Being able to sleep. Iced coffee. My sense of humor. Balanced hormones. Actually being happy and not just anxiety-ridden all the time. The only thing that has been able to temporarily pull me out of my black cloud of sadness and anxiety is watching old episodes of "the Office" on Netflix. Something about that Michael Scott... Joey and I fully expect our daughter to come out humming the show's theme song. But you know what? All of this is so incredibly worth it. The past 7 months have been the hardest of my life, but I have a feeling they will seem like nothing once I finally have this perfect little human in my arms. So no more complaining! {What I am looking forward to} 35 weeks! (Which I will reach the day after my birthday.) Our family dog, Boozer, coming to stay with us for about a week. (Also happening around my birthday.) Thanksgiving! (And reaching 37 weeks, which is happening a few days afterward.) Celebrating Christmas, which I've already started doing. And finally- meeting this beautiful little girl after a year and a half of pregnancy! It truly has lasted at least that long in my mind. (I think the whole bed rest experience counts as an entire additional pregnancy.) {Other Updates} Contractions just started up again. Good thing I have a pill for that!

31.3

It's funny that I literally have all the time in the world, and yet I still don't blog very often. Oh, well. I guess the biggest thing to report is that Joey & I are now officially engaged! It certainly wasn't done the traditional way; we ordered the ring online since I'm on house arrest, and we've been practically engaged ever since we found out we were going to be a family. Even though it wasn't a surprise, it was still very special. I truly couldn't be luckier! The wedding itself won't be until next August or September. By then, my little brother Ryan will be home from Denmark, and Noelle will be old enough for us to leave with Grandma & Grandpa for a night so we can do a mini-honeymoon. Oh, and that'll give me time to lose this lovely baby weight I've been packing on. Fitting into my wedding dress and actually feeling pretty will be a definite plus. Speaking of positive things, in 4 days we will officially "qualify" for delivery at LDS hospital! (They can't deliver preemies under 32 weeks there.) So on Tuesday, I'll breathe my biggest sigh of relief yet. In about 2 weeks, we'll stop anti-contraction meds. 4 weeks, I'll be off bed rest. And 5 weeks- full-term baby! I know I can survive one more month of bed rest. At least, I hope I can. When I first received my "sentence", I thought, "This won't be bad at all! I literally am under doctor's orders to be lazy." It was nice at first, I'll admit. However, I reached my breaking point just this past week. When Joey is home, I'm fine. He is my best friend and always makes me laugh. The problem, though, is that he is a server and works nights. So we hang out together all day, then he is gone from 3-11. Those are my "dark hours". In the good old days, I could nap like a pro. Now that all I do is sit around 24/7, it's next to impossible to be tired during the day. In fact, all of my 1st and 2nd trimester fatigue has been replaced with 3rd trimester energy. Which is highly ironic, considering I'm not able to do anything with it. If I could, I'd just sleep away the hours that I'm alone. But sleep is far from my friend these days. I dread it even at bedtime when I actually am tired. I hate having vivid dreams every night, especially since they're never good ones. I have restless legs and can't take Melatonin for them. RLS is torture, and I am not exaggerating about that. I also can't ever sleep for more than two hours at a time because that is how often I get up to pee, and it takes me a good 20 minutes to get back to sleep after each bathroom trip. Everyone says, "Enjoy your nights of uninterrupted sleep while you can, 'cause you won't be getting any sleep once that baby comes!" Oh, please. My sleep is interrupted at LEAST ten times a night already by my overactive bladder, restless legs, squished lungs, scoliosis-plagued spine, & the pills I have to take 'round the clock. And none of those things are remotely cute. A screaming, poopy baby would be music to my ears right now, even at 3:00AM. Obviously, I'll probably be eating my words in a couple of months. I've never been a mother before, so I can't say how I'll handle it. But at this point in time, I just want her in my arms so badly, I'm probably not thinking very rationally. This entire post has been nothing but rambling and complaining, but I needed to get it out. Being cooped up all day every day is taking its toll. Not being able to contribute to society or really be productive at all is taking its toll. The pregnancy depression I've been suffering from for the past 7 months is taking its toll. (That's a very real thing, by the way.) I'm just glad the end is in sight. I know it will all be more than worth it. Some days are just harder than others. This would be one of those days. I'll end this with an excerpt from Dr. Seuss's "Horton Hatches the Egg": {Sighed Mayzie, a lazy bird hatching an egg: "I'm tired and I'm bored And I've kinks in my leg From sitting, just sitting here day after day. It's work! How I hate it! I'd much rather play! I'd take a vacation, fly off for a rest If I could find someone to stay on my nest! If I could find someone, I'd fly away- free..."}

30.1

We made it to 30 weeks! Not without a few bumps in the road, though. Last weekend we took another trip to the hospital. I had been feeling contractions on and off most of the day on Saturday, but by 9:00PM, they were actually starting to scare me. (Painful, etc.) I called Joey and my doctor. Doc said to go to Labor & Delivery. Joey rushed home from work and we got to the hospital pretty quickly. Of course my contractions slowed way down as soon as they got me hooked up to the monitor, so I felt like the girl who cried wolf. But it's so much better to be safe than sorry. We ran some test, including the fFN test, which is incredibly painful and I hope to never experience again. Anyway, that test came back positive, which is a little scary. (It has something to do with the presence of amniotic fluid in the test swab and indicates a possibility of delivery in the next two weeks.) I'm not a doctor or anything, but I do have one, and she tells me that the test can have false positives. So that makes me feel better about things. Luckily, this last hospital visit only lasted a few hours. So that wasn't terribly fun, but you know what was? Last Tuesday, when my mom & I went to get a 4-D ultrasound of the baby. Joey isn't really a fan of the 4-D pictures, so we went while he was at work. However, he seemed to change his mind as soon as my mom sent him one of the pictures after our "session". He loved the pictures and now has one of them set as the wallpaper on his phone. We're so in love with this baby and can't wait to hold her. (When she's full-term & ready to come out, of course!) While I was getting the ultrasound, as exciting as it was, my mom and I kind of felt like it was torture to see that beautiful chubby face and not be able to smother it with kisses. Let's hope these last two months fly by! (Yeah, right.) We had another check-up today and decided that we don't really need to do any more non-stress tests, as the baby is extremely active and I am FINALLY able to feel those movements regularly. Only took 30 weeks! I'm pretty convinced that I have the world's most anterior placenta. Case in point- at our last NST, the baby was so active that she wouldn't even stay still long enough for the nurse to monitor her heart rate. Yet I could hardly feel her myself, even though I was watching her squirm around like crazy on the ultrasound screen. Crazy stuff. My doctor also told us today that once I get to 34 weeks, I can stop taking the anti-contraction pills every six hours, which will be so nice. They also apparently won't try to stop labor after week 34. Although I will still be on bed rest until 36. But after that, it's fair game. I'd much prefer she stay in until at least 37, but once I'm off restrictions, it's likely she'll show up pretty quickly. So I guess we have yet another countdown- 6 weeks! In some ways, I feel like I've been pregnant my entire life. Truly. But in other ways, I just can't believe that we're almost to the finish line. Oh, life. What a journey.

A root canal & non-stress tests.

28.3! We hit our first big goal Tuesday- 28 weeks. It's been a month since I went into labor the first time, and we're still hangin' in there. Earlier this week, we experienced the worst night's sleep of this entire pregnancy so far- thanks to one of my bottom molars which was being eaten up by a nasty cavity. Now, I've had some terrible tooth pain in my day. Despite my love of milk, I have incredibly weak teeth. Just like my daddy! It's pretty safe to say that every one of my chompers has had at least one cavity over the years. I really do brush and floss my teeth, I promise. In fact, I'm pretty obsessive about flossing. But try as I might to take care of them, they're still a bunch of weaklings. Oh, well. Weak or not, I'm glad to have them. They come in handy from time to time. Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent there. My point was that I've dealt with severe tooth pain before, and it's the worst kind of pain... to me, anyway. But in the past, I was always able to pop an extra-strength Advil if I had a cavity that couldn't be filled for a few days. Now the only thing I'm allowed to take is Tylenol, and Tylenol really doesn't do ish. So I was in excruciating pain from about 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM, when it finally subsided a bit. Poor Joey couldn't sleep knowing I was in so much pain, so he had to go to work the next morning like a zombie. Luckily, I have an awesome sister-in-law who happens to be a dental assistant. She set me up with a last-minute appointment at her office to see what was going on. So I went in for that yesterday. Turns out, my tooth was so infected that we had to do a root canal. I've had root canals before, but this was by far the worst. Even with 4 shots, I still felt way too much of the whole procedure. To top it all off, I have a pretty severe case of "pregnancy brain", so when the dentist asked me if I wanted him to write a prescription for Lortab or Percocet to deal with the pain of the aftermath, I said, "Oh, I'm sure I'll be fine. I have Tylenol if I need it." Well, I guess in my mind I was thinking that I've had cavities filled before without any pain afterward, so what's the big deal? The fact that I'd just had a ROOT CANAL and not a regular old cavity filling seemed to have been lost on me at the moment. Needless to say, last night was another interesting one. But Cherish came to the rescue again and got the prescription called in first thing this morning, so my mouth finally doesn't feel like someone is mercilessly taking a hammer to it. I hate taking any medicine while pregnant & especially don't enjoy the side effects of Oxycodone. But it's perfectly safe and I'm not in (much) pain anymore, so I consider that a win-win. Another thing we did today was have our first of many non-stress tests at the hospital. Basically they just monitor Noelle's heart rate and movement to make sure everything is going smoothly. They also monitor contractions, and I didn't have a single one the whole time we were there! Very good news. Just a little over 8 weeks until this baby is full-term. My doctor still thinks she'll show up early, all things considered. As long as we make it to term, I'll be ecstatic. In any event, I'll be a mom in about TWO MONTHS. I still don't think I'll believe it until she is in my arms. I dream about her every night. In fact, I've been dreaming about her since I was 12 years old. And in a matter of weeks, those dreams will actually be coming true. "Is this real life"? Yes... yes, it is. =)

Perspective.

Today was a rough one. Being broke is stressful and scary, and Joey kinda has the weight of the world on his shoulders these days. The hardest part of being on bed rest is not being allowed to help out in any way anymore- I'm not bringing in any money, I can't pitch in with housework or cooking, (not that I've ever been much help in the cooking department) and while I'll admit it is nice to literally be ordered to just relax, it also makes me feel incredibly guilty. I feel like I'm just this blob on the couch making no contribution to anything whatsoever. BUT of course, that is not the case at all. I'm growing a baby, and that's pretty dang important. I'm truly grateful to be able to do so. Anyway, Joey had a particularly bad day at work and so when he got home, he vented to me for a bit. I guess you could say we both had a bit of a pity party for a minute. Meanwhile, the TV was on Sportscenter and they were doing a spotlight on this amazing 18-year-old who was born physically & mentally handicapped, who was able to overcome the odds and run on his high-school track team. In the first scene of the spotlight, it showed him struggling to put batteries into a toy firetruck. It took a few tries, but he did it. Joey and I just stopped and looked at each other, as if to say, "Wow. We're sitting here complaining about our money problems, and look what this kid goes through every day." I think we needed that little reminder of how lucky we truly are. Yes, we're already in crazy debt with hospital bills and lately it's been a struggle to even buy groceries. But we are in good health, the baby is in good health, and we have each other- not to mention amazing families who stand by us. I had another wake-up call just a few minutes after this, as I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed and saw a status update from one of my former patients at the hospital. This patient is a beautiful teenage girl who two years ago was in a car accident which left her paralyzed from the neck down. Her status update? "I may not be able to walk, but that does not mean I cannot chase my dreams." And here I am feeling sorry for myself because I'm going to be on bed rest for the next 10 weeks. How lucky am I?! In a few months, I get to walk around all I want, care for my baby, and get back to normal. So many of my amazing former patients will never have that freedom. They inspired me then, and they inspire me now more than ever. It's true what they say about gratitude. Being grateful is the only surefire way to be happy. And I have so very much to be grateful for.

26.2 (And comments!)

Well, another day down! We got our second round of steroid shots today. They're supposed to help tremendously with lung development, preventing brain bleeds & intestinal infections, (two very common preemie issues) and in general they just up her chances of surviving and eventually thriving if she does show up early. The shots went right into my hips/butt and stung quite a bit, but weren't nearly as bad as I expected. So there's that. Now... comments!!! Since we don't have an actual working computer here at our house, I've just been blogging from my iPad. Which is why I can't figure out how to do cool stuff like making paragraphs or posting pictures. It is also why I just figured out a few minutes ago that I had 7 comments awaiting approval! I was so excited to see them and to know that a few people actually do read this thing. To Alli, Mandy, and Mary- thank you so much for the comments. I feel bad that I didn't see them until now. Alli- I am so excited for the arrival of my 3rd GodDaughter. Cannot wait to see how adorable she is! Mandy- I love you and Tegan to pieces, and miss seeing you both at work. Mary- I did not even remember that Maddie was born so early! She is so smart, beautiful, and well-adjusted, you would never even guess it! Anyway. You're all wonderful, and I'll keep the updates coming. Until next time! Oh, P.S. I'm still planning on naming the babe Noelle, (Note that the spelling has changed. I don't want people thinking it's pronounced "Noal.") but Joey is still pretty set on the name "Jaycee." He has an uncle named Jay who he is close to, so the name has special meaning to him. And don't get me wrong- it's a cute name, and I like it. But my heart is still set on Noelle. I guess we'll just have to see what she comes out looking like to know which name suits her best.