baby showers

it's been a while since i blogged and i really don't have a good excuse since i was put on bedrest since the beginning of july. yes i had premature labor two weeks ago. i had contractions while i was at work and ended up staying at the hospital for five hours! they gave me two shots of terbutaline, a drug that will stop the contractions. it worked but my doctor had to put me on bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy. it's not really complete bedrest, i.e. i can go to the store and get one thing but i can't shop for three hours --- which suuuccksss so much because now i have all this time to cruise the malls but my legs and my back aren't strong enough to do so. it also ruined my plans to take my cousin karyn to santa barbara and solvang, she came to california for a conference and she wanted to go wine tasting and tour SB...oh well! so i thought my troubles were over when i suddenly developed this rash called PUPPP (Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy). it's pregnancy related and it's super gross! check out the before and after pics of this website http://rainiersoapworks.com/puppp_relief.htm yeah...mine started on my tummy, then spread to my arms and legs. i was soooo miserable! to the point where i was only getting 4 hours of sleep. my doctor prescribed something but it didn't work so i did some research on the internet and found rainier soapworks which is a god send! it's been a week since i've been using their herbal soap and cream and now my skin is better and i don't itch as much. i've never ever had skin problems in my whole life so now i have newfound sympathy for anybody suffering from psoriasis or eczema. hmmm, so i do have an excuse for not blogging! lol!

anyway, i know it's tmi (too much info) for some people so i'll stop talking about it and change the subject =) last week was the week for baby showers...work threw one for me on july 13th and i got some amazing presents! my coworkers really went all out! i got this three layered cake looking gift package that they made, it's made up of painstakingly rolled up diapers! it's really crazy! check out these pics ... mark and i had a lot of fun opening gifts for baby vaughn and all my co-workers teased me that i'm gonna give birth before my due date 'cause i'm so big! they even have a baby pool going (on an excel spreadsheet pa!).

sunday, july 16th my friend stephanie (teptep) threw a baby shower for me and mark and invited all our friends. it was a blast! she went crazy and decorated their patio with streamers, baby blocks, balloons, bubbles, rubber duckies and GI joe's as centerpieces. our friend drew was the dj for the afternoon and did a fantastic job spinning! tep tep also came up with hilarious games like sucking OJ from a baby bottle (cham won), eating melted chocolate on a diaper -- gross but extremely funny (dammasch won), identifying mark's ankle (i was debating between the real thing and champ, i guessed wrong!), guessing the size of my belly using toilet paper, and a cotton picking contest (gary won). we also entertained ourselves with the bubbles and the electric fan that i brought along. with all the bubbles floating around, it created this relaxing environment on a very hot day. fun fun fun! check out the pics below (click on the link):

baby shower pics at tep's

this sunday my family is hosting another baby shower and i'm really looking forward to it because my college friends are gonna show up and my friend lori is bringing her baby over (born last March)! i've only seen her in pictures so i'm really excited to meet her =) i even bought an outfit for the ocassion heheheh.

so more baby update: we went to our last ultrasound to have the baby's weight checked...and to our surprise, our doctor told us that she's estimating that we are going to have a 9 lb baby! i was really shocked because mark and i are super skinny and how on earth did we create a 9 lb baby? so i'm gonna end up having a c-section per my doctor since the baby's too big. i wanted to have a natural birth but oh well, i've already accepted that this baby's in control...hahaha! anyway, i'm scheduled for august 15th, a week before my due date, unless baby vaughn decides to come early. will definitely blog and post pics on my family's baby shower. till then!