Saturday, April 23, 2011

pre-term almost delivery saga

I haven't blogged in a while and since I am on bed rest I thought I would take the chance to catch up a bit before my time runs out. Wednesday I went into pre-term labor while I was at work and almost ended up having Eli 6 and a half weeks early. It was the scariest day ever.

It all started over the weekend looking back on things. I started feeling all this pressure on my pelvis and assumed it was just the baby dropping since that is supposed to happen about this time. I probably over did at my scrap book retreat since I was alone and carrying all my own bags and stuff. My feet swelled up to double the size at my scrap book retreat also. Monday was a whole day of stress and family drama so that added to things. Monday night I decided to go to water aerobics since I was no longer sick(I had the swine flu and then bronchitis this whole last month). I didn't feel the best during water aerobics and took it super easy. I couldn't sleep that night and felt horrible. I just attributed it to being in my 3rd trimester and shook it off. Tuesday was such a struggle to get through work. I was so tired and didn't feel good. Tuesday night I couldn't sleep at all again and was so miserable I sobbed half the night. About 4am I had such bad back pain I got on my back massager, but after about 10 seconds I knew it wasn't musculoskeletal pain but I still didn't put two and two together. I got about twenty minutes of sleep and went to work wed morning just feeling horrible. I thought if I could just get through the day and take a nap then things would be fine. About an hour into work I could barely stand up straight. My co-workers made me call my doctor and he sent me to the hospital. I was still in denial that I was in labor till I was about 2 minutes from the hospital. Then it became apparent that the pain I was feeling were contractions.

As soon as I was admitted, they checked me and I was dialated to a two. They gave me 3 shots to try and stop the labor. They kept telling me that I may end up having my baby that day. They didn't feel certain they could stop it. They gave me a steroid shot to help my babies lungs develop in case he came. It scared me so bad cause I was only 33.5 weeks along. I still had another 6 and a half weeks to go. I kept telling the nurse that I wasn't ready yet. I hadn't taken my hypno birthing classes and didn't know what to do. I didn't want my baby to be in the NICU. Erik and his dad gave me a blessing which was a great comfort. It took a few hours but they were able to stop the labor. They gave me a fetal fibronectin test and I was positive which means I will most likely deliver in the next two weeks. I am hoping they are wrong. They kept me in the hospital till Thursday night and then sent me home on bed rest.

I was home about 4 hours before I had to go back due to more contractions. They gave me some nifedipine to stop them and kept me for a few hours and then when I was fine they sent me home. They forgot to send me home with a prescription of that when I discharged the first time. So they sent me home with the prescription the second time. The doctor told me he was hoping to buy me a few more days. He was the 4th doctor to tell me something like that. That did not make me feel comforted. I was home most of the day Friday and then the hospital called me and made me come back to be monitored again. I was looking ok so I have been home on bed rest ever since. I am just trying to hang in there and outlive the doctors expectations. I think If I am really good and don't do anything I can last another 3 weeks. The labor pains were so horrible, it is motivation for me to be good and put that misery off as long as possible. I have never experienced anything that terrible before in my life.

So that is the saga of the last few days. To be honest I am so scared right now. I am not ready to be a mom just yet, and I don't want my baby to early. I was prepared to be a mom in another month. Wasn't quite ready for it right now. The reality of being a parent is really starting to set in. My life is completely changing. It will be ok though. God will get me through this. He apparently has a different plan than I did. Little Eli apparently wants me to be his mom a few weeks sooner than I planned. I am sure as soon as I see my little miracle all the fear will turn to joy.

Through all this Eli has been a trooper. He is so spunky. He kept kicking the moniters on my stomach out of place in the hospital so they had to readjust them every 10 minutes. Despite all that was happening to my body in the last few days, nothing seemed to phase him. His heartbeat was strong and he has just been moving around like crazy. He is sure going to be a big ball of energy.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Winnie the Pooh Baby Shower

I had my first baby shower about a week and a half ago and it was so fun. Erik's aunts and mother-in-law threw me a Winnie the Pooh themed baby shower to match my nursery. All the women from Erik's side of the family came and we had such a good time. The decorations were super cute and the atmosphere was so festive. We got to eat great food, and play baby shower jeopardy. Erik's cousins made the game and it was really cleverly done. It ended up getting crazy, since Erik's family likes to get loud and have fun. If one of the aunts didn't like a question, they would veto it and make one up on the spot. Then all the other aunts would argue whether or not it was a good question and then make up another question. Then that question would get challenged. It would continue on like this for 5 minutes till we went back to the original question. So it took a while to get through the game. It was so funny and entertaining though. We laughed a lot! After the game I opened all my presents. Everyone was so generous and brought really great gifts. Eli got tons and tons of cute cute cloths. He will be the best dressed baby ever. Thanks everyone!

Here are some of the pictures from the event. There aren't that many since my camera ran out of battery. My mother in law took a ton with her camera though so I will post them as soon as I get them.


Here are the party favors we handed out. My aunt Lora made them and she did such a good job.

I loved this table. These are all the stuffed animals that are going to go in Eli's nursery.

This isn't the best lighting for this picture, but you can see the beehive cakes and other cute decorations.

Here is all the fun food and the cute beehive drink dispenser.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

General Conference



Every 6 months the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hosts a semi-annual general conference www.lds.org where all members of the church gather to hear the words of our leaders and prophet. It is 2 days of being uplifted, edified, and reminded why we live our faith and how to live it better. I always feel very inspired after conference.

The last couple of times conference has come and gone and I feel like I did not take full advantage of it. I just casually grazed from the words and did not make it a priority to really take time to sit down and absorb everything that was being said. I slept through half of the talks and never got around to reading all of them after. So this conference I decided things were going to be different. I was going to make it my highest priority. I wanted to get a lot more out of it than I had last couple of times.

In order to do this, I decided to get a good nights rest so that I wouldn't be tired while I listened. I decided to prepare spiritually before hand. I came with a few questions that I wanted to receive answers to, and printed out a couple of conference packets that I found here. I combined them to make the perfect conference packet for me. Thanks to those who put these together. They are awesome!

http://downloads.sugardoodle.net/YouthConfPacket_baw.pdf

http://theredheadedhostess.com/?p=1549

I feel like this conference has been one of the most meaningful for me. I feel like I have learned so much and received all the answers to the questions that I have had and more. Filling out the packet and taking such diligent notes has made me pay a lot closer attention to what was being said and helped me learn so much more than I ever have during a conference. It is true what they say. The amount of effort you put into something is what you will get out of it. I decided I was going to approach this as seriously as I did with my studies in graduate school or a continuing education conference for my profession. I looked at conference as a spiritual continuing education weekend. Because of that, I have really gotten tons more out of it.

The two questions I came seeking answers to were:
1-How can I live the gospel of Jesus Christ better and make it a more integral part of my life? How can I be more intrinsically motivated to follow Christ?
2-How can I prepare for my baby and what do I need to do to be a good mother to him?

There seemed to be pieces of information and personal revelation with each talk that culminated in the answers that I received. It was line upon line and precept upon precept as elder Bednar talked about. It came one piece of information at a time till I had an abundance of it. It all started with Elder Dallin H. Oaks talk about our Desires. He stated that our desires dictate our priorities, and our priorities dictate our choices and actions. He talked about how our desire is the springboard for what we do. He talked about lots of examples of righteous desires in the scriptures including Enos, and king Lamoni's father who said that he would give away all his sins to know God. It helped me see that if I change my desires, it will change everything else that I do. Then Elder Ballard's talk came next and he talked about focusing on the smaller things that will bring us closer to God. That it is the culmination of the small things that bring the great nuggets of gold. These small things include charity and practicing it at home first, the importance of constant service to others(it is how the savior lived his life), listening to the promptings of the holy ghost, and all the other small things like daily prayer and scripture study.

With each talk I learned more principles including: how to keep the sabbath day holy and use it to renew myself spiritually, how to serve others, Temple attendance, forgiving others, keeping my covenants and honoring them, etc. The list goes on. I realized that if I do all these things, it will help me to be more committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and become someone with a Christ centered life. Becoming Christ centered will help me know how to be a good mother to my baby. If Christ is the center of my life, He will be the center of little Eli's life also. That is the best way I can help my baby. President Monson spoke about the importance of Temples and his message was very powerful. he said that each Temple is a testimony that life beyond the grave is real. This is where eternal families are formed. I am going to follow his council and put a picture of the Temple in Eli's room so that from the time he is born, he knows how important they are and where to set his focus.

There is one more session of Conference left and still more nuggets of gold for me to find, but I couldn't wait to write my thoughts on what a powerful experience this conference has been. I know my Savior Lives and that he loves me, and that Heavenly Father does hear and answer prayers. Personal revelation is real and available to all who honestly seek the Lord. I love General Conference!

As an afterthought to this blog entry: Next conference I have plans to make it even better. Next time I am also going to try and incorporate a few of the suggestions from this conference traditions packet in order to make conference a special weekend for my family as well as myself, so Eli learns to love conference from a very early age.
http://visitingteaching.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/visiting-teaching-ldsconf-traditions.pdf