Hey everyone! I am still pregnant for those who were wondering! I am officially about.... 34 and a half weeks now. I count on Wednesdays we decided (going off a due date of August 8th) so that would make me 35 weeks next Wednesday (in 4 days).

This past week or so I have definitely been more mobile. After I wrote that last post about seeing the perinatologst, I sort of started jusrt trying to do a little bit each day. I slowly started doing things like loading and unloading the dishwasher, picking up the boys' little toys that were on the floor here and there, etc. The first few days of doing those things again after not doing ANYTHING for the past 6 weeks were pretty rough. I swear I got winded just unloaing and putting away the dishes. It was like I was so out of shape, AND then I also weighed an extra 20 more pounds than I did 6 weeks ago. Not a good combo.

Now it has been about another week and a half and I am doing more and more each day. Except now I am feeling sooooo huge and it has been soooo hot that I am just really tired and cranky all the time. Gabe even said to me after the end of this day, "You have been so mean since this baby was in you!" and I have to admit today I was pretty mean. It was like, 90 degrees and the boys and I were outside all day and I swear the second they would get out one thing, they would play for 3 minutes then leave the mess and run to a new station to make a new mess. I was constantly following them, waddling around, squating down, picking up chalk, spilled bubbles, sandbox toys, bikes, rollerskates, balls, setting up a sprinker, opening popsicles, etc. I would be exhausted after a day like today even if it was WASN'T super hot and I WASN'T the size of a whale! But those factors just made me all the crankier. Plus I swear all my neighbors are gone out of town doing fun things this weekend and Josh is just at work every single day AND I don't even fit into a swimsuit right now! I actually BROKE the straps off of  my tankini today trying to squeeze into it. That is how fat I am. I have now passed by the 150 pound mark (yes, that puts me about 5 pounds over the recommended weight gain of 25 pounds during a whole preganancy...and I am only 34 weeks. (P.S. I love how most people blog and it is like, "Look how amazing and awesome life for me is right now!" and I am all grouchy and hormonal and....well...HONEST!. That's me! Just keepin' it real!)

So, the other big news I was going to write about is that at my last appointment (June 26th, this last Tuesday) we officially scheduled my stitches to be removed on July 12th. I will be exactly 36 weeks and 1 day. The doctor was going to set it up on July 11 and I told her that was my birthday so let's wait one more day. I would be okay if she was born on the 12th but the 11th is MY day. :) I was telling my friend about all the future joint birthday plans I have in my mind already and we were laughing about how this girl is going to be like, so annoyed with me and telling all her friends, "My mom is sooo living vicariously through me! She needs to get a life!!!" ahahaha... It will be great. I can't wait! I am going to smother her so bad! :)

Anyways, this is a long post. I will post some pics of the boys at Egin Lake. We went there the other day. It was our first time this Summer. Oh! And I also had a baby shower! I totally forgot to post about that! Thank you Kristy for the amazing shower! She made all these special decorations that even said "Avery" on them and got Cocoa Bean cupcakes (my fave) and it was great! I will post a picture of all my neighbors at the shower too. It was all the "Summerfield ladies."

Happy Fourth of July Weekend!

Well, just a quick update. The visit with the perinatologist proved futile in my attempt to convince someone to remove my stitches. Everyone seems to be way more concerned with the baby's health than with mine. I guess there's officially a new princess in town...

The nice little Asian doctor lady told me that the stitches are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing and "to take them out now would be malpractice." I told her to give me some strong drugs then so I can't feel the pain of the baby's head pushing down on the stitches in my cha-cha all the time. She told me I would have to get Dr. Huggins to prescribe them for me. So then I tried to find Dr. Huggins but her office said she was in Labor and Delivery and when we walked over there we couldn't find her, so I have just been taking Tylenol for the past 24 hours, which the nurse lady told me was okay.

Oh. and I forgot to mention the highlight of the appointment. When I went into the bathroom to change into my robe for the ultrasound, there wasn't any counter to set down my pants or underwear while I changed. So I thought, "I will just set them in the sink for a second while I put this robe on..." but ooops.... it was an automatic sensor sink and the water instantly came on and soaked my pants and underwear. Awesome. Me and the ultrasound tech had a good laugh about it. After the appointment was all over she's like, "Well, I'll step out so you can change back into your soaked pants and underwear now!" Then when I waddled over to Labor and Delivery to look for Dr. Huggins with my big belly and my soaked pants I am sure the nurses were looking at me instantly thinking, "We've got one in labor here! Her water's broke!"

Nope... just the old pants in the sink mishap.

So, it looks like I have at least another few weeks before these stitches are coming out! Then at 36 weeks they will take them out and I think they are just assuming she will practucally fall right out at that point because she is so low and her head is like, on top of my stitches. My cervix is even opening on both ends but it is just staying closed where those stitches are... hence the pain and pressure I assume. This is such a pleasant and TMI post! :) I hope the next 3 weeks goes fast!

Happy Belated Father's Day! I feel kind of bad because I didn't really do anything for Josh this year. I told him I was sorry about that but I think he was secretly happy because he's so cheap he gets mad even when I spend money on gifts for him. He said he just wanted to buy himself a fishing license and that was it. So that's his big present! I also told him I am growing him a present in my belly right now and that is the best Father's Day present of all. :)

But here's the little update. Basically... I think she wants to be born. She is trying to kick her way out of my body every day. Today is Tuesday and starting on probably last Friday I was getting this pain in my lower abdomin. Sometimes it was worse than others and I wondered if it was just normal "practice" contractions or if it was just muscle pain because it wasn't on a regular pattern or anything, but with every day I think it got worse. So I kind of just stuck it out over the weekend and decided to call my doctor's office first thing Monday morning.

They got me in at 10:45 for an ultrasound and I found out that my cervix had thinned from 2 cm down to 7 mm. There was also some major "funneling" again (gotta love that word by now!) So that was not good, but yet I was not surprised given the pain I had been in all weekend. I also had her check the baby's weight: 5 lbs 4 oz! Not bad! That would mean if she would continue to gain at the normal rate of 1/2 pound per week she would be about 9 pounds on my due date. Ouch.

Then I went in to see the nurse practitioner. Unfortunately, my doctor was in a different office that day so I couldn't talk to her. I spent about 20 minutes arguing with this lady about why I think the stitches in my cervixe need to come out because I think that is what's causing the pain while my cervix is still thinning and trying to pull against it. Also, in my opinion, taking the stitches out does not necessarily even mean I would go into labor. With Caleb I was dialated to 3 cm (right now I am not dialated at all, just thinned to 7 mm) but I still waited 2 more weeks to go into labor. She told me that chances are, it would start labor, and that a 33 week baby would probably still need to spend 7 weeks in the NICU and basically made me feel bad for thinking of putting my own pain above the needs of my baby. Josh said later that he thought he was going to have to come between us at one point so we didn't hurt eachother. But ULTIMATELY (Stacey has met this lady and calls her the ULTIMATELY lady because she starts every sentence that way...) she told me that they weren't going to take the stitches out of my cervix until at least 36 weeks no matter what.

I resisted the urge to not call her the B- word as we left the building... which was lucky because she was outside making a phone call as we passed her on the way to our car.

Like, on the one hand, I can understand her opinion. Yes, it is important to get your baby as far as possible in utero. But at the same time, 33 weeks and over 5 pounds is not a tragically scary preemie. Gabe was 29 weeks and weighed 3 and a half pounds and spent 6 weeks in the NICU. That is why I kind of rolled my eyes when she said that whole 7 weeks thing to me. Then she was like, "I worked in labor and delivery for 10 years I know what I'm talking about." I was like, "Wow, good for you lady." I know it is possible, but I also know it is not likely. They also gave me these magic steroid shots at 27 weeks that were supposed to rapidly develop the babay's lungs in case of an early delivery.

So anyways.... ULTIMATELY I ended up calling my doctor on her cell phone later that day (which the nurse lady told me I could do, "But she's not going to tell you anything different..." thanks!) and Dr. Huggins said she wanted to schedule me to see a perinatologist today and get a second opinion on everything. I take this as a positive step because a perinatologist is more specialized in high-risk pregnancies and early babies and I am hoping maybe he/she will agree to take my stitches out soon.

It's not that I want a baby born at 33 weeks. No one does. But I feel like I am laying here in bed, in pain when I just roll over from one side to the other, in even MORE pain when I have to stand up or go to the bathroom, and something is just not right with these stitches inside of me. There are times when she just kicks like a normal baby does and I feel like I have to grab the bed and tense up in pain because it sends such an instant sharp shooting pain through my down-there area that I feel like I need to scream! That is not normal baby kick feelings. I'm worried the pain is only going to get worse if the stitches don't come out because my body still seems to want to contract and dialate regardless of what it has to pull on or tear out in the process. I am pretty much wishing I wouldn't have gotten these stitches in the first place. They didn't keep me from bedrest, they are causing me pain, and now I feel like I am going to have to take a knitting needle and get them out myself because no one else will due to the possible risk to the baby!

So, does that make me a selfish mom? I hope not. But we'll see what the perinatoligist says. If they don't take them out soon they better give me some dang good drugs that are waaaay better than Tylenol extra strength. Otherwise I may die.

I also had to do another post because Gabe hit a milestone this week. He lost his first tooth! I should look in his baby book because it may have also been the first tooth he got! It is one of the bottom middle ones. He had started mentioning that his tooth hurt early last week, then he said it was feeling loose. For a couple days it just kind of looked normal but then by about Friday, I felt it and it was hanging by a thread. I asked him if he wanted me to pull it out (of course he said no!) and so I told him it would probably fall out on it's own in the next few days. Then on Saturday, June 9th, when he was with his grandma Rhodes in Ashton running around at the school gym, he said he felt a hole in his mouth and it was gone! He found it on the floor and picked it up and grandma sent him home with it in a plastic baggie. It was nice that Josh got home that night so he could be a part of the first tooth fairy visit in our house! :) He got a dollar from the tooth fairy under his pillow the next morning. Is that pretty standard these days? I don't know. I think I got that when I was a kid, but you know, with the economy being what it is, they say there's not much inflation over the past few years, so I figured it was still about the same. :) Here is toothless Gabe!

Caleb's birthday was actually one week ago today, but we finally had his little kid birthday party that he was so excited about. I did not want to even attempt to have a party while Josh was gone, but we did have some of the relatives over for just cake and ice cream on Caleb's actual birthday, so that was good. He had picked out the cake at Broulim's when my mom was here visiting and I had Josh's mom pick it up on June 6th right before they came over. It had motorcycles on it, which I think Caleb just wanted the toy motorcycles.

Then today we had his little neighborhood party. I didn't want to try and plan any fancy games like I did for Gabe's party because A) I don't think the kids even cared and B) I was mostly watching the party from the lawn chair outside. So we just had a casual outdoor party in our backyard where we set up a sprinkler, had the sand box open (which then became a pool with the sprinkler running!), and had the kids playing in the playhouse and stuff. We also did some water balloon games and a pinata in the garage. I didn't make a cake, I just had some cupcakes instead. It was kind of a Spiderman theme so I attempted to make spiderwebs on the cupcakes. For presents he got a kite, some nerf guns, legos, a Spiderman wrist gun thing that shoots water, and more. I think it was a pretty fun day for the kids. It wasn't so fun for Josh when he had to clean up the mess, but that's the joy of having a party! :)

I also had a doctor's appointment yesterday that I was going to report on. We had a 3D ultrasound which was kind of cool. I still think it's hard to really see anything. I am constantly like, "What the heck is that?" and she'll be like, "Oh. that's her face with her arm next to it!" and I'm like, "Wow, it could have been her butt and I would not have known the difference..." haha - no just kidding. I didn't confuse her head and her butt, but sometimes I really have no idea. My cervix still looks about the same as it was last week so I am just thinking at this point I am ready to start taking it easy, but getting out of bed more. Of course my doctor would not approve, but unless she can come nanny for me I am pretty much done asking her opinion. That sounds mean of me, but I can't take it anymore! I'm not saying I am going to take Zoe for walks or anything, but I am going to load the dishwasher and get up to make the boys a sandwhich during the day and basically be a mom, but a lazy mom who still lets her kids watch a lot of tv. Maybe by week 34 I will actually start leaving the house with them again. Oh, and also, I tipped the scaled at 150 this week at my doctors appointment! Woohoo! I also took a tape measure around my waist at the biggest part, right around my belly button, and it was about 39 inches. Wow. Just for fun, I also squeezed myself into the same outfit I wore at 25 weeks and took a picture to show the difference. I would say I am definitely bigger.



Now here are Caleb's 4 year stats!

Height: 43 inches
Weight: 48 pounds
Shoe size: 11 or 12, depending on shoe
Clothing size: 5T

Favorite food: "Cucumbers." (I just asked him and that's what he said. Weird.) I would say he likes peanut butter and Jelly sandwhiches and spaghetti his favorite drink is most definitely hot chocolate. It's the first thing he asks for in the morning and the last thing he wants before bed. We've had to limit his intake after 7:00 though or he wets the bed occasionally!

Strengths in his personality: He can be so fun and so entertaining. Like the other day, I posted this on facebook, he was watching the Backyardigans and trying to sing along but it was obvious he didn't know the words so he was just kind of mumble-singing and when I looked at him and laughed, he replied, "I was singing that in Spanish." He just says things that crack me up. He also still loves to snuggle with me in his bed every night as we read stories and go to sleep and he sneaks into our room usually around the break of dawn and goes back to sleep in our bed. He is a very rough and tough little boy, which also brings me to the....

Weaknesses in his personality: He can be a scary little bruiser! When Gabe gets him mad (which Gabe does on purpose) Caleb doesn't waste any time just responding with punches. We are trying to constantly put him on time-out or something when he punches but he's just definitely got a quick temper. Usually if he gets super mad he just runs up to his room crying and slams the door and the best thing to do is to just leave him there. He'll be back in 5 minutes, happy as can be.

Favorite toys: Transformers, nerf guns, cars, and of course, video games. He has become quite the Wii and iPod addict with all the cool games. I have to wrestle my iPod away from him a lot and when I do finally get it the battery is close to dead. I should have never let him see the Ap Store cause now he always asks, "Can we download a new game???" Luckily we only do the free ones.

So that is my little (not really little...) Caleb Joshua Rhodes!

Here are some pictures of the birthday party!

This past week and a half a lot (that is two words for Stacey, not to be confused with alot) has happened. My mom came and stayed for a week. She left in the wee morning hours of last Saturday. Then my two friends, Stacey and Kamrie, came to stay here. I met Stacey when I managed at Northgate and I met Kamrie through Stacey shortly after. They are definitely younger and cooler than me and it makes me feel old when we talk about things with reference to past pop culture (for example: N*Sync..... I was in eighth grade.... they were seven years old. Sad.) But other than that we get along pretty well. :) They go to their classes during the day and my neighbor or Diane usually take turns watching the boys, but then they stay here overnight just in case I need a ride to the hospital! It may also be because they are avoiding their room mate's out of town visitors for this week and a cramped apartment, but I like to think it's cause they love me. :)

So today I had another ultrasound and appointment. I never wrote about the one I had last Tuesday when my mom was here. Basically, last week I didn't have an ultrasound. Instead I got to take the dreaded glucose test. You would think there would be a better way to test for gestational diabetes by this day in age but no, they are still making pregnant women down a big glass of sugary, non-carbonated elixir in less than five minutes, then sit for an hour and prick their figure to test their blood sugar levels. Then if you are really lucky and "fail" the first one by a few points (like I did) you get to come back AGAIN a couple days later, this time fasting for 12 hours prior so your stomach is already so hungry you want to eat your own arm off, and drink the stuff AGAIN, then sit for 2 HOURS so they can just double-check. So that's what I got to do on Tuesday and then again on Thursday of last week. I have never had a problem with gestational diabetes before, my blood pressure has been fine the whole time, I am not overweight, and I am supposed to be on "strict bedrest", yet I guess they thought it was important to screen me twice. I was a little pissed about it as you can still tell.

But now that I have passed and am officially diabetes free.... I will eat whatever I freaking want! Which.... I always have done anyways so.... no big news here. But at least I don't have to feel guilty about it.

Then today I went to my appointment with Stacey and Kamrie and had an ultrasound. The baby officially weighs 4 pounds 2 ounces and everything is looking good. Well - good would be if my cervix miraculously grew back to the normal size of 4 cm, but I think it was about 2 today and she said she didn't see the "funneling" anymore so that is still really surprising and good. The only thing that I have changed in the past two weeks is that the doctor prescribed me those Niphedipine pills or whatever they are that are supposed to stop any contractions. But if that is working, I will keep on taking them! I still had to get another butt shot of progesterone today. And I think all the cervix talk made my two single friends decide not to have kids for at least 5 years. But they liked watching the ultrasound! :) My ultrasound lady said, "She's going to have hair! I can already see it!" and I jokingly asked, "What color is it?!" which made everyone laugh and she answered, "Um... from what I can tell... grey." But everything else looked good with her. Next week they scheduled me for my 3D ultrasound which is really cool because you can kind of even see facial features. I am really hoping she looks more like me. :) Everyone says the boys look just like Josh, which is fine cause they're boys, but this time it should be MY turn to have a mini-me.

I also talked for the hundredth time about my fear of the stitches tearing out my cervix, but still my doctor seems totally unfazed by that thought. She says she's had to taken a lot of cerclages out during labor and delivery and there haven't been any horror stories of them ripping a cervix. Let's hope I'm not the first!

Well, I better get to bed. It is officially June 6th now - Caleb's 4th birthday! Four years ago today I was pushing a baby out. Now here I am again getting closer! I was hoping this pregnancy would finally be the perfect, normal, boring pregnancy that most women have, but since it has still caused so much stress and I am finally having a girl, I take relief on the fact that this will very likely be my last time pushing a baby out.
Now THAT is cause for celebration!

More about Caleb's birthday later!