Well, no baby yet, even though we spent last night at Regions in their labor and delivery "way station". Uggh. After timing the contractions at every 5 minutes for an hour, I was ready to go, yet patient. We waited for my Mom to arrive, continued to play with Quinn and readied ourselves. We took showers, made sure the house was in order and then departed. One of the most emotional parts of the evening was saying good-bye to Quinn. There I was in the living room, watching Quinn play with the baby swing and in my mind, I was saying farewell to that part of his life, the trio of just the three of us, knowing that his life was going to change... and it made saying goodbye to him very difficult. The only time I cried the whole night was after waving goodbye to my son from the car. We really are entering this whole new phase of life where Quinn isn't my baby or only child and its difficult to see that. I want to be able to give him everything he needs and that is bound to change in the very near future. Still, he has my heart and love and that is not going to change, no matter the obligations or duties I have before me. I will sacrifice what I must to be an exceptional mother and partner:)

Now, to the guts of the evening.. the miserable, long evening.

When I arrived I was ushered to the way station. Wait, back up. As we were driving along University, blocks away from the hospital, a car nearly hit us as it illegally merged into the two lanes of our traffic. It was wild and frightening and to Luke's credit, he remained super calm, not even honking. How hilarious then to see that same car pulled in front of the emergency room, lifting/pushing a very pregnant woman into the ER. How funny it would have been to see the two of our cars crash when we both had the same destination and the same reason for heading in that direction. Fortunately, we were all safe:)

Back to the night. We were officiously packed and not carrying the weight of 80 bags which seemed to be our plan last time. We were hooked up to the machines and watched the contractions come and go frequently and with great intensity. It made me glad to see that I wasn't hallucinating the contractions and validated my record keeping. I watched some Mad Men, ate some granola bars, lived the risky life and ate a regions box lunch with a lunch meat sandwich and waited for things to progress, which they did not. Around 2 or so, they gave me meds so I could sleep and then I dozed in and out of sleep until around 6 when I was finally so exhausted by the temperature and limbs falling asleep and the aches in my butt from the heinous thing they call a bed... and were sent home. The contractions had slowed considerably and after muliple cervix checks nothing had changed. So, after both Luke and I suffered enormous discomfort and shitty sleep, we went home. I appreciate my bed so very, very much. We'll be bringing our own pillows next time and lots of them because the hospital ones suck. Erggh. So, I've taken multiple naps today and relaxed and am looking forward to my shower tomorrow. I hope to spend some quality time with Jen and Asha after the shower and I guess just bide my time until she really chooses to arrive. Money is very tight, but I'm sure something will work out. At this point, I want to go to Tuesday's ultrasound and see the fetal weight and then go from there. I'd like to get the science class stuff finished and Ethan's eval mailed off. That way, I know that both of those stipends will be coming my way in the coming weeks. Thank goodness that Congress approved the extensions for unemployment. Otherwise, our financial life was going to get very interesting, very quickly. I am excited to see Quinn when he returns from Grandma's this afternoon and grateful for her help. I need to be nicer to her and not let me anxiety over her aging get in the way of how I treat her. I am all about grapefruits lately. Yesterday was, by the way, a rather delightful afternoon with the family. We stopped by Lund's after getting Quinn and picked up food for a picnic. Then, we headed over to Minnehaha Falls park and played and ate there. We met a nice man and his daughter, whose wife teaches in Apple Valley and they are also expecting their second. It was a very nice time. In fact, we've had plenty of joyful trio kinds of outings lately, many of them taking place at Izzy's or as Quinn calls it "The Ice Cream Store". We likes to get a Strawberry cone with a chocolate Izzy. Luke and i too have been trying to hang together and enjoy solo adult time. We went to Key's yesterday for breakfast after our midwife appt. and had a nice meal where I ran into an old AVHS student. Crazy!

Alright, must get to dinner. Loving my family always.