Surgery!!

So we have been pretty busy lately with Rod having surgery. He had a fix of his hiatal hernia and a laprascopic fundiplication. Say that five times fast. Basically they tightened the area where the esophagus meets the stomach, by wrapping part of the stomach around the esophagus. Needless to say he is still recovering. Right now he is still getting used to more solid foods and feeling very deprived because there is a lot he can't eat. It hurts to laugh and hiccup, but he is being a trooper. He had me lauhging so hard today as he begged for a snickers bar and tried to persuade me why it was allowed that he had to leave because I was making him laugh. No bread and meat for a month. Poor guy. Thank goodness for perscoset he says.

Emma is growing. Only 4 more weeks. I had my first internal exam and am dilated to 1cm, which means basically nothing, but we are still getting really excited for the arrival. Her heartbeat is strong and the Dr says everything is going good. We can't wait for our new arrival, although I am getting more and more nervous for the actual process of delivering a baby. It is hard to be prepared for what you don't know and anyone who knows me knows I hate not to be prepared. We are packing our bag this week so everything will be ready there and we are hoping Rod is a little more recovered before this little one comes.

Here are some pics of Rod on the day of surgery and after.

Birth Classes

So this week we had our first birth/parenting class. My Dr's office has them at the office so we don't have to travel to the hospital, which keeps the classes much smaller and shorter. It was actually extremely informational, although nobody warned us about having to view the birthing video. Roderick promptly informed me after the class that the part about the placenta being born made him sick to his stomach, which I can relate to since I even felt queasy watching that part. Good thing the baby is usually being oohed and ahhed over during that time.

We also got to go together to or ultrasound on Tuesday. It was so neat to see Emma's features and to be reassured at 100% that my baby is in fact a girl. I have been having these dreams that they made a mistake and really I am having a boy so it was nice to have that confirmed. They measured her size and size wise she is due the 6th of September rather than the 17th, but the Dr is not changing the date. Rod is convinced she will be born around the 10th or so. I guess we will see. That is not something that you can really predict. She has very long legs according to the size of her femur, which she obviously didn't get from her mom. I have been having nightmares too that my baby would be born without this part of her leg ever since I read a people magazine article about that happening. Rod has been teasing me about it. But I can rest assured, all of her body parts are where they are supposed to be. Roderick is convinced that when we caught the shot of her face during the ultrasound that she looks like my baby pictures. We are very excited and cannot wait to see her.

It is getting hotter and hotter here, although part of that is the extra person I am carrying around. My swelling really hasn't been bad thankfully even with it being such a stinky summer. This week we have breathing exercises in our birthing class. That should be interesting. Here is a pic of our little girl, although I don't know how clear it is.

Ta Da

What!! April actually blogged? I know all of you family members are falling out of your seats because it has been about two months since I last decided to inform everyone of the going ons, but I figured I really need to be better about this.

So first things first, I am going to post a belly picture this time. I cannot believe how quickly my little girl has grown, so even though I am much against posting this picture I guess people need to see what it looks like for me to be 8 months pregnant. On Tuesday we go for my third ultrasound and I keep having these nightmares that the nurse is going to tell me oops, it is actually a boy. Well if so I hope he looks good in pink:) Rod and I are growing more and more excited each day for the arrival of our little girl. Someone needs to remind me next time though that getting pregnant in AZ in September may not be the nest idea since I am convinced that I am melting most of the time, although I really haven't had too much swelling thank goodness.

Speaking of melting, our lives have seemed crazy in many ways lately. Last weekend I came home from my Dr's appt and realized that even though our thermostat was set at 75, it was growing steadily hotter in my house. As it creeped up to 79 and even 80 I knew something was not right and called my landlord. Sure enough the motor had gone out in our a/c and although the a/c company assured me they would try to get someone out that evening( after I patiently explained that I was 8months pregnant and not looking forward to dying that day) but could not guarantee it until the next day. We were about to be headed for a hotel, however the lady I spoke to must have taken mercy on me because after spending the afternoon in my swimsuit on my bed with fans aimed at me, the owner of the company showed up about 6 and replaced the motor. It was heaven to have cold air again.

Then......this Friday at 3:00 I got home from running errands and immediately I get a call from the landlord asking if I had noticed that we had no water. Oh yes, a pipe broke in the main water area that supplies four apartments and oh by the way the plumber told me he couldn't come until the next day at 12:00. I asked him how he expected a pregnant lady to avoid going to the bathroom for almost 24 hours and he said well I guess if you have to turn the water on to flush you can, but if it starts squirting turn it off, which of course it did if you even tried to turn it on. The silly part of the whole situation was Rod and our landlord ended up in a go around with the HOA because it was their job to send some emergency person out and they were refusing to so we, along with three other condos sat without water until our plumber came out the next day. Seriously....so last weekend sweat to death, this weekend sweat to death and don't get clean till the plumber comes. However all in all, I can be grateful I have had a good pregnancy.

The next hurdle in our lives is surgery for Rod next month. We are both hoping I don't go into labor 4 weeks early. We don't really want to be in the hospital together. So emma, stay put until after dad's surgery! Alright friends here is the pic. I promise to try to be better about the lives of us!!

I can't hide

Now that I have read Mara's blog, I can't pretend I didn't get tagged, alright I could, but I won't and I will try to come up with random facts about myself. Six shouldn't be too hard.

1. I like to exercise, but I don't really love to exercise like people may think. This took me awhile to figure out about myself. I think this probably has something to do with my desire to be thin, which I think I share with many people, and my competitive nature. I mean I have done a lot, taught aerobics, done triathlons, and played many sports. However, if I don't have a purpose behind my exercise I would be perfectly happy sitting on the couch if it didn't make me feel like a lump.

2. I tend to be neurotic. I want my house to be clean all the time, I got straight A's because I felt I had to, I like things to be organized, I clean teeth ( I mean who can sit and pick things all day long and not be considered neurotic) and I think everything I do has to be the best or pefect. Now my husband has been trying to get me to realize this about myself for the last couple years and all he has accomplished is that I may not run around cleaning all the time and I may relax more, but deep down things still bug me:)

3. I love to read. In fact if I could sit and get wrapped up in books all day long I would. It is one of my favorite things to do. I love all varieties, except those Harlequin novels those I can pass on, but I love good books. My latest series is the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. This has a funny story. Last fall my little brother Jordan asked if I would help him with his book report and the book he was reading was Twilight. I had never heard of it. So I started skimming through it and much to his dismay wanted to read it. He said, "Oh no, not you. All the girls in high school love this book." When he left for the weekend, I went out and bought it to read and just finished the three book series for the third time. The new one comes out in August and the movie comes out in December. Who knew a love story involving could be so intriguing.

4. I love trying new things. If I had all the time in the world I would be accomplished at all crafts, sports, and pretty much anything you can think of. This is what fuels my love for learning. The problem is that I learn things until I am pretty okay at them, and then I am distacted and ready to learn a new thing. This is my ADD coming out.

5. I love the sun! Any type of sun really. Being from AZ, I even like the heat. Something about laying out by a pool, or feeling the heat after being in A/C all day long is so comforting.I love the sun in Hawaii, Florida, Utah, pretty much anywhere andany season.

6. I could eat some type of Mexican food everyday. Whether it is Cafe Rio type fresh food, or good old AZ mexican food I would be satisfied. In fact one ofmy favorite snacks is chips and salsa. However, much to my mom's dismay I don't like really hot mexican food. Now my mom and even some of my siblings can put fire in their mouth andbe happy, but I was the one who was always teased about the mild salsa I consumed. I like the flavors, but not too much spice.

Okay,these seemed pretty random. I hope everyone else takes everyone's tag as seriously. So I then tag Amber, Katie, Mikelle, Jeni, Ciara and Jenny. I want to hear 6 random things about you.

PS. When I read everyone else's blog, I feel like the blog newbie. I still can't figure out cool backgrounds or even how to add music to this thing.

Mother's Day

It has been a long time since I have blogged. It just seems so hard to find the time lately. Mother's Day was nice and eventful for me. Rod gave me my gift a day early which was a massage membership which gives me like 5 prgnancy massages. I had my first one Saturday and wow was I glad he thought of that. It was so nice to relax. Sunday I had to be at church at 8:00, an hour early to practice with the choir since I am the pianist. Then I played for the primary during sacrament. Then I subbed in Primary for the primary pianist who was out of town, but had to step out during Reliefe Society to sing for a lesson that someone had asked me to sing for. It was definately one musical day. Rod made me dinner and lunch though and let me take a nap and relax, so it was nice to have my first official Mother's Day. I am grateful for such a wonderful husband too!

I feel like I amr eally growing now, at least stomach wise. One of my patient's told me today that the old wive's tale is that you gain everywhere if you carry a girl. I don't know if that was her nice way of telling me I am getting fat, or if I am just sensitive as I see my belly swelling more and more each day. Rod is still prestering me to take new photos and post them, maybe I will get brave enough to do that. I am going to have to buy Maternity scrubs pretty soon. My little one is very active and responds to noise. She loves to "dance" when I play the piano or sing and she really responds to her daddy's voice...or any guy's voice that resembles it. Allright, that is all going on in our lives for now.

Put-Put

First off, to start this one let me say thank you to all the moms out there who gave me advice. It is so great to be able to get in touch with my friends and family so easily, although really I should be better about calling right? I also had a chance to speak to my mom for about 2 hours and she went down the list with me, which helped too. It is crazy how many gadgets there are out there. Oh yeah and by the way I think my little girl will be into dancing or music because my calling is pianist for the ward choir and everytime I practice or play in church she starts her aerobics. It is really interesting that they respond to sound at such an early point.

On to the original topic, Rod and I decided to play miniature golf on Friday for date night. We have always argued about what to call it. I have never heard it called put-put until Rod did, but according to my dad that is what he called in growing up ( he is from Texas). Maybe it is a regional thing or maybe I just never found out the right name. Anyway we always have bets on stuff because we tend to be competitive people. So we went to Golfland and the bet was that whoever lost had to pay for the game, this may sound silly but we give ourselves allowances every month. I ended up starting out well, doing not so good in the middle which made my husband happy, then winning on the last two holes.

We went last night and played again with Katie and Steve and Rod thought we would be good as a team since I had beat him the night before. However, we decided to play on a course that had many obstacles, water traps etc. The wager was for shaved ice afterwards. Rod did awesome and scored like 6 hole in ones....but not me, I doubled my score from the night before. It is pretty pathetic when you have to take the maximum (10) on a hole because you know there is no way in heck you will get that ball in the hole after trying a million times. I guess my accuracy at put-put is way off. So we lost and bought shaved ice, but it was worth it when we saw Parker's face later. Steve and Katie let us feed him plain shaved ice with no sugar on it. This was way better than the lemon experience with him. His face was so funny when he realized the temperature shock. For those of you who don't know, Parker is my nephew who is 8 months old. Then he got a glug, which basically is throat freeze and he thought he was dying, he kept trying to spit stuff out, but there was no ice in there his throat was just cold. My poor little girl, we are going to make her do silly things like this too. No wonder people have kids, they are so entertaining.

And It Is......

A girl!! Yay! We are very excited. We actually would have been excited with a boy or a girl. When we went for the ultrasound on Monday my little one was extremely active. It was neat to see her moving like crazy. Rod thought it was pretty neat too. Then, of course she was being stubborn and would not cooperate so they could find out what sex she was. The nurse was really great though, she didn't want to make me come back since Rod was with me. She got me up and gave me cold water and licorice saying the sugar would motivate my baby to move positions and then had me walk up and down the hall for 10 minutes. By the time I went back in the room, sure enough my little girl had moved and we were able to clearly see that we had a little girl. She has remained active for the last couple of days. What an interesting feeling it is to feel a baby moving inside you. We are going to name her Emma Belle ( thanks Amy for the permission, we appreciate it) and can't wait for our new addition.

On to other interesting things about the pregnancy. I have my first cold,which stinks and I am trying my best to stay away from medicine, which is maybe not a smart idea, but maybe you are more paranoid with your first child. I have had one or two tylenol which have helped. Roderick and i went to register last night and someone should have told me how overwhelming that task can be. I can now see that I should have sat down and consulted with other mothers for advice before I took on this task. I just sat there in Target and Babys R US and although we had already made some decisions on the stroller and bassinet, I could not figure out what monitor, pump, or any other basics I needed. I registered for stuff, but now don't really like the stuff I registered for. So you mothers out there, I would love some advice since I am now going to go online and back in the stores and fix my blunder. I mean who knew you could get so stressed about bedding? Needless to say I am sure I will be making many updates to my registries.

I promise to post some pictures of my baby's face, foot, hand etc once Rod scans them in for me. We can't wait for our little girl!!