Congrats to Brad & Steph.

I just got home yesterday from Utah, where we all traveled to participate in my brother's wedding to the lovely Stephanie! The whole day was wonderful and the two of them seemed supremely happy. I lived (and was just about literally attached to the hip) with Stephanie for six ridiculously fun weeks at the end of my mission, and so one of my favorite parts of the trip was meeting her family in person and seeing where she comes from. Missionaries always describe and swap stories about their family members, but it is something different entirely to actually meet them! She has an amazing family and I am not surprised they produced such a quality person.

It was also great to spend time with my grandma and Paul in Salt Lake City. I spent a lot of weekends at their house when I was a student at BYU, but this is the first time in two years that I have had a chance to go visit them. I am excited for them to come up and visit us in August after our little lady arrives!

Aaaaand of course...it was way fun to see some other former mission companions, namely Hanalei and Amy! Hanalei and Austin always let me tag around with them but never make me feel like a third wheel, which I love. And I am currently hatching plans to visit Amy in LA because, well...she's just awesome.

Thanks to my family for massaging my swollen feet and putting up with my pregnant self in general. I missed Spenser a lot (he wasn't able to come due to work), but there are a lot of people in Utah who are very special to me so it was totally worth the trip. :)

Dad's nose.

At our 28-week ultrasound, the sonogram tech was able to snap some cool shots of the baby's face and I think she looks like her dad!

Am I crazy, or does there appear to be some similarity between those two noses? ;)

Does baby's nose look like dad's?

Happy birthday, sister.

Happy birthday (yesterday), Whit! :)

Childbirth class.

Last night, Spenser and I attended what is to be the first of four childbirth classes hosted by our pregnancy care provider, Women's Healthcare Associates. Quite honestly, I signed us up mostly for Spenser's benefit because I wasn't sure he really had much of a vision for how all of this birth thing is going to go down. I've been plowing my way through the ever beloved pregnancy tome What to Expect When You're Expecting, but I learned a bunch of new stuff at last night's class so I think it is already shaping up to be a great investment! Spenser said he was worried that it was going to be some lame thing where we all sit on yoga mats and practice breathing exercises, but that he was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it, too.

Some things we learned:

• The hormone oxytocin, which regulates labor (and does lots of other interesting things in other circumstances), is a stress-dependent hormone. What that means is that when stress enters the equation and causes a release of adrenaline or other stress hormones, the levels of oxytocin actually decrease, reducing the pace and effectiveness of the labor process. That is why it is important to prepare and take steps to help the mother stay calm throughout the process and feel confident in the birth environment.

• In the past half-century or so, there has been a huge increase in posterior births (sunny-side-up babies - I was one!). This could be due to a number of factors...even potentially the fact that we drive cars, so our right legs are slightly stronger and our pelvises become tilted over time! Sunny-side-up isn't the greatest way for a baby to come out, because it makes it more difficult for the skull to pass through the pelvis and increases the chance that the doctor will need to intervene with forceps, vacuums, etc. Our instructor said that laboring for as long as possible in early labor on hands and knees will reduce the chance of a posterior birth, because the heaviest part of the baby is the spine, so when a mother is on her hands and knees it gives gravity a chance to pull the spine of the baby up and the baby naturally realigns into an easier anterior position (can you visualize that? It's a little hard to describe in words). All of this is potentially harder to achieve the longer a laboring mama spends flat on her back.

At one point in the class, we did this Jungian exercise where the instructor put up a whiteboard and had everyone write down the first word that came to their mind when she said 'childbirth.' The answers were really varied, some positive ('joy', 'aniticipation', 'miracle') some apprehensive ('pain' got three hits)...but one dude just wrote 'vagina'. Seriously? I would now like to publicly thank my husband for not being that one dude who wrote 'vagina'.