Back to Stories from the Heat

Okay, I'm finally ready to give everyone an update! Sorry it has been so long. Ezra's been home from the hospital for two weeks now, and we're all doing great! He spent exactly three weeks in the NICU, and we are so happy to have him home.

For your viewing pleasure:

Last Friday after work I had a severe stabbing pain in my upper right abdomen. We called my doctor, and she said to take some tylenol, drink plenty of water and lie down. The pain seemed to go away, but on Saturday night I had some bleeding. We called the doctor-on-call and he suggested we go in to labor and delivery to get checked out. Thinking I would just be given a pat on the back and sent on my way, we didn't bother to bring anything with us. Imagine our surprise when they told us I was 6 cm dialated! I hadn't even had any pain yet (besides the stabbing pain which went away anyway); I hadn't felt any contractions. Of course two hours later I was beginning to feel lots of pain. When we found out the news we called my mom and she and my dad started looking for the first flight out here. We didn't think she would be able to make it in time, but I finally asked for an epidural and everything just stopped. (Literally I went from 7 1/2 cm to 8 cm in about 18 hours, and now I don't want to ever have an epidural again.) My mom made it in the next morning, and was there for most of the experience. I tried to get some sleep, but I was a little anxious. The doctor was fine with waiting for the baby to come in his own time (since he was early), so after being at the hospital for almost 24 hours she finally broke my water and little Ezra came out shortly after that. Unfortunately since he was 5 weeks early he was rushed to the NICU right after being born. He's been in for a week now, and progressing really nicely. He was only on a respirator for a few hours, he's finally off of phototherapy, and he will be off his IV today. As he is progressing I will get to feed him more often, which means lots of time at the hospital. As soon as he can eat from me exclusively we will be able to take him home. The doctors say to plan for him coming home by his due date but believe it will only be two or three more weeks.

Anyway, we want to say thanks to all of our friends and family for your support. It has been tough not being able to take him home. He sure is a cutie though. I'll post pictures next time. I'm writing from the hospital, and I'm not sure how to get pictures on here without saving them to the computer.

We missed several weeks of belly photos. We've been very busy setting up our new home and getting ready for Ezra to come. So I have two photos to put up today. One is from 26 weeks and the other is from 31 weeks. There is a HUGE difference between the two photos; it's pretty crazy.

I don't really even fit into that shirt anymore. It shows a little bit of my belly now. You can see the whole set here.

Maggie called me on never posting, so this is for her. (Our internets were unreliable for a while, not to mention I've been very busy and I'm sharing computers with Matt... but I don't want to make any excuses or anything.)

About our new home the front room and the kitchen look great, the office and the nursery however are both disaster areas. Which brings me to about the baby/pregnancy. I am totally in a panic here. We only have 9 weeks to get the nursery ready for the baby. As I mentioned it is a total disaster in there; I don't even know where to start. Other than that, I love being pregnant, and I love my baby. He kicks like crazy, especially at night when I'm trying to sleep. When he's not kicking me he gets the hiccups, which are funny and annoying at the same time. I also feel like a big fatso, and I don't think I'll ever be able to fit into my old clothes again. Oh well!

I cut my hair today. Literally, I took the scissors to my own head. This is the shortest haircut I have ever had, and I actually like it a lot. Plus it was FREE, even if it took me probably two hours to cut it all. (I usually just go to the beauty school, and the students take almost two hours to cut my hair anyway.) I took off about 4 or 5 inches, so it was a pretty drastic cut. I know I'm crazy, but this isn't the first time I've cut my own hair. I used to do it in high school all the time.

Our good friends Boz and Maegan just had their baby boy this morning, Congrats! I can't wait to go see him. I love babies!

Okay here's my to-do list for the nursery.
1. Clear out anything that's not staying in the room and put in storage.
2. Put away anything we are storing in the baby's closet.
3. Sand down and clean baby's furniture.
4. Paint or refinish furniture.
5. While room is all cleared out paint room.
6. Put bassinet in our bedroom.
7. Arrange furniture in nursery.
8. Buy crib.
9. Hang any pictures or decorations.
10. Do not go insane...

Matt and I closed on our condo yesterday! We should be getting the keys to our new home today! We still have a TON of packing to do. Our big moving day is Saturday (everyone's invited! bring your swimsuits to swim afterwards!). We are going to buy a new couch! I am soo excited because our current hand-me-down couches are pretty ugly (and by that I mean I hate them). We are planning on getting this couch:


It's from IKEA, and I love it. But Matt thinks we should get a couch from Big lots because it is microfiber and will cost about the same. (I told him it looks like a Grandpa couch, it's really puffy and big) We're going to go look at it though. I'm just excited to have a home that I can decorate and paint however I want. I have lots of ideas, but we'll see if they all happen. Well I have to get back to packing. Here's last weeks belly photo:

Finally, here's four of them!

18 weeks:

19 Weeks:
20 Weeks:

21 Weeks:Whew! My belly is getting big! I'm at 22 weeks now too, so I will hopefully be putting 22 up soon. Everything is going great here, our house is a mess, and I have no motivation to try and straighten up because we're going to begin the packing process soon. Yay!

Happy Fourth of July!

In no particular order.

1. My new maternity jeans. The cutest jeans I have ever owned. Cute tush and comfy belly.

3. Cruiser bikes. I love these bikes at Trek.com. The prices aren't too bad.










4. My mommy and my family. I love talking to my mom about my life. She is always happy to hear about all that's going on in our life. (Which is a lot with my pregnancy and us buying a house.)














5. My baby. We're having a boy, and we have three names that we like so far: Ezra, Elijah and Truman. I told this guy I work with about these names and he thought they were "overdone". I have never met anyone with any of these names, so I thought that was weird. I love feeling him move around inside me. It's so funny. Since I can't see him growing inside me I hope he's okay in there. I often worry because there's nothing I can do to make sure everything is okay inside there.


Well, Matt and I have been taking my belly photos every week, but Matt hasn't taken any of them off of his camera. Once Matt gives them to me, I will post all of them.

Here's 16 weeks:


18 weeks should be up tomorrow.

Matt and I were planning on getting a 3D ultrasound this week, but we somehow thought the cost was going to be a lot lower than we found out it would be yesterday. The price that we thought we would get the 3D ultrasound for is actually the price for a "gender test". Anyway we didn't really think it was worth it just to find out the gender for that price, when we're going to find it out anyways in two weeks for free.
We had our 18 week appointment yesterday. My very favorite part is hearing the heartbeat. The baby could feel the Doppler sticking in my stomach and kept kicking it. It was so funny, but I couldn't laugh because then we wouldn't be able to hear anything. I've been able to feel the baby move more often too, and it always make me giggle (even if it hurts a little). I guess it's kind of surreal knowing it's a person moving around inside of me.

With the baby we'll be growing out of our little apartment. So we are looking to buy this summer. We're going to look at some condos in Eagle Mountain tonight. We really love these condos and have been pretty bummed missing out on some of them. Anyway my blog posts have been getting boring lately, so I think I'll just leave it here.

Here's last weeks belly photo. I got it up before the 16 weeks, so that's something.

Week 15:


I made a "photo set" on my flickr account called Pregnant Belly. If you go here you can see all of the belly photos together consecutively. It's fun to look at the thumbnails all next to each other and see my belly's progress.

Next week we leave Friday for our big summer vacation. My family is planning a Higgins reunion (it's kind of a reunion, but it doesn't involve any extended family, just my parents and all of my siblings) starting a week from tomorrow. We are going to go camping for 5 days at the Carlsbad Beach in CA. The campsite is right next to the beach, I am way excited! Our vacation starts Friday though, because we'll be driving from here to Southern California by way of Carson City, NV; Pleasanton, CA; Oakhurst, CA; and Fresno, CA. At each stop we'll have someone to see too. On Friday we'll stay the night with Grammy. On Saturday we'll spend the day with our friends in Pleasanton and stay the night with my cousins Brittany, Ben and Baylee (Were you guys going for a 'B' theme there?). Then Sunday we'll drive to Oakhurst (Matt's hometown) and spend the day with his dad and some of his family, then drive to Fresno and spend the night with his mom and sister. Then we'll finally make our way down to Carlsbad and spend the whole week with my family. It is going to be such a fun trip! I am so excited about everyone we get to see and spend some time with. Matt and I are both so excited for a nice break. Even though the first few days probably won't be that relaxing, I'm sure the week at the beach will be. Also Matt and I went to Sports Authority and bought me some board shorts that I really like and they fit me. I will be the cutest pregnant lady on the beach.

Here are my belly pictures from weeks 13 and 14. Matt wanted me to start wearing the same shirt every time so that the change from week to week would be more noticeable. (sorry these are a week late, hopefully I'll get on the ball soon and start posting them the day after they're taken, instead of a week)

13 weeks:


14 Weeks:


I have a feeling I'm going to have a huge belly.

Matt decided he wanted to document my pregnancy by taking a picture of my belly every week. So, I thought you would enjoy coming along for the ride. Here is last week, 11 weeks:


and 12 weeks:


In the first one I just look chubby, so that's fantastic. It turns out if I wear actual maternity shirts I look less chubby. It's fun to be able to wear maternity clothes. I haven't tried any bottoms yet, just shirts. Although when I sit down it kind of feels like I'm full all the time, and I want to unbutton my pants. I asked Matt to get me one of those Bella bands, so I will start using that before I get too uncomfortable I'm sure. Today I was sitting on the couch and my belly started twitching. I thought it could be the baby and I started giggling so much thinking about the baby kicking against my belly. I don't think it was the baby really (I think it's too early to feel the baby, and I don't really know what to be looking for), but it was funny to think about the baby kicking me. Then I was laughing so hard the baby probably felt like I was kicking it back. Anyways, it was fun. I haven't really felt pregnant. I haven't been able to really tell there's a baby inside of me (besides that I felt nauseous a lot, and other things like that), so it was fun to think about the baby kicking me.

Oh I wrote to Design Mom about my problem with gliders (I think they're hideous), and I got some good info about where I might get a pretty rocking chair. I like the one from Ikea they talked about, and the idea of getting an old one from eBay and fixing it up. Utah gets their very own Ikea in May, so I have quite a few things I want to check out there. We're hoping to move soon, and I have been eying a few things on their website. I'm pretty excited.

I've been waiting to tell everyone for a long time. I am pregnant! According to the doctor visit today I am 10 weeks along, but that little counter thing says I am only 9 weeks. So, It's going to be a little off from my doctor's calculations. (Okay only 2 days, but it's a big deal to me.) We told my parents as soon as we found out and Matt's. My mom couldn't keep it a secret though. She told my cousin and her husband and my little sister accidentally. Then she told my grandparents. Then Matt and I visited AZ, and my mom spilled the beans at Relief Society. So by now I expect almost everyone that knows my mom knows that I am pregnant.
So far, I am healthy. I just get some morning sickness and I am always tired. According to Matt I go to bed at like 8, sometimes 7. Anyway, we're both really excited. I haven't been posting because I've been really busy with work and really tired. I didn't even decorate for Easter, so you know I must be exhausted.


P.s. Congrats to Maggie and Dan and their new baby Charlotte! I haven't been able to get a hold of Maggie to tell her yet.