The Waiting Game!

Well, perhaps the joke is on us.  After experiencing a tremendous amount of worry and anxiety that the baby was going to come prematurely, we now sit at 38.5 weeks.  We are so thankful that the baby has stayed in as long as she has, and we're thankful if the joke is on us - because the alternative is no fun!  However, our blog next week may say "The Crying Game" if she doesn't make an appearance!  Amy's longest pregnancy was with Zachary, who came 8 days early.  At this point, we have 10 days left with Addison, so it'll be interesting if she makes it past 8 days early!  Our friends are out of town until Tuesday and they have given us strict order to wait to have the baby until they get back, so perhaps Wednesday August 1 will be the magic day!  If she were to come on Monday, she'd share a birthday with both Erik J and Adam D, and if she comes on Tuesday, she'd share her birthday with cousin Kayley! :)

We had an interesting start to our Sabbath day today with Kaleb coming into the bedroom and announcing to Amy that he had taken some medicine.  She ran out into the kitchen to discover in fact that he had drank the remainder of the Children's Mucinex bottle.   Thankfully there was only about 4 teaspoons left in there, but she was quite nervous until she could get Poison Control on the phone.  They reassured us that he'd be coughing a lot today, perhaps have some diarrhea, but other than that did not need to go to the Emergency Room to get his stomach pumped.  Whew!  Hopefully the experience scared him enough that he won't be doing that again!  The kids are so different - Zachary HATES any form of medicine, while Kaleb just loves it up!

Both boys have actually been under the weather - Zachary continues to struggle off and on with the stomach bug, and Kaleb has a chest cough and sporadic ear pain.  This has translated into middle of the night wake-up calls - which hasn't happened in FOREVER.  It seems that when the Zbaraschuk family welcomes a new baby in the house, middle of the night wake-up calls begin.  How reminiscent (and not in a good way!) of when Kaleb arrived...

Phrase of the week:  Picture it - Zachary crying - tears streaming down his face.  Amy walks into the room and says "why are you crying?"  "Because you won't know the answer to my question!" "Well, what is the question?"  "When EXACTLY is the baby coming!?"  (Oh dear, Amy definitely does NOT know the answer to this question!) "Well, sometime in the next two weeks."  "No, I want to know EXACTLY and I want her TODAY!"  Poor kid - so anxious to have his little sister arrive!


Wearing goggles because pool chemical had just been put in, but they didn't last long...

Notice Kaleb's "baby" swim suit - it is for little kids who aren't potty trained, and when he discovered it, he has now insisted that he needs to wear it.  It is like a little speedo!

37.5 Weeks - We Made It!

As we mentioned last week, we were quite concerned that we may not make 37 weeks with this pregnancy as Amy was having so many contractions.  We are breathing a sigh of relief as we have now made it to 37.5 weeks!  A week and a half longer than our little Kaleb!  Hopefully this means that when she does decide to make her appearance, that she won't have any lung/development problems.  The baby continues to be super active - much more than both boys combined - a lot kicking and punching going on in there!

We took the boys to a sweet "Siblings" class this week - where they each were given a baby doll to play with, to diaper (hilarious as they were holding the dolls upside down by their legs!), feed a bottle to the baby etc. They then watched a video about babies (and how they cry a LOT) and then we headed over to the Florida Hospital nursery where they could see a newborn baby and see the room where Mom would be after the delivery was done. They seemed to really like it, so it was a good experience.


Zachary's doll is upside down for this diaper change!

So proud as he feeds his baby a bottle!

Phrase of the week:  These are actually phrases that the kids have been saying now for weeks, all revolving around the baby. "I love baby sister"  "Can she hear me in there?"  "Be nice to Mommy, baby, don't kick her!" "I want to give baby a kiss" (Mommy's tummy has been receiving a LOT of hugs and kisses from both boys - they adore the baby in there!).  "Baby can't come into my room, because there are too many small toys, she might choke"  "If Baby falls into the pool, I'll come get you" (Please Lord, let's not have THAT ever happen!)  The boys are all excited as can be, so hopefully the reality will be as fun for them as the baby in the tummy!

The Countdown is On!

We have 3 more days until Amy has reached a full 37 weeks in this pregnancy - technically "full-term."  We will breathe a huge sigh of relief at that point.  After that, it will all be "gravy" for any extra day that she gets.   She has been working from home in order to "take it easy" and try to keep the baby inside, as she has continued to have around-the-clock contractions for the last 2 weeks - many times they are within 5 minutes apart for long periods of time.  In fact, we thought that perhaps Tuesday was "the day" at 36 weeks (just like Kaleb....) as she was having contractions almost non-stop that were strong enough to catch her breath.  But, when we headed to the regularly scheduled doctor's appointment and ultrasound, she was relieved to discover that she was NOT in labor and in fact her cervix was still closed and fairly long.  The doctor said that her uterus was just very irritable because she has a "high normal" amount of fluid and that the baby is measuring already 6 lbs 11 ounces - so is on track to be bigger than both boys were at birth if she makes it anywhere near her due date.

As she has been pretty much housebound, there isn't much of an update this week - but one thing that we forgot to post about when it was finished was the repainting of Amy's mom's house by Karis.  He did the majority of the work by himself, which is a testament to his incredible work ethic!  It was quite an ordeal with the HOA to get the colors approved etc, but we'll leave those details unspoken so that they'll fade from our memories as time passes! :) He did a great job, and the moment of completion went by without a celebration, so we had to circle back and include it in our blog! :)

The original house color - hard to even see how badly faded and cracked the paint was in this picture.

The finished product, complete now with gutters!

Celebrations

This week was of course Fourth of July, which was fun as we got some vacation time off during the middle of the week!

We headed over to Deiningers place to join friends in celebrating with yummy food and fireworks.  All of the kids seemed to do fine with the fireworks, although the younger ones did have some ear coverings to help with the noise.

Luke, Zachary, Adam, Kaleb, Kieran and baby Erik

Last weekend, Kaleb graduated from the 3 year old SS room to the 4 year old SS room.  Hard to imagine that he's getting so big!  He seemed to enjoy his new classroom today and was excited about it.

This week has proven to be a bit challenging for Amy in terms of the pregnancy.  She's been having Braxton Hicks contractions for many weeks now, but this week they got very intense, very regular, and close to together (many times less than 10 minutes apart).  The doctor told her at one point that caffeine would help slow down contractions, so one night she resorted to that - but it then kept her awake ALL night (so not fun!).  She's 35 weeks pregnant right now, and we had Kaleb at 36 weeks - so this is a bit nerve wracking as of course we don't want to repeat the NICU experience if possible.  But, we're praying hard about it and God has a plan.  In order to be as cautious as possible, she actually has started to work from home so that she can lay down as much as possible.  Her bosses have been fantastic and very understanding.  Our goal is at least 37 weeks which is then considered "full-term", which will be in 10 more days!  The countdown is on!  We pray that she'll make it to August, but full-term would at least be a relief off of our minds.


Picture at about 33-34 weeks

Phrase of the week:  "Mommy, can I watch a "movie" (aka any DVD show as we don't have movies for the kids to watch) - please?  When I saw please, you have to say yes!"  Ha ha - so logical in the mind of a 4 year old - if he uses his manners, he'll get what he wants! :)