Friday, May 28, 2010

My dogs were barkin' loud and clear

by the time I stood still for two minutes tonight. Today was one of those days where, while waddling into work and admiring all of the happy people enjoying the sunshine and pure freedom from responsibility, made me think, "Wow....I have a whole 9.5 hours left before I can go home. And when I do go home, it'll be too dark to have fun and the only thing I have to look forward to is wounds from my heel-biting Labrador." The hours draggggggged by today. Geeeeeeez. I used the odd amount of free time for a Friday to stay somewhat productive at work. I finished some paperwork, cleaned the stock room, had an aneurysm while trying to create the concoction that should technically be deemed the "June Store Schedule" and came to the disheartening realization that my feet had mysteriously grown a size because Betsey Johnson shoes in a size 8 no longer fit me. To make shoe-matters ultimately worse, I came to the realization that my freaky genetically-inherited "peace sign" looking toes look somewhat longer these days and hang oddly off the tops of my now ill-fitting flip flops. (I'm sorry Quinn if I happen to pass these freaks of nature onto your innocent bone structure!) At 5:30, I sent my sweet companion M home for the day and felt a bit more confident that I'd be able to handle an extremely slow Friday night by my lonesome. I had some big plans to do some much-needed Swiffering. Maybe even a bit of Windexing. Around 6:30 however, my plans were foiled as I was bombarded by an insane amount of customers drooling at the mouths over our latest sale where everything is free!!!! (Well, almost free, thanks to heafty Memorial Day discounts.) At some point, all four fitting rooms were filled with bargain obsessed women and to top it off, three of my best customers all happened to show up at the same time to hang out and gossip during the pandemonium that was developing around us! I became Medusa! But instead of a million snakes coming out of my hair, I had a million arms jetting out of my body....some of them were grabbing more sizes from the back. Others were buckling shoes, closing curtains, re-hanging clothing and grabbing jewelry from the front counter. At some point I thought I had popped the baby out but then realized that someone had just knocked a fruity looking tea beverage onto the floor. It was insane!!! I can only imagine what passerbyers were thinking as they walked past the store...watching a giant manatee running around the store with her arms flailing about like one of those crazy stop-motion Charlie Chaplin movies from the 20's. Two hours blew by like two minutes and by the time my friend Jessica popped in to say hello just before 9:00, I thought I could possibly throw up. I guzzled down 40 gallons of water, confirming my assumption that I am turning into some kind of giant water mammal.

I did all of the closing duties in record time and peaced out of there like I was on some kind of mission...eventually hoisting my achy body onto a ledge to wait for my night in shining armor to pick me up and drive me home.

Here I am, with feet aching from running a marathon around 600 square feet and Labrador teeth nips but it feels sooooooooo good to know that sleep awaits very shortly. WHAT A DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only three more weeks, Tara!!!! Three. More. Weeks.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Despite laying on the couch for two days straight,


I was apparently one of the only people in existence who didn't watch the season finally of Lost. Well, I haven't watched the show for about four years now so I'm not that flabbergasted that I missed such an EPIC ending. I just felt a little out of the loop with the rest of the world for about two hours. I've been able to piece together the entire episode by eaves dropping on everyone around me for the last two days though so I don't think I missed much that night. Just glad to see that my fellow comrades will be able to have an hour each week of their lives back!

Mike has been sick for the last few days, but I have a feeling he's just secretly trying to test me to see if I'm good at waking up every two hours each night. And the answer is...YES! I'm like some kind of chubby zombie that awakens instantly during the wee hours of the night to finish any task that is put before me! We'll see how I do in about three weeks...or if she decides to come early!

Which as of our appointment yesterday, looks like it could be the case? She's already measuring at what she should be measuring at three weeks from now, yeowza. Either I have a lot of fluid up in my stomach OR she's going to be a miniature Hulk. Considering I was a 10 pound newborn, I might be destined to have a chubby-thighed, dimple-armed baby right off the bat. We'll see! I'm also already dilated apparently...so....my next question to our midwife yesterday after our exam was, "How do I know when I'm going in to labor?" And in response she handed me a pamphlet entitled "How you know when you're going in to labor." I read it once we got home and decided to pack our suitcase full of necessary things to bring to the birthing center once the big time comes.

This is when the anxiousness comes into play!

Here are some little-Tara pictures courtesy of my mama.


Check out that crazy spiked hair!


Hooray! This bear rules!

Okay...one year later...not as impressed with the bear.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Big foot.

Top Halloween costume choices for the baby so far (a bit in advance)....

-iPhone
-dumbbell
-sub sandwhich
-flower
-dog bone

And my personal favorite genius idea of Mike's...a tiny keg.

P.S. We found out this morning at our ultra sound appointment that she flipped around!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I kept thinking the round hard part under my right rib was her head, but it's her little butt. Haha. Here is the best picture that they were able to get of her...she was sleepy and wouldn't look up.




Tuesday, May 18, 2010

These days...

I spend my free time with the three boys in our house...




And can't forget our little Ellie girl...




Monday, May 17, 2010

So close.

Throughout this entire pregnancy I have been doing a fair share of reading and research about what's to come in the very near future for me, Mike and Quinn. I remember the day I found out we were pregnant....the first thing I did was drive down to Border's and purchase "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and plopped my butt down into our bed for the next few hours reading away. I remember reading the typical ways to birth a baby and watching documentaries at night with Mike, always thinking that something just didn't feel natural to my own body when thinking about the intensely medical labor and delivery process of a baby in a hospital setting. I was also so inspired by my friend Katie who had birthed her first baby in a hospital and second in a birthing center (and soon to be third and fourth twin boys at home) that I decided to look into my options a little more.

After deciding to go to the birthing center to have Quinn and getting to meet all of the sweet midwives who would be helping me, I felt this intense calm and relaxation about the whole process sweep over me. Almost TOO relaxed! We started our birthing classes which I was incredibly excited about, only to feel disappointment a few weeks afterward when the type of motivating encouragement that I personally needed and craved was on the backburner. The classes focused more on all of the things that could go wrong, as well as contradictory and unnecessary information that made me feel anxious and uneasy. So Mike and I decided to quit them and I kept reading and doing my own research online.

I remember thinking a few weeks ago that something might be wrong with me because I wasn't concerned about the labor process what so ever. I had barely even thought about it because I had this overwhelming sense of calmness and faith in my body that I could do it successfully by relying on my own confidence within myself. I was so sure of everything until our third continuous visit to the birthing center last week where they discovered that Quinn had still not flipped.

With four and a half weeks to go, she does still have time to flip head-down and I have been trying to imagine her doing so in my mind...trying to send telepathic messages to her little brain to turrrrrrrrrrrn around. All I keep thinking about now is how, if she doesn't flip and I am not able to birth a breech baby at the birthing center, what my options are and what I feel comfortable with. I know that I am definitely lacking the confidence to have her be born breech naturally with a midwife. Compared to the faith I had before about having her at the birthing center... that same confidence just isn't there. My body has never had to birth a baby before and I feel incredibly anxious when I think about having her feet first for some reason. I've read so much about first time mothers having their babies breech but for some reason something inside of me is telling me not to try it. I've listened to my body thus far and I just have this overwhelming sense that I need to listen to it this time too. That puts my other option at having surgery in order to get her out. Yes, having a cesarean section bothers me because I don't want to have surgery....but I am more concerned with how it will effect Quinn. I wanted her to have a very peaceful birth and be able to be in my arms the second she was brought into the world. I always imagine having her in a warm tub or in a big bed where Mike can be an active partner helping me through everything. In a hospital, that is definitely not going to happen. I just know that I'm not going to feel comfortable having my baby swept away from me the second she comes out and not having her parents right there for her makes me uneasy. I know c-sections happen millions of times a day and babies grow up completely normal, but I guess it's the fact that that option is completely different from what I have been planning and I feel really disappointed. I remember reading in a book that you shouldn't feel disappointed about any crazy twists in your grand scheme of birth and thinking to myself, "why would anyone be THAT disappointed?" All of these months of daydreaming about bringing this baby into the world in the way I imagined though and then having them kinda flipped on their butt (haha...there you go, Quinn!) gives that disappointment a reality for me now. I have begun to really identify with those mothers who take it a bit personally.

I'm trying not to think about it too much since the possibility of her flipping is still there. I want to stay positive and continue sending her messages and talking to her to try to convince her to flip around.

Just four and a half weeks left and I want to meet her so badly. After waiting nine months already, four weeks feels like it's going to breeze by.
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