37/38 weeks

So last week at my doctor appointment I was dialated to a tight 2 cm and still pretty thick. I asked her to strip my membranes thinking that maybe since I've never had it done that it'd send me right into labor. Well, it did give me some good contractions, but just a little after lunch they tapered off. Then on Friday morning, I decided to go for a 3 mile walk (Cathy went with me) to see if that would get things moving since Brian had taken most of the day off. That also got a few contractions going but only for about an hour. It did make me pretty sore for the rest of the weekend though!! :)
I went to the doctor yesterday and I'm now 2+ cm and 50% effaced. I had her strip my membranes again but this time I barely had any contractions from it. Pretty disappointing. I set up an induction date for Sept. 1st cuz my doctor told me she'd be out of town over Labor Day weekend and I do NOT want to have any other doctor. Hopefully she'll come on her own before then, but I'm glad to see an end in sight!!

Washington County Fair Baby Contest

It's that time of year again- when it's hot and they decide it's a good time to make people fry outside in the sun playing on all the carnival rides and watching different competitions. When I realized that the fair was coming up and I'd be 37 weeks along in my pregnancy at that time, I didn't know if I felt like I was up to all the running around and stress of the baby contest again, but since it was the last year that Mayelyn could be entered, I decided I might as well. (Plus, I was secretly hoping that if I had something big planned that maybe I'd go into labor early!! HA!!)

So we went over to the fair on Wednesday night (family night, when all the rides are only ONE ticket!!) and signed Mayelyn up for the baby contest, then rode some rides. Well, Brian and the girls rode rides. They wouldn't even let me on the farris wheel!! I was so bugged by that! Anyway, we had fun even though I was soaking wet from being so hot!

Then Friday was the first judging. We had to be there at 10:30am and Mayelyn did pretty good with interacting with the judges. She took a little bit to warm up and didn't really want to smile for them so I had to tickle her to get her to smile. I left feeling good about how she did and wasn't too worried about whether I'd get a call. I felt like if I didn't it was totally ok because she'd been cute and then I wouldn't have to get her ready for judging the next day. But I did get a call around 2:30pm and she'd made it through. So we went over today for the final judging. Since she was in the oldest age group, she got to go up first thing. The theme this year was Rock n Roll, so I had her take her microphone and had told her to say "Roll n Roll Dude." So we went up on stage and she said that (no one could hear it though) and then she blew a kiss and bowed. The crowd got a kick out of her little bow. I really don't even know where she got the bowing thing from but it's SO cute when she does it. After everyone was on stage, they announced that this year they had done some other categories and said that Mayelyn had won "Nicest hair." I was WAY excited about that because I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to my girls' hair. I like for it to always look at least somewhat 'done'.

After that we turned to the judges and Mayelyn was being way cute waving to them on her own and saying "Hi Princesses." She ended up winning 3rd place in her age group!! I took her back up on stage to get her trophy and as she was walking across the stage, she did another bow and then ran and gave the judge that was holding her trophy a hug and again the crowd LOVED that! I didn't prompt any of it!! She really is a sweatheart!! She absolutely LOVES her trophy with the little baby and hasn't put it down much since she got it. She also got a growth chart. And I am seriously super stoked about the "nicest hair" award. HAHA!!

This was her on Friday. This is her cute curly hair that won her the nicest hair award.

This was her today with her baby trophy. Brian wanted me to do pigtails cuz it's his favorite. I love her cute little look in this picture!!

We had a lot of fun together as a family this week and it made the days go by a little faster.

I can't wait til next year when I can put Makelle in!! :)

Pregnancy

I had another doctor appointment on Tuesday and this week I was dialated to 1cm but she said my cervix was still pretty long, though she was able to feel her head this week. I was glad to see that I'd progressed, even if it wasn't a whole lot. I came home and got the girls showered and ready and then right before we were gonna leave to go to the store I went to the bathroom and noticed that I was spotting some. I've never spotted just from being checked, but I continued to spot the rest of the day and I think between Tuesday and Wednesday I lost a mucus plug.(Nothing to get excited about since I lost one every week for 3 weeks before Mayelyn was born.) I've still been having contractions every day and it's starting to hurt a little when I walk and when I try to roll over at night, so I think she's dropping down and getting ready. So I'm sure my body is good and ready for labor whenever miss Makelle decides she's ready to come out!!
Brian and I keep discussing how much the anticipation and not knowing when she's gonna come is stressing us out. He's, of course, super busy and doesn't really want her to come this weekend, but I've decided I'd rather her come this weekend since Alana starts her first day of pre-school on the 22nd.(I had previously been hoping for next weekend, but not anymore) But we really just want her here sooner than later too. So at my next doctor appointment, I may ask her if she'll strip my membranes to see if that will help get things moving.

BIG

Well, I've reached that point where I'm big enough that people ask me when I'm due cuz I look like I'm past due!! I'm down to every week appointments now which is always exciting cuz that means only a few weeks til she's here!!


I went in yesterday for my appointment expecting my doctor to do the swab to test for GBS, but she told me instead that since they'd found it in my urine when they did my labs earlier on in my pregnancy that they were just gonna go ahead and treat me for GBS during labor. I cried all the way home about it. I've had to have the antibiotics with both Alana and Mayelyn. With Alana, they didn't have my test results, so they just went ahead and treated me to be safe. And with Mayelyn, I had tested positive. So apparently, I must be a carrier for it which means always having to have the antibiotics. I was really sad cuz I was hoping to be able to do most of my laboring at home, but now I have to go straight to the hospital so they can get me hooked up right away and hopefully get 2 bags of antibiotics in me before Makelle comes out....which if you've never had GBS, means that you have to wait for about 5 hours while the meds are slowly going in. I'm seriously bummed out, but as long as she comes out healthy, that's all that matters.


My doctor did check me but I'm not dialated at all yet, which is also normal for me. I haven't really had any good contractions yet, well until last night. I felt some good ones while I was watching the girls outside playing and then while cooking dinner. So hopefully they'll continue and help me progress along. My doctor did tell me that I could set up an induction date for any day the week BEFORE my due date, which made me excited cuz I really would like her to be born in August so I can decide when to put her in school. I'm really hoping she'll come before the 19th, so that my sister-in-law Carma can be there though.
Alana is so excited to have a new sister. She always tells us how she's "so excited to have 2 sisters" and she'll hold up 2 fingers. She thinks it so fun to watch Makelle move around in my belly and is always so excited about watching and feeling her move. I tease her about changing Makelle's poopy diapers and she says, "No, just the pee-pee ones, Mom." Mayelyn still doesn't have the attention span to sit and feel Makelle move, but when she does look touch my belly she says, "Makelle's foot right there" because I always ask her if she wants to come feel Makelle's foot. (Since about 75% of the time it's sticking out on my right side) Both girls have gotten to where they give my belly hugs and kisses at night before going to bed which is so cute!!
I can't wait til she gets here. I dream about it every night.... about holding her, nursing her, and all that fun stuff that comes with a newborn!! Brian went into her room the other night after we got the girls down to bed and just looked around at everything. He's way excited too!! So hopefully she won't make us wait too much longer!!

SCISSORS

Tuesday morning was a busy morning for me. I had set my alarm to get up at 6:30 because I had a doctor appointment that day and for some reason my girls decided to wake up early that day too and were up before I was able to get myself sitting up. My appointment was at 9:30 so I hurried to get myself ready, get my girls some breakfast, and then had to get them ready too. Alana has been having swimming lessons for the last week and a half, so I had to make sure she had all the things she needed: towel, clothes to change into since I had some other errands to do after her swim lessons. As I was pulling her hair back that morning, the comb I was using ended up snagging a string on the strap of her swim suit so I went and grabbed some scissors out of my bathroom to cut it off cuz it was hanging down pretty bad. Then I finished getting Alana's hair pulled back. As I was pulling it back, Mayelyn was trying to pick up the scissors to play with them and I told her not to touch, then Alana told her that scissors are only for big girls cuz they can cut little girls. That make me happy cuz Alana had cut her hair when she was little and ended up with some bangs. After that it was time for us to be heading out the door. As I was leaving the bathroom, I noticed the scissors still sitting there and had a feeling I should take them and go put them back in my bathroom but since I was feeling like I was going to be late, I just pushed them further back onto the counter.

My doctor appt went great and I was able to get done in time to take Alana to her swim lesson. Then I had to make a few stops afterward for Brian to pick up some things and we still made it home by a little after 12:00 for lunch. When we got home, I had Alana go up to grab a comb so I could comb out her hair. (I'd forgotten to take one with us) Then after I combed out her hair I asked her if she wanted her hair pulled back out of her face and she said she did so I sent her to go put the comb away and grab a hair elastic. I didn't thing much about how long it took her upstairs cuz I was busy making their lunch. When she got down stairs, I started braiding her hair and noticed there was a bunch of hair falling out. I didn't really think much of it cuz sometimes when she gets knots in her hair, she'll lose a big bunch. But then as she was eating her lunch, I noticed a short lock of hair hanging in her face and it hit me that she must have cut her hair. So I ran up stairs and sure enough, this is what I found....

I kinda freaked out cuz it was SO much hair and I had only seen one little lock hanging down. I called her up and took out her braid and tried to find where she had cut all the hair from but could only find the one strand. There was no way all that hair came from the one strand I could find though. My mind was going a million miles an hour as I tried to think of whether to leave her hair, if it could be hidden with some layers, etc. So I took a picture with my phone and sent it to Brian and told him so he could help me calm down and then decided that in order to teach her a lesson and to make her hair look better that I was going to have it cut. Alana has been wanting her hair as long as her aunt Carma's hair, which goes down to her bum, so bad. Almost every time she would get out of the shower she'd say, "Look mom, my hair's getting so long, so close to being as long as aunt Carma's." She cried at first when I told her we were gonna have to get her hair cut, but then by Wednesday morning, she was fine with the idea and actually looking forward to it. The one short strand that I could find (I know there had to be more though) only went down to the bottom of her ear and it came straight from her part, so it stuck out pretty bad or I may have just had her hair trimmed and left it alone.
A lady in my ward is going to Evan's and offered to cut her hair so I called early Wednesday morning and got an appointment. Gotta love $5 haircuts!!

Getting layers put in to hide the short strand.

The floor looked like a small animal with all the hair that was cut off.

So sad, but it'll grow back fast!!

I took some before pictures. Her hair was literally only about 3, maybe 4 inches from the top of her bum. She lost a good 5-6 inches of hair. I really like how it looks on her. I think she looks so much more grown up and she really loves it.

I had the thought yesterday that with soon to be 3 girls in the house, this probably won't be the last time this kind of thing happens, but I sure hope it is!!