Five days late.

All I can think about is that I hope she comes soon so I don't waste any more maternity leave days. The later she is, the less time I will get to spend with her before I go back to work.

Come'on Quinn....can you give us ANY signs that you want to come out?

Two days past due...

And we are all waiting patiently! It'll be interesting to see when she decides to show up! We were hoping she'd make an appearance today since it's father's day, but I am feeling totally normal and not really feeling any indications of labor. My iphone application originally predicted that she would arrive on the 22nd. How funny would it be if she did? iphone - 1, doctors - 0!

The last couple of days have been really nice and very relaxing. I'm so glad that I decided to start my maternity leave earlier than originally planned (I was going to make my last day the day my water broke!) It's amazing how much better my body feels now that I'm not standing on my feet all day and having to talk to customers, climbing ladders, using my brain to do paperwork and selling my soul to sales figures. The extra rest and peaceful days off have really helped me relax and enjoy these last few days of quiet with Mike! Hmmmm now when I think about it, This is the first weekend that he and I have really gotten to spend together...usually I am working! Yesterday we cleaned the house, took a walk with the dog, hung out with the neighbors for a bit, did some shopping....amazing!! And today we woke up early and have been spending time together in our little office...him at his desk and me at mine, just listening to music and playing with the animals. I could definitely get used to this, haha.

Gosh, all I keep thinking about is how excited I am to be able to one day see my feet again, roll over easily in the middle of the night, not have to pee every 30 minutes, SLEEP ON MY STOMACH, be able to wear normal clothing, roughhouse and go running with my dog, have only one chin....so much to look forward to! I can't wait to see this little girl. Come outttttttttt, Quinn.

I kicked off my last day at work with a bang

by getting there at 5:00 am to get ready for a longggggggg inventory process. Luckily, it went pretty smoothly and by 11:30 I was out of there and heading home for a nice long nap. I can't describe how strange it will be to have the next twelve weeks off of work. It sounds like such a long time, although I know it will fly by so fast. I've never NOT worked for three weeks, let alone three months, but I think I really need a break.The time away from the store will give me a chance to relax and bond with Quinn. Andddd speaking of Quinn, she's DUE IN THREE DAYS. Ahhhh! I hope she comes on Sunday, Mike's first father's day would be pretty awesome if that happened. I didn't know whether to celebrate mother's day this year or not. I knew that technically I was a mom, but it just didn't feel like it quite yet. I'm sure it won't feel like it for a while even once she arrives!

I have been working on trying to visualize the labor for the last few days, as I've been feeling more anxious as time gets closer. It's so difficult to do though considering the fact that I have NO idea whatsoever of what to expect. It's overwhelming wondering how long it'll take, what the contractions will feel like, how I'll be able to work my way through them, etc etc. I have been experiencing a lot of cramping during the last few days which is helping (a teeny bit) to put the actual labor more into perspective for me. Each cramp/rush that comes, I have been working hard to relax and not tense up to prepare me for the ones that will really matter when I go into actual labor. I really hope that I am one of those women that I read about who is able to calmly breathe through them and visualize themselves opening up. It's funny how much mind over matter plays a role in helping the baby come out calmly and quickly.....I'm praying to the big guy upstairs to give me patience and resilience and the strength to have her the way I am envisioning it. We'll seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! I feel pretty confident but that's definitely coupled by extreme anxiousness and nervousness to meet her already. Let's hope she comes ANY day now.

Lazy Sunday.

Rigby's girlfriend Little was waiting patiently by our back door to play with our pup this morning. Meanwhile, the cats have been chill'n around the house with Mike and I.

Now the fun begins!

Back pain, feet swelling and some Braxton Hicks contractions have begun on week 38...but nothing was really as bad as this bubbly, disgusting rash I developed on both of my feet and on my arms/hands. I thought I had gotten bit by some kind of freaky spider. I googled photos of rashes and the first ones popping up (of SCABIES!) scared the crap out of me as they looked pretty similar. I kept crying, imagining me holding the baby and spreading this nasty rash to her. So when I got home from work last night around 10, Mike and I decided to go to the hospital. We stopped by the gas station and picked up a ton of snacks first thinking we'd be in the ER for a while. Water, Gatorade, Butterfingers and some hot tamales...yum yum!

We got to the hospital and the check-in lady took one look at me and said, "When are you due??" "Ummmm in a week and a half?" She decided to make a couple of calls and have me go upstairs to the maternity ward to get checked out. As soon as we got up there, the sweet nurse took one look at my oozing foot and knew right away what my rash was from....POISON IVY. The lightbulb went on above both of our heads and Mike and I knew exactly where i had gotten it from. On memorial day when we took Rigby down to the springs, I took a shortcut up this forresty hill on our trek back to avoid walking up the steep trail they were on and I must have brushed against some poison ivy. Uhg! I felt a ton better knowing that was what the rash was from and not a Recluse spider or from Scabies, haha. They monitored Quinn's heartbeat for a while since that's protocall for women over 20 weeks who come into the ER. It was fun listening to her float around and kick the fetal monitor...kinda made the trip more entertaining for us. It also made me realize how kick-ass the birthing center is compared to a hospital. Of course, the hospital is more high-tech and all of that stuff but I laid there on the stiff bed, looking up at the crazy machinery and watching TV. It just felt pretty sterile and uncomfortable. It's funny because I'd much rather be in a place where I feel at home and free to do what I want and succumb to the pains of labor than to be in the hospital strapped down to the bed like that.

Speaking of birth! Yesterday a woman and her nanny came into the store with the most gorgeous little 6-month old baby. The baby's name was Matty, which was ironic because that is one of the names of my great aunt that I was considering originally with Quinn. I immediately started gushing about how pretty she was and then we started talking about how the woman's pregnancy and labor was, etc etc. The woman couldn't believe that I was still standing on my feet all day and how horribly uncomfortable she felt her entire pregnancy. She told me how her labor was the worst experience of her life. She was in labor for 28 hours and was screaming at everyone around her because it was so painful. She called her husband every name in the book She said she thought she was dying and she just wanted the baby out....so eventually she wound up having a C-section and it was 'incredible'. After her talking about how horrible labor was for 15 minutes, she asked me where I was delivering. I told her we were having Quinn at the Austin Area Birthing Center and her jaw dropped. "You're having her NATURALLY?! Oh god...you're going to regret it!!" I just kind of laughed and thanked her for all of her advice.

I feel so confident with my decision to have Quinn at the birthing center. I have physically and mentally felt so good this last month. Even with the baby being due so soon...I'm not worried or freaked out at all. I was more concerned about a RASH that pushing out a watermelon! Is there something wrong with me?! Haha. All of these women seem like they've had such horrific birthing experiences...or that the pain was just absolutely unbearable. I feel confident knowing my body is meant to feel and do what it will once the time comes and the fact that bazillions of women have given birth naturally before me feels so empowering. It'll be interesting to see how this whole thing goes whenever Quinn decided to meet us!

Memorial day!

Since I had the day off (FINALLY!!) we decided to pick up some sandwiches and take Rigby for his first swim in the springs. He didn't hesitate at all...dove right in!

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.

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.

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.

These days...

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

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

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.

Stop being stubborn, Quinn!

We went to our 32 week visit yesterday to see how the baby was doing. Last time they checked four weeks ago, Quinn was feet first but they didn't seem too worried about it as most babies flip by 30 weeks. However, yesterday while Roswitha was feeling around on my stomach and felt feet where a head should be, we discovered that she was STILL feet down! Stubborn little girl! I could tell by Roswitha's expression, which is usually cool and collected, that she was a little frustrated that Quinn hadn't flipped yet. So she decided to give us some homework consisting of different exercises, positions (handstands in the pool!) and putting a cool icepack up high and a warm one down low so she'll try to head south to warmth to get her to flip around. If she isn't facing the right way by 34 weeks though, we're going to do a bit of acupuncture and see how that goes. The very last resort would be for us to go to an external expert who will try to turn her around from the outside of my stomach. They tried this a little bit yesterday and OUCH!! It hurt pretty bad. I'm hoping it won't get to that point!

With just eight weeks left, I'm feeling pretty good. Just really tired. The time seems to be flying by now, expecially now that we will be going to the doctor more frequently for checkups. I'm so excited for her to come, Mike and I are just so anxious to meet her. So many times I forget that I'm pregnant during the day because I'm doing a million other things, but those giant kicks and shifts always interrupt my day and I can't help but laugh because they kinda tickle.

Counting down the daysssssssssssssssss.

So excitingggggggggg. NOW JUST FLIP AROUND, QUINN!

Showered

with love from family and friends this week. Mike's mom and brother as well as my mom drove in from Florida to share our babyshower with us this past Sunday. Although there was a little drama with the place we had originally reserved for the party, the last minute location switch turned out to be so much better!! So many of my amazing friends showed up and we all had such a blast. Susan did such a great job setting everything up. The "decorate it yourself'" onesies was a sure hit. I was totally overwhelmed by how many gifts we received and how sweet everyone was to come to the shower. What a great day!

Busy, busy, busy...

I have been thinly spreading my time between work, the few moments I get to see Mike each day, sleeping like crazy and our new Black Lab-mix, Rigby. With only 10 weeks left of this pregnancy, I can feel my body telling me to slow down most days. If it's not one of those dreaded Braxton-Hicks contractions telling me to take it easy, it's thedrool-inducing, dead sleep that I collapse into as soon as I hit the bed at night. Although I enjoy my days at work laughing with the staff and customers, the long hours on my feet definitely seem to take a toll on me by the time I get home. One word - CANKLES!! Blech.

These days, as Spring begins to quickly drift into that muggy, hot, droughty summer that Texans have become accustomed to, I am appreciative of a those last few days of breezy, cool weather and definitely our air conditioning.

Here are some pictures of our new little man Rigby enjoying the outdoors, as well.

TURCO!!!!!!!!

Best upset EVER!!! Turco, you beautiful beast!! Took 52 shots on goal and only allowed 3! Yeah!!

Ahhhhh I think I almost just had a heart attack watching that game. YES!!! The Capital's 20-game winning streak is over thanks to the Stars! Yeahhh!! Sorry Mike, your little man Ovechkin was no match for us tonight!

God, I love hockey.