Due Date

Okay, here I am at 40 weeks! Today is the day! I thought for sure I would have had my baby by today, but no such luck. Our Rachel is content where she is for now! At our doctor appointment today my doctor checked me and said I am still dilated about a 1-2 cm and that I am about 50% effaced. He stripped my membranes which I was a little nervous for because Jacob's mom told me, "Don't let him strip your membranes, it kills!" Fortunately it wasn't as bad as I feared so we will see if that gets things going at all! We also scheduled an induction date for next Monday, November 22, if Rachel hasn't come by then. He considered having me wait until the Monday after Thanksgiving to induce me but thankfully he relented and had mercy on me! It is nice to know that at the most I only have one week left of being pregnant. Sometime in the next week we will be meeting our little Rachel-girl and I can hardly wait!

6 more days?

So I only have 6 more days til my due date, I really wonder when this little girl is going to come join our family. I had a doctors appointment yesterday and when he checked me he said I was dilated to a 1-2 which I have been rounding to 1.5 in my head. He said that I probably won't dilate anymore than that until I am actually in labor whenever that happens to be. My next doctors appointment is going to be next Tuesday which is my due date. I'm really hoping that I won't have to go to it because my Rachel will be here, but I guess we will just have to wait and see. My doctor says that his policy is that he usually won't induce until one week after the due date. I really hope I won't have to wait that long!

Jacob gets a 4 day weekend this weekend because of Veterans Day! I'm so excited to be able to spend a couple of extra days with him! He actually wasn't going to tell me about the extra days off this week and he was going to try to surprise me, but I remembered he got Veterans Day off last year so I asked him about it and he couldn't lie to me. He is so cute! I'm so in love with that handsome husband of mine!

Other News

So I just realized that I never posted how Jacob did on his Spanish tests last week. We found out on Tuesday, but then my mom was here and we were busy having fun so I forgot. Jacob got a 2 on the listening portion and a 3 on the reading portion of the test which is passing and means that he will start getting and extra 300 dollars a month for passing those tests! I married such a smart boy! He hasn't really used his Spanish since his mission so it is really awesome that he was able to do so well after only a week and a half of reviewing it.

Now that he has passed those tests, he has been spending his time at work looking over Portuguese. He wants to see if he can pick that up and eventually take the Portuguese DLPT as well. He says it is quite a bit different than Spanish, but the reason he decided to look in to Portuguese next is because the military actually offers two different Portuguese DLPT tests. One for Brazilian Portuguese and another for the Portuguese they speak in Portugal. We'll see how this works out for him. My husband is just so smart and it makes me laugh how he just wants to be able to speak all of the different languages! I know that if he works at it he will be able to do it! He is smart and just has a knack for picking up languages.

So last week at my doctors appointment, I was dilated to a 1 which I was pretty excited about! I had never been dilated to a one before. This week while my mom was here we walked and walked and walked and walked. We even sang as we walked like the pioneer children! (Speaking of pioneers, we both decided that we are so very grateful we didn't have to walk across the plains pregnant like so many of those women had to!) It will be interesting to see if all of that walking we did made much of a difference. I'll find out when I go to my doctors appointment later today and he checks me again. I just wonder when our little Rachel-girl is going to make her appearance! I wish we knew! I am so excited to meet her and be her mommy! We keep hoping that she won't take too long to get here because we would really like to go home for Thanksgiving to see our family, but Thanksgiving is only 2 weeks away so if we are going to be able to make it she needs to come soon! I love this little girl so much already! It will be fun to actually get to see her and hold her and take care of her! I can hardly wait!

Mom

So my mom has been here visiting for the past week and had to go home to day because she has to work tomorrow. We have had so much fun this week! We also tried almost anything we think of to get our little Rachel-girl to make an appearance so that my mom could be here to help out with the labor and delivery. Unfortunately Rachel just wasn't ready to come out and play while my mom was here. My mom and I had so much fun! We went for long walks on the beach and got completely soaked a couple of times, we went to the Old Fisherman's Wharf for some fresh fish, we played in the cold cold water of the ocean, we walked to the park and walked around a big lake and watched the duck and seagulls play in the water, we went for a long drive along the coast, we went to the produce market numerous times where it was so fun just to watch my mom because she looked like a kid in a candy store, we made lots of yummy food like guacamole and bean dip and lasagna and chicken noodle soup and sour dough bread and rolls and honey oat bread and green smoothies and pumpkin ice cream, we went out to a fun Korean restaurant to eat the spicy food to see if it would put me in labor, we sewed burp cloths and blankets and tried to bribe my little Rachel-girl to come out and play, we painted toenails and gave foot massages, we used essential oils and acupressure to try and put me into labor, we visited for hours on end and just had fun! It was sad to see her go home today and I know she was pretty sad too. Our little Rachel girl is her first grandbaby that she won't be there for during the labor and delivery. We wish that she could be here when our baby finally arrives, but it was so fun to get to spend that time together with my mom. I can't even remember the last time my mom and I got to spend so much time together just playing and having fun with each other! We had been praying that Rachel would be born while my mom was here so that she could be here to help out with everything, but I think that maybe my mom and I just needed that time for just us to strengthen our relationship with each other more. Thank you Mom for driving all that way and coming to visit me! I had so much fun and I hope you did too! I love you Mom!

Halloween Weekend

Jacob and I had such a fun weekend! We went to our ward trunk or treat to hand out candy and to see all of the kids that were in our primary class dressed up in their costumes! So we carved our pumpkin on Wednesday and we took it to the trunk or treat to help decorate our trunk and when Jacob took the top off to light the candle there was 3 inches of white fuzzy mold hanging down from the top and growing in every direction inside! Jacob wanted to light the candle anyway and just burn the mold, so he started to reach down in the pumpkin (even though I was frantically telling him not to and that it was sick) and he got sicked out when his hand touched part of the inside of the pumpkin and he found that it was squishy! I can't believe how much mold grew in our pumpkin in just three days! It really was the sickest thing in the world! Needless to say, as soon as we got home from the trunk or treat I made Jacob throw our beloved pumpkin in the garbage. It wasn't til after he had tossed it that I thought maybe I should have taken a picture. I have honestly never seen so much mold at one time in my life! It was crazy!

Also on Saturday, Jacob and I went shopping and bought a little bed for our Rachel to sleep in. I haven't been sure what to get to put her in because we weren't sure how long we were going to be in this house after she was born. I have been planning on getting a pack and play but I didn't want to buy that until after we got to Texas because we are only bringing what we can fit in our car to Texas with us and I was worried that if we bought it here, it would take up too much room in our car. When we thought we would only be here a few days or even a couple of weeks after she was born I considered making a laundry basket into a little bed for her or I even considered just using her car seat. Now that we are going to be in this house for at least a month after she is born we decided to buy a little rocker bed that we can just put by our bed for a while and it is small enough that we might even be able to bring it to Texas with us. Jacob put it together as soon as we came home and I think it is so cute! Every time I see it, it just makes me so excited for our little Rachel to come, and I just wish she was already here so I could put her in it!

Jacob and I just got released from our calling as primary teachers and yesterday was our first day not teaching. It was so fun to get to go to Sunday School and then the combined Relief Society and Priesthood meeting together! It was such a lift to be able to go and learn and feel the spirit so strongly in those meetings. We have both really missed being able to go to those classes and learning on Sundays. I'm really excited to be able to start going to those meetings again!

After church on Sunday, Jacob was so sweet and painted my toenails pink so that I could feel cute when I finally go into labor! I think I have the cutest husband in the whole world! Speaking of going into labor, I really hope Rachel is born this week! My mom is coming down tomorrow and is staying for a week so hopefully we can get things going! I have a doctors appointment this afternoon and he is going to check me to see if I am dilated or anything. I'll update later if we find out anything!