Update

 I don't think I'll post details about the progression of the pregnancy on facebook cause I understand that there are probably people out there who know me but who also don't want to know every graphic detail of how my pregnancy is progressing, and will be forced to see it because we give up our freedom when we use facebook, so I'm only gonna talk about pregnancy details on this blog.  I figure, if you electively choose to come to this blog than we're prolly pretty close and you don't mind and there's a 90% chance that you're a girl and there's also a good chance that you've been through all of this before anywho so what the hay.  Plus if I do a huge long rambling intro like this it will give those who are not interested ample time to run away.

That having been said, we went to the dr today.  Everything is fine (and really i'm not going to go into crazy detail) just that I was surprised to learn that I'm already 50% effaced and 1 cm dilated (I'm at 35 weeks today).  Now I know that one can stay at the same level of progression for weeks on end so it's not THAT big of a deal-I mean, it's not like my dr started freaking out and thinking it was too much too son etc, but she said that everything looked good and the baby was low etc.  I guess that's why I haven't been breathless of late....though my ribs still are taking a beating :(

It was just crazy to realize that what I thought was prolly gas/intestinal something or other was contractions-or at least that I had had a few at least already to start me effacing/dilating etc.  CRAZY!

Now, any lil movement, twinge (which i'm sure a lot is due to gas or whatever) I'm aware of it now and wondering....is this a contraction??? What if I progress insanely quickly and it's only gonna get faster and more intense like I'm afraid to go out places cause I think to myself....do I really want my water to break in that location?  nah...might as well stay home.

I know I know, it's dumb and crazy-that we have plenty of time and prolly won't have to run to the hospital before our inducement date (which is earlier than our due date-could be as early as the 23rd of july! or the 30th..) but still....it's a whole new reality to get used to when I think that my body has already started doing stuff to get ready.  just crazy....

It will wear off i'm sure and then it'll be no big deal that i'm slightly dilated, but it's def a wake up call that this is happening-actually happening! We're so excited for it and can't wait to move to the next phase of our lives cause 9 months is a long time to be "transitioning".  Normally I tell myself to wait out a week for something new that is stressing me out etc, but 9 months....it's a bit long and once the lil man gets here we're can start actively transitioning-actually doing those things that will help us to get used to this new life style where as now it's all hypothetical and in our minds but we can't really figure it all out yet.

Anywho, consider yourselves updated-we'll be going to the dr every week now so I'm sure there will be more updates to come :) 

Baby Shower Weekend

I have been meaning to get these pics off of facebook from Shayne's profile but keep forgetting.  So now I'm putting restrictions on myself to make sure it gets done- We can't start You've Got Mail until I write this post and man my fingers are-a-flying!

 

So a few weeks ago our family from Georgia rode through town on their way to Utah and made it for a great baby shower that Joy (family friend) threw for me.  It was adorable from the decorations to the games to the great food and great friends.  First some mandatory belly shots:

See the full gallery on Posterous

I was so excited that Sara could be there! It's the first time any of my old roommates was able to be at a shower-I had bad timing with the mission and all haha.

See the full gallery on Posterous

We had DELICIOUS salads-my fav being the cafe rio salad-so good! and of course there were fun games-I actually kicked butt with the baby food guessing game and the candy bars melted in diapers game.  Everyone guessed how big around I was-and most of them guessed too big so I guess that's a good thing? haha

See the full gallery on Posterous

The cake was too cute! There was a theme of Giraffes throughout the shower, and will be the theme in the nursery (which I just found a bunch of cute cheap decor for-can't wait!)

And it was all possible thanks to this amazing lady right here:

Thank you Joy!

It was fun to have the girls stay over and the fam came to church on sunday:

See the full gallery on Posterous

We had tons of fun playing games and all and all their stay was too short though I'm sure they were happy to move on to the Utah heat :)

I guess the next time they're all back will be for the baby blessing-crazy! We loved having them over and anytime they feel like practicing diaper changing they are welcome back any time, haha heck, we'll drive to them for that I'm sure :)

More to come in the next lil while.

 

IT'S HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and other pregnant ramblings...

insert pitiful whimpers here.

We really did not plan/or think it through when it came to this pregnancy other than making the decision to try.  I didn't even think to consider what the weather would be like throughout the pregnancy...which in the end I don't think it would have honestly affected our decision to try but still....

I'm not due til Aug 3.....AUG 3 ?!?! argh....so so hot....and I know what you're thinking-it's hot everywhere in the summer so it really wouldn't matter where you live-well, you haven't been in Houston in July then.  Oh, and I know everyone thinks: I've been in humidity before-it's not THAT bad etc.  But let's just say our family from Georgia (another part of the humid south) came here and THEY couldn't believe how bad it was here and couldn't wait to get out of the humid heat and that was only the beginning of June so NAH!....what, it's a word...

The sad part is that it's still only June-we still have July and August-which is the worst part of our summer, that's right we're not even to the hottest part yet.  We're supposed to get up to triple digits this next week-yeah...try triple digits plus 90% humidity!

I got excited cause I thought we were going to get a tropical storm coming our way but of course it swings towards Florida-those jerks...

Seriously, the only good thing about this time of year in Houston is the possibility of hurricanes/tropical storms-no, seriously I don't mean to make light of something that could be potentially deadly but if it's gonna cool things off a bit I'm willing to take that chance-we live far enough in to where the worst we'd be dealing with is no power etc plus we're in an apartment and have renters' insurance so it's not nearly as stressful than if we had a house.

oh man....but I love those crazy tropical downpours we get sometimes-seriously, the kind where it doesn't matter if your windshield wipers are going as fast as they can, you still have to crawl in order to see anything in front of you.

It also doesn't help that my back is aching more and more due to the increased strain as our lil man grows bigger and bigger so I'm cranking up the AC while sitting with a heating pad in the middle of a Texas heat wave.  I really hope we didn't get the random big/tall freak gene from the Richards' side....(no offense tall Richards) that would be sooo ironic...our kids grow up to be these giants that tower over their shrimpy parents...

I mean even if I was my normal size and not dealing with pregnancy-I'd still be energy-less....at least until 8ish pm....cause than you can go for an ok walk where you'll only sweat a little but not be dripping...

In other news, we went to our first prenatal class the other day.  It was on breast feeding which we knew we needed to go to but both were sort of dreading it- I just worried it would be completely awkward and Code was worried he'd be the only guy there.  Both of us were wrong tho-he was not the only guy and it wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be.  Good basic information and even tho there were dolls that were really creepy with these wide-open gaping mouths... they were only to pratice holding them in different positions etc.  Tomorrow we have our birthing class where I'm sure we'll go over breathing excercises and possibly watch your typical birthding video-code is not looking forward to that part, and I figure unnecessary for him since he's up by my head the whole time anyways (we both want it that way). But it's all good info and better to be on the more prepared side so we at least generally know what to expect right?

 I'm playing around with a few ideas to decorate our nursery-at least, as much as we can living in an apartment.  And soon we're going to do a photo shoot of us and the bump and will have a newborn photo shoot after the birth that I'm really excited for so there's a chance for pics in the future :) I'm so glad we're surrounded by talented people in our ward!

Off to continue to do nothing :)

 

another blog post another day

Just a quick update at what's going on at the Nolden house:

 

The baby bump is more than just a bump-ugh, but everything is going great.  We recently had an ultrasound and everything looks good-he's turned downward which is good news and apparently is a "big" 33-weeker weighing in at 5.25 pounds according to his measurements (a full pound bigger than the average prediction for a 33-weeker).  At first this freaked me out cause I was looking forward to having small/petite babies just cause code and I are both on the smaller side, but I realize that a lot can change between now and when he comes, plus dr's seem to never get it right when it comes to weight, so here's to hoping.  A positive thing being-if he's bigger sooner, it won't be as big a deal if he comes earlier than his due date-will be able to handle life outside the womb better which would be awesome cause trust me-as much as I'm loving Houston summer weather i'd love to be moving on to the next stage of life ASAP :)

and above is all of the clothes we've gotten from friends and family-yeah...I think we're good for the first lil while :)

I had an AWESOME baby shower put on by a family friend and Cody's family was able to come into town for that so that was cool.  We got tons of cute stuff and last week was spent organizing, washing, and hanging all of the baby clothes, blankets, bibs, towels, etc so I'm feeling good about our organization for now.  Shayne took tons of pics so I'll wait and get them from her so pics soon to come.

Back at the beginning of the month Code and I went to Austin where the Broadway show Les Mes was traveling through-it was AWESOME! and if you haven't checked out the teaser trailer for Les Mes coming out this Dec-you need to!!!

I don't think I've posted it on here so here is a pic of our little one's crib-now we if we could only find a changing table/dresser combo that we like...the one I fell in love with is conveniently on everyone else's list and out of stock online/keeps getting back-ordered. :(

We had a fun father's day yesterday-Code is def a father and it bugs me when people tell him that he's not a "legit" father.  After all he does for me and the baby-he's a father!!! but yeah it was a fun day and it's hard to believe how close we are to the big day! Code's guess is July 25th for when the lil guy shows up but we'll see :)