Dreams

First my 38 week update.
At my appointment on the 8th, my doctor told me I was dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced. He told me his best guess would be that I would go into labor in the next 10-14 days. (He also said I could go another 4 weeks, but that was his guess)
That night I freaked out a bit. I thought I had another 3.5 weeks to get things in order and now that time had been cut in half. I knew it wasn't certain, but that I needed to be prepared. We got the car seat set up. I got my work-from-home stuff all taken care of (including Matt building me a desk and making an office for me) and the dreams started. Not dreams about having a baby, but dreams about getting work stuff all settled.
At my appointment last week, I hadn't progressed hardly at all, so the 10-14 days began again. At first I was frustrated. I was totally fine waiting until my due date and even after, as is typical for a first child, but now I had this time frame that I was becoming settled on. Realizing that that wasn't likely going to happen was disappointing.
Right now I am at day 13 of that original appointment and my next appointment is on Thursday.
I'm officially due next week, which is so weird to say.
I am now getting back into the mindset that it probably won't happen before my due date. I just don't FEEL like I'm right on the cusp. I feel fine. In fact someone at work told me they didn't think I was going to go into labor soon because, "I just look too good" she said, "You have to have ONE ugly day". That was an ego boost. Honestly, that's how I feel. I feel good. I feel like I should feel worse right before I deliver so I don't think it's going to happen this week. Maybe next.
I've had so many friends that are pregnant with their first and I've just been marking them off as my day gets closer. The last friend that was due before me had her baby on Sunday morning.

That brings me to my original topic.
My whole life I have had very detailed dreams. Whether they are good or bad they are VERY detailed. They could be movies. I remember when I lived in Hawaii with my best friend Bree almost every morning she'd wake up and ask me what I dreamt about. Matt used to do the same thing when we were first married.
Of the dreams that I've had there have been a few that were/are very special to me and I don't think they are "just dreams". I've also had some dreams that have come true and that is what I wanted to talk about today.
I remember having a dream one time of my brother Nolan holding a baby on his lap. He and his wife didn't have any children at the time. I called him the next morning and said, "Are you guys having a baby?" He laughed and said, "not that I know of" and then I told him about my dream. No thinking anything of it really. A couple of months later, the day before Christmas Eve I had another dream. That they announced they were pregnant Christmas morning, that they were pregnant the first time I called them, but they wanted it to be a surprise. When they got into town that night I told them and we all laughed it off. Christmas morning, they announced they were pregnant, and told me they found out that first day I called them.

Last month right before Matt and I left for Utah for my baby shower I had a dream about my friend Kelly. She and I had been playing phone tag (in real life) for days and in the dream she was announcing, via facebook, that she was pregnant. I was so mad because I figured that's why she was trying to call me in the first place and I was bummed that we never got a hold of each other and that this was how I was finding out. That Saturday at my baby shower she told me she was pregnant.

Lastly, my last friend that is due before me was due this coming Wednesday. Her doctor also told her that she'd be early so I've been watching, not so patiently, keeping tabs on how she was. Every day she didn't deliver made me feel like I had longer to wait.
Friday night I had a dream just of her posting a picture holding her baby in the hospital. You know, that first "baby and me" picture.
As soon as I woke up I told Matt about it, in case she did go into labor.
That night they posted a picture of her at the hospital with the caption "it's go time" and their sweet baby boy was born the next morning.

Apparently there is a theme with the dreams that actually come true, they are about people's babies. Now, if only I could have a dream about having mine, that'd be swell.

Getting prepared for baby. The watermelon made it home safe and sound.

Dear Baby Girl

We have officially less than one month until you are due to arrive. Your poppa and I are SO excited. We got your room all ready and each morning before I head downstairs to go to work I stop in your room and just look around, imagining what it's going to look like once you arrive.
Right now the crib is brand new, all your clothes (except the ones from your cousin Leila [which is most of them]) have never been worn. The changing table has never been pooped on. Everything is just waiting for you to come.
Let me tell you a little about our time together. You are a strong little nugget. You kick and turn and roll over so much that I believe you may have bruised my innerds. You already have a schedule. Throughout the day you are most active right before I get out of bed in the morning, in the early afternoon (probably because I had just eaten), when I'm driving home from work and when I lay down to go to bed. When I'm going to bed is when you really start your acrobatics.
Every night, daddy and I say prayers together. I am laying in bed and he'll kneel down next to me so his face is right by my belly. When he starts to pray you go nuts. I think that is why you get so active at night, you're trying to show off for Daddy. I love that you recognize his voice. He loves you so much. You also move a lot when I'm singing, which just melts my heart. It does make it a little difficult to hold notes or get a good breath, but I don't care. It's my favorite. I can't wait to rock with you and sing to you.
Your Granny and Grandpa Sanders are coming to Arizona this month so they can be here when you arrive. Your Aunt Jennie will be coming right after your due date. I can't believe we are already so close. Not knowing when you'll be showing up is driving me a little batty. It could be any day now or you could come next month. Every little thing that happens in my body gives me a twinge of hope that it means you are coming.
You have already changed our lives so much. What did we talk about before we knew about you?

I know there will soon be a day when I'll look back on this time and think "it was over in the blink of an eye" I'll think it all went by so fast. Right now all I can do is imagine, and I imagine all the time.

Your Grandpa Sanders sent me this poem last week and I tear up whenever I read it:

Mommy can you feel me? I'm wiggling for you. I hear you say you love me. Mom, I love you too.
Very soon you'll meet me, and kiss my little face. I will feel your warm skin, and admire you for your grace.
Mommy, are you ready? My life is just about to start. I will hold your little finger, but you will hold my heart.

Love

Love is an incredible phenomenon.
When I was born, I was instantly being shown what it is to love. My parents and my siblings were showing me every day. I was bonded to them and I was loving them back at full capacity.
As I grew and made friends and started to find my place in my family that love grew, and once again I was loving as much as I possibly could, or knew how to. I was also being loved as much as I possibly could at the time.
As you grow older that love grows with you. It's amazing that you can do something to the absolute max and somehow it's always able to grow.
When I got married my ability to love and be loved grew. It often surprised me to think of how much I loved this new person in my life, and in such a different way than I had ever loved before. I loved my family and friends as much as I could but now I loved someone more and in a different way.
When we found out we were having a baby, miraculously, that love grew even more. There was this little thing in me that I didn't know, could barely imagine, but I loved it. I loved it more than I had ever loved anything before.
When I started to feel her move, you guessed it, love. Deep love. We found out it was a girl and she started to become someone to us and again...
We are less than 6 weeks away from our due date and I am so overwhelmed by this little human inside me. I know the love I feel for her now will pale in comparison to how I feel in a few weeks and the following years.

The humbling thing is, I was taught how to love first by my parents. I was taught VERY well. I have had people in my life that have loved me for my entire life. I am very aware of how lucky I am to have been surrounded by the people that I have been surrounded by.
It is now my turn to teach someone how to love. To show someone what it means to love. Matt and I will be her very first example of this amazing gift. Our ability to love her will be how she learns to love others.

"The greatest gift you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return"

33 week update

I wanted to wait and post until after I had showers and what not and so here we are.

Right now I am 33 weeks and 2 days along. Baby girl is 4.5 pounds and about 19 inches long. Now when she is awake she really lets me know it. She moves so much and is so strong that it actually makes me either gasp or groan. If she is active when I lay down to go to bed, I know I won't be sleeping any time soon.

First weekend in August Matt and I drove to Utah for our first baby shower. My mom, sister and Aunt Pam threw such a FUN shower for Baby Girl and me. It was a "Ready to Pop" theme and all day Saturday my sister was making different kinds of pop corn. We had, peanut butter, snickerdoodle, lemon head, muddy buddy and one other that I can't think of. They were all so yummy.

My aunt hosted and had a delicious mexican feast all set up for us. So many friends and family came. It was so fun to see so many people I don't get to see that often anymore. We played some fun games and of course opened presents. This little lady of mine was spoiled. We got a lot of clothes, diapers, butt cream and baby wash/lotion. I feel like we'll never need to buy any more of that stuff, but I'm sure we'll run out in no time. In addition to all those goods, my sister sent us home with two giant bags filled with clothes from Leila. Those two bags only cover up to 6 months. We definitely don't need to shop for her, that's for sure.

 Leila wanted to help me open the presents :) I was happy to let her.

 

 The prizes for the game winners

The popcorn!

It was so fun to be home with my family. I always love to go home with Matt and get some quality Sanders time in. Friday night we all (adults) went to Asian Star for dinner (a defnite fave) that night we played some games with Jennie, Brock and my parents, since we were all staying at Jennie's house.

Sunday we all got together again for family dinner with all the littles as well. It was so nice to be home. It's so crazy to think that the next time I see my family I will have a little baby with me. It's so exciting.

The one thing people kept asking me all weekend was, "Are you so ready to be done being pregnant?" I would say, "NO! I've been fine. I am totally confident in my ability to take care of this child while she is inside me" I was also not too uncomfortable or anything either, so that weekend, I was fine still being preggo. Amazing what can change in 2 weeks.

The next weekend was the Halls family shower.
I wish I would have gotten more pictures. They really went all out for us. This little lady is so lucky to be born into these families.
I have to say, I have a very talented family. I have a niece painting us a picture for the baby's room, she also drew a little "thumb print tree" for everyone to stamp their thumb prints on. I have a sister in law who made us a beautiful quilt that will adorn the crib. Another sister-in-law made us this cute pennant banner spelling out baby girl's name and ANOTHER sister in law (I still am unsure if she made it) brought us a sign that says, "She leaves a little Sparkle everywhere she goes"

Once again, we had delicious food, fun games and amazing gifts. All the Halls ladies went in on a CRIB, sheets, diaper bag and other goodies for us, and we are SO GRATEFUL!

One of my favorite things that we got are the "late night diapers".
Everyone wrote messages on the diapers so that when I go in for those late night changes I can have a little chuckle. Such a cute idea.

 Late Nigh Diapers

 

This Friday I have one more baby shower that my work is hosting for me. I am such a lucky girl to have so many wonderful people in my life.

We only have a few more items we NEED before baby comes (car seat... diaper changing station...) and the more ready we are to bring her home, the more ready I am to be done being pregnant.
I have definitely entered the uncomfortable stage of pregnancy and I know it will get worse before it gets better. It doesn't help that we are hitting record breaking temps (117 last friday). My sleep is increasingly more uncomfortable and my belly is just plain increasing. I'm ready to be active again and to not waddle when I walk.

Yesterday we put the crib together and I finally went through the 0-3 month bag of clothes Jennie gave us. I can't believe this is all for our daughter and that we will have her in less than 2 months.

Keep cooking, Little One, we are sure getting excited to meet you!

EEEEEP! Little peep toes! 

Taking it all in

Although I know the last trimester tends to drag on, I feel like it will be over before we know it.
I want to do so many things that I don't have energy for.
Nearly every Fourth of July my family goes camping up in Utah. This year was no exception and I can't believe how jealous that made me. I kept seeing pictures and it made me miss the mountains, and cool weather.
I love camping. I love sitting around a fire and roasting mallows. I love hanging out with family laughing and telling stories. I love sleeping under the stars. I love waking up to the sun and feeling the cool weather outside of my sleeping bag. I LOVE CAMPING.
Matt and I both love camping, and the fact that we haven't been once this year was seriously getting to me. The hard thing is, in the summer you do not want to go camping in the desert, it's way too hot. So in order to get that mountainy feeling you have to drive a ways.
After the Fourth, I made Matt promise to take me camping the next weekend. We keep talking about it, but something always comes up to take it's place. I told him, "If anything comes up this week, we can't go, we are GOING camping"
Thursday night Matt stayed up scouting locations. We typically go somewhere between Sedona and Flagstaff, but he wanted to try somewhere new. He chose a place called Blue Ridge Reservoir, about 3.5 hours away.
We decided we'd sleep in the bed of the truck so there would be one less thing to set up. Matt got off work a little bit early and started getting things all packed up. I got home, got packed and we headed out.
To get there, you drive on highway for about 2 hours, unpaved road for about 30 minutes, dirt road for about 30 minutes and really really bumpy road for about 30 minutes. Baby did NOT love the terrain. We likely won't go again before having the baby, for fear it would put me in labor with not a soul in sight. (Luckily I have read the part in "What to Expect When You're Expecting" about having your spouse deliver your baby, we'd be fine)
It was dark by the time we were getting there and neither of us had been there before so we didn't really know where we were looking. We got to a place where we just couldn't drive any further. Matt was expecting a paid campground, but there was no one and nothing around for miles, so we said, "Looks like this is where we sleep tonight."
Matt built a fire pit and got a nice fire going and we sat by the fire, eating smores and just chit chatting for a while.
We got our bed all set up in the bed of the truck and slept underneath the stars. The weather was about 57 which was just perfect! It was nice and cool outside, but not too cold. I slept like a baby, which hasn't happened often lately so it was very welcomed.
We woke up at about 7:00 when the sun wouldn't let us sleep anymore.
We could not believe how beautiful of a place we were in. It was just the perfect morning.

Without having a tent, taking apart camp happened really fast. We decided to explore and find the reservoir. According to the map we used to get there, it shouldn't be too much further away. What we didn't realize is Matt just put in Blue Ridge Reservoir on his map. This would take you there, but not necessarily a convenient way. After we drove as far as we could, we walked a little ways and found the reservoir, at the base of the cliff we were standing on. We came from the back and had no way to access it unless we were to drive a long ways again.
We just decided to head back to town, get some breakfast and drive home.
As mentioned before, we drove at night so we had no idea how beautiful the drive was. Driving home was breathtaking. We kept stopping to take pictures and sighed a little each time the tempurature raised a degree (about 40 in total :( )

We got home about 1 in the afternoon. 7 hours of driving for about 12 hours at the site was totally worth it, in my opinion. It was so nice just to get away with Matt and have a little adventure.
Soaking up the time we have left as just a twosome.

Moments of panic

So, last night, for only the second time since I got pregnant, I had a bit of a panic.
I don't know if I talked about the first time it happened, but I just had this flash in my mind of me sitting on the couch holding the baby, all alone. Matt was back to work and the novelty of everyone wanting to come and visit had worn off, and I was just there alone with my baby. Still the idea of that freaks me out. I know a lot of it comes naturally and this is something every first time mother has to go through, but every once in a while it scares me to think that I'm going to have a life to take care of.

Last night I was laying in bed, Matt was getting ready for bed and I was just sitting there watching the movements of my belly. I looked up on our dresser and saw a random assortment of things; a water bottle, my prenatal pills, Matt's keys, and the thought came to me, "What will be up there when we have a baby? A bottle? A binky..."  and I just started to internally freak out a little bit.

I had a slow morning at work yesterday and figured out that, I have 84 more days until I take maternity leave, and only 59 work days. This baby is coming. My due date is 12 and a half weeks out.

As Matt was getting ready last night I remembered a conversation Jennie and I had when she was pregnant with Jace, her oldest, though she hadn't announced she was pregnant yet, so I didn't know. She was telling me that she the idea of having a kid made her a little sad because it wouldn't just be her and Brock anymore. Someone else was going to take focus off her husband and that was hard to wrap her head around. Jace is almost 10, and has 3 younger siblings now, and I know for certain she is so happy with their family. Still, I found myself thinking those same things last night. Soon, it won't just be us. Soon, when he is getting ready for bed I may be feeding the baby or singing her to sleep. He may be downstairs doing dishes or something while I am upstairs tidying up the nursery.
I think about this stuff and it makes me miss Matt.

I am so excited to meet this little girl, but this is going to change our lives. Change can be a most wonderful thing, but before it's wonderful, it's scary.

6 month update

This Friday I will hit 6 months which is just crazy. Time has been flying so far. I keep being told that it will slow down in the third trimester, and perhaps it will, but so far everything is new and exciting and hasn't gotten old so time is still moving right along.

This last month has been a full one. I went home to Utah for a weekend. We got to celebrate Matt's first Father's Day. We got the results of our anatomy scan, all is looking good there. Matt and I started serving in the nursery in our ward and we are starting to get things done in the baby's room.

I'll start off with the anatomy scan. I had the ultrasound in the beginning of May, but it was two days after my doctor's appointment so I had to wait until my June appointment to hear all the juicy details.
The doctor said that everything is looking good. She is sizing up just right and all seems perfectly well.
After the ultrasound Matt and I were looking through all the pictures and Matt said, "Um... does she have 6 toes?" I laughed and rolled my eyes, and then looked at the picture

                                                   
At the end of the doctor's appointment I showed him the picture and said, "Does it look like she has six toes? He smiled and said, "Yes, yes it does." He said the ultrasound tech didn't say anything with her report, so it is likely just a bad angle with the camera, BUT he said IF she does have six toes, it's really not that uncommon and they will just remove it at birth. It won't even leave a scar. Poor little 6 toe'd baby.

Father's Day this year was a fun one. I had bought Matt a gift WELL in advance and it was just sitting in our house. It wasn't anything huge, but I was just excited to get him something for Father's Day. As soon as I woke up on Sunday morning I got it all ready and brought him his gift.

I was a little nervous when I ordered it, that he would never use it, and then within a week of ordering it he used my pretty, frilly apron like 3 times, so I felt good about my choice.
A friend of mine did the word jumble for her anniversary and gave me the idea. I just made a word jumble with all the words that I feel describe a daddy. He says he loves it.
I also made him a card that said, "Your mission if you choose to accept it..." and on the inside it said, "Be our little girl's daddy" and then had a list of things that little girls need from their daddy. Things like; Warm her feet on your belly, fight the monsters in her closet, be the reason she misses home, show her how a husband should treat a wife, celebrate her victories, hold her when she cries... and as a joke I put "Wear her Dora backpack" when we were on our cruise he saw a Dad with a little girl and the dad was wearing a Dora backpack, Matt said, "I won't do that." I said, "Oh sure you will"
He agreed to all terms.

I am so excited to see Matt be a daddy. As mentioned above we have been called to work in the nursery in our ward. I will admit I was MAD when I got the calling, my whole adult life it was the calling I dreaded. However, I was not expecting it to be nearly as structured as it is. It's actually a pretty fun calling. There are a bunch of kids in nursery, like 9 at the least, and Matt is so good in there.
There is one kid named Brock, he is probably two, if that. Our first Sunday he was sitting by the door and when he realized his parents weren't there he started the heavy breathing and tears were coming. Matt quickly went over to him and brought some giant legos and played with him the whole time. Ever since that day as soon as Matt and I get there he comes straight over to Matt and either sits on his lap or plays legos with him. And if another kid is in Matt's lap, he gets very confused.
 Matt is so patient, where I am not. I have kids come to me and say, "Come with me..." and want me to walk the room with them, they have no direction in mind, they just want me to go with them. I just want to say, "just get what you want and bring it to me, because, as you can see... I'm sitting" But I go with them, of course.

Baby girl is a mover and a shaker. Right now she is a little over 2 pounds and about 15 inches long. WHAT??? She's huge. Every night when I lay down I look at my belly and watch her move around. I'll see a little kick and in my mind she is only as big as that little spot in my belly that moved, but about a week ago I was watching and both sides of my belly got a kick at the same time and that WEIRDED ME OUT! It was then that I realized how big she is. I can't believe I get to meet her in 3 months.

I imagine how that day will be all the time. I wonder if I'll go into labor on my own, or if I'll be late and have to be induced. I wonder where I will be when it happens, will I be at work, will I be asleep, will she do me a solid and come on a weekend, will she be early, will she be late? I wonder what it will be like to take her home at Christmas and meet all her Sanders cousins for the first time. I think about the swimsuits she'll wear next summer. I wonder if she'll be a daddy's girl. I think about her all the time.

So 6 months down, and things are moving along swimmingly. I am getting progressively more uncomfortable. I'm not even that big, but turning over in bed, getting off the couch, bending over to pick something up, it's all a struggle.

Can't wait to meet our little one.