6 days and counting...down...

Well, it's official. This little girl will likely be born on Wednesday, August 24 - 19 days before her estimated date of delivery. We are scheduled to be induced on Wednesday morning after having Cervidil on Tuesday night.

Part of me is really, really excited - about the prospect of seeing her finally and about the prospect of taking my body back!! (It really has gotten out of control the last two weeks or so. Check my pics!) Another part of me is just hoping that everything goes as planned and I don't end up undergoing a c-section. Then the other part of me still has a twinge of concern for the health of my precious little girl. I'm also excited that my mom will be able to be here with us. She's driving in from Mississippi on Tuesday. My husband's parents are also planning to drive down from St. Louis next week. I'm BUMMED that my dad won't be here though. He has been working in China since May and is scheduled to return on September 7 - no way he can move the date up. :(

But, my dad has offered some interesting insight on this whole bowel blockage thing. He suggested that I make sure the doctors know that he and all of his brothers and sisters (13 children total) were born with umbilical hernias. Likewise, my sister and I were born with them. I've done a little research and this condition is definitely associated with bowel/intestinal blockage. I little snip and tuck and that can be fixed - although I do have a permanent scar from my surgery. But, if it turned out to be something like that, I know she will live a normal life and according to the Internet, she'd heal from the surgery in just 5 days or so. Anyway, I will remember to make sure they check for that when she born.

So, tomorrow is my last day at work!!! I've been running around all week trying to get my leave papers filled out and trying to transition things to the not-so-bright lady that just started working with us last week. She seems very overwhelmed with my leaving so soon. My boss is shaking his head because he depends on me to pretty much do everything. So, it'll be interesting to watch them survive without me. I've decided to take 16 weeks off - returning to work on December 12. I will, however, be working from home for 8 of those weeks off. I just can't leave them high and dry for 4 whole months!

On the home front, things are shaping up good with all of the last minute preparations for the baby. It looks like I'm going to be writing Thank You notes while at the hospital since I haven't finished those yet. Other than that, I really just need to get my hospital bag together and prepare my list of people to inform when she is born. My sweet, sweet husband has been taking care of EVERYTHING else around the house for us - laundry, assembling baby gear, etc.

Tonight my husband played his last church league basketball game before entering fatherhood. I missed the beginning of the game but, he said he did the group prayer (both teams come together for this) and dedicated the game to his wife and his daughter...so sweet. The awesome part is that he hit the winning shot with 3 seconds left in the game: They were down by two points, he hit a lay-up and was fouled, then hit his foul shot so they won by one point - AWESOME!!! :)