Freedom!

So I've been staying with my parents this week, (last week we stayed with Tylers) and one of the nights this week was really nice so the men decided to play basketball. I was able to go outside and enjoy the fresh air and the setting sun! It was so much fun to actually be outside even if it was only for about an hour. My mom helped me in laying out a blanket on the steps (so the concrete wouldn't hurt) as well as getting me some pillows to kinds be propped up on! Here is a few pics of our adventure. ;)

Sorry for the quality.. like I said it was getting darker and camera phones don't always do good at night. ;)

Too bad we didn't get another picture when Steven and Rylie decided to join in as well.

Hospital Visit

Well my weekend ended up being pretty eventful for a little bit. Friday night while I was out doing filming for one of my classes Tyler decided to surprise me and re-arrange the house so Elizabeth would have her own room. He ended up moving our desks out of the office and switching my desk with his dresser while his desk was moved to our front room. So Saturday was going to be my cleaning day organizing things and grocery shopping and stuff. We woke up that morning and Tyler decided that I should have the car that way I could go out and get some shopping done (good thing I had it). I went to drop him off at work and stayed with him from 8-9ish. During that time I started have menstrual like cramps and I was just like Ok? I left his work and went to the grocery store to get some things but by the time I got home the cramps had not gone away. I was enrolled in a pregnancy program with my insurance where they basically call you every couple months to see how things were going, but they also had a 24 hour service where you could call and ask questions to nurses if you had them. I decided that I was going to call them and see what was going on. A lovely lady answered and said to lay down and drink some water and see if that did anything but to also call my doctor and see what they thought. I called the doctor and left a message waiting for him to give me a call back, he returned it within about 5 minutes! He told me to drink some water as well and lie down and if there was still painful cramping (6 within the hour) to go into labor and delivery at the hospital and they would check and see if anything was wrong. I was having contractions every 3 minutes that lasted for about 40-50 seconds each. After laying down for about a half hour and already having about 6 contractions I decided that I was going to go to the hospital.

Once I got there I got to meet the doctor that I had spoken to on the phone with. They set me up on monitoring machines to watch the babies heart rate as well as my contractions. I was all connected to everything around 11:30 am. They gave me some medicine to help stop the contractions and relax the muscles of the uterus as well. I also received the first of 2 steroid shots that help develop the babies lungs faster in case they are born early. And being only 32 weeks that was definitely early. The doctor came in a little later to check and see how far along I was and I was diluted to 4 cm and effaced 80%. They put me on an IV as well as antibiotics just to be safe in case they weren't able to stop labor. I ended up staying that first night and by Sunday morning my contractions had stopped. Poor Tyler stayed that night with me and ended up sleeping on the couch. The back of it opened up to give you more "padding" but I'm pretty sure it was still hard as a rock. My view consisted mostly of the TV and the clouds outside.

Saturday they gave me the other steroid shot to help the baby and they still had me on medication to help stop contractions as well. Luckily it ended up being every 6 hours I had to take it instead of 4 like the day before. The doctors decided to have me stay another day to watch with the hope of going home Monday. When they checked me Monday I had gone down to 3.5 cm and 60% effaced. Monday came with the hope of being able to go home and I was able to do that around 1:00 pm. Got to spend the night at home and watched Lilo and Stitch and had a delicious dinner that was brought to us by the relief society.

It's definitely different to think that the main form of exercise that I am going to get is getting up to go to the restroom or coming upstairs from sleeping downstairs. I am so blessed for all of the family and friends that are willing to help us out and support us in all ways. I'm especially blessed for having Tyler as my husband and having someone who loves me so much.

Well I'll definitely keep you guys updated if I have some fun things to report. So far the plan is to stay with the Russons this week and then spend next with my parents. After that if all is still going good we'll hopefully be at home and then people will just be visiting. I look forward to the day where I can walk around some more but I am grateful for all of the help that we have received and are receiving. Just need to remember that everyday I'm down is another day that Elizabeth can mature more and become more healthy.

Baby Shower #1

So my first baby shower was definitely a success. I was able to go and help set up the decorations and even made a few myself! (pictures of decorations coming soon) Once it started getting closer to the time where everyone was supposed to start showing up we went outside to post our signs and balloons so people would know where to go.

Inside we had pink and green frosted cupcakes on a three tiered holder as well as little baby pacifiers on the top of the cupcakes. For our little snack tables we had a vase filled slightly with rocks and water and a floating flower on top of the water. Sprinkled around the vases were little plastic baby bottles as well as some mints that said "It's a Girl!". There were also some baby confetti sprinkled around the vases.  Since we had some extra balloons I tied it to a little bunny doll from the nursery to help hold them down and just had to take a picture. 

People then started to show up and I loved everything that I got. The majority of the stuff was baby clothes but you can never go wrong with those! Everything was super cute and it was awesome to spend time visiting with people. 

Spring Break

So I know I'm a little behind on this considering spring break was 2 weeks ago, but I decided since I'm going to be down for the next couple weeks why not keep a blog? For spring break Tyler and I were able to go visit and stay with his grandparents in California. The trip down there was long especially since I was the one that had to stop for frequent potty breaks (no way was I going on the side of the road). Once we got there we  spent the night at his grandparents home before heading to the beach house the next day. The weather was definitely an improvement over the 30-40 degrees we had been getting in Utah! Brrrrr. I had almost forgotten what sunshine and warmth felt like!

Since I've only been to California about 4 times my whole life I created a list of some things I wanted to do. One was to go to the old courthouse and take some pictures of it. The main reason why I wanted to do that is because in the TV series Psych they use it a few times in the first episodes. Next on my list was to go to a pier/wharf because I obviously had never been on one before. We went to Stearns Wharf and had a delicious lunch. I got a burger with different kinds of peppers in it and they even used a flower to hold it together. First time Only time I've ever had a flower in my burger ;). After lunch we walked through the little tourist shops that were there and then we went to the Ty Warner life museum. That was really cool! We got to pet little sharks, sea cucumbers, starfish, crab and sea anemones! They showed other species that lived in the area as well and even had a little mock set-up of the tides and how the sea creatures react to them. As we were leaving there I found the most adorable turtle that I was able to convince Tyler to get. So meet Myrtle the Turtle. (One thing I found ironically funny was the dolls there were Ty beanie babies and the museum was the Ty Warner museum.)

The next day we just chilled at the beach house and walked up and down the beach collecting seashells. It was really cool to see the fog as it rolled in and then rolled away. I was surprised by how fast it actually came and went! The last day on the beach we went out to brunch at the last remaining Sanbos Restaurant. Cool fact that the waiter told us was that it was the first one to open and is now the last remaining one. 

Look at the beautiful palm trees and warm sunshine! :)

Once we were done with brunch it was back to the beach for us. I decided I wanted to create a sandcastle, because never doing one before you just have to try! I started to use a little sand castle mold thingi that only ended up working twice before it decided that It wanted me to create the castle by hand. Tyler must have gotten bored lying on the beach closer to the house because when I looked up from my baby castle failure he was bringing larger molds to do the castle. That's when I though if we are going to build a castle it might as well be a big one! He would do the molded sections as I filled in the gaps to create a single wall. Once we were done our castle had a moat (that Tyler used a shovel to do) as well as a bridge and 4 walls. I thought it would be fun to do a little city inside but it started to cool down as the fog rolled in so we left it how it was.

It was definitely a fun vacation and I can't wait to go back there sometime and have even more fun when we have our little girl enjoy it for the first time too!