Bath Time

I was curious about how Zachary would respond to a real bath because he hated sponge baths...as you can see below...But turns out he loves bath time. He has never cried when I put him in his tub. He just relaxes and lets me get him all cleaned up. Our baby tub has a little cup that drizzles water from the bottom and he loves the water sprinkling on him. I just think he's so cute. :) Apparently bath time relaxes him so much that he can just go right to sleep. This pic is from the other night and was literally less than 60 seconds after I put him in there. He slept most of the way through it.
I love a good relaxing bath too. :)

Santa Pic

We headed up to Simpsonville for Christmas eve/day to spend it with Chris's parents. It was very nice and relaxing which was much needed. :)

While we were there we went to HollyWild animal park to see the christmas lights and animals. It was HILARIOUS. I wish the pictures had turned out better but basically there is a section of the park where you drive in and feed animals bread out of your car....and I'm not just talking deer. We fed zebras, horses, BISON, emus, ostriches, and other animals that I don't really know what they are. The brave ones would stick their heads RIGHT in the car. It was so funny....especially when the bison, which was huge, kept following along the side of the car everywhere we went and the Zebra started trying to eat Chris's moms hair. Very unexpected but worth the trip.

They also had a petting zoo area where Santa happened to be, so we got Zach's picture with him. I'm not gonna lie.....Santa creeps me out a little but he really was a nice guy, just had a new grandbaby himself. :) It's not the best quality pictures cause it was a print we scanned in.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. Can't believe Zach will be a month old tomorrow!!! Crazy. Still working on that sleep schedule.....which means there isn't one. He eats every 30 minutes a lot of times when hes awake and sleeps sometimes for 3 hrs at a time at night and sometimes for only an hour at a time...it's a toss up. They tell me some day that will get better. ;) Obviously Zach was very enthused about Santa...

Little Zachary

So I don't have much time for blogging these days. I am still getting used to being a new mommy and trying to figure out this new sleeping schedule. ( I haven't mastered the "sleep when he sleeps" routine yet). But I thought I would post a little something.

This 1st picture is Zachary at home this last week. He is pretty cute if I do say so myself. When he was first born (Nov 30th at 3:30pm, 8lbs!) we thought he looked like my side of the family cause his nose was pudgy and he had chubby cheeks, but once his nose popped out a little it was clear that he is a Kauffman boy. :) This is Zachary at the hospital. I love him!
Annnnnnnnnd this is Chris's baby picture.

I couldn't find a great one of Zachary where they are in the same position but I'm sure we have some cause he keeps his hands just like this a lot of the time. :) Can you see the similarities?? The eyes, and mouth and hair line, and chin are all the same. So cute! Only thing is at this point Zachary's hair is looking kinda reddish tinted...we shall see!
Eventually I will find time to post more. :) I should be sleeping right now....

Almost Parents

Chris and I will be parents sometime tomorrow! (unless he reaaaallly takes his time and then I guess it could be tuesday). We are both pretty excited and just ready for something to happen. I don't really feel nervous at this point but I don't really know fully what to expect so I'm trying not to anticipate anything and to just be prepared to take it in stride. We both relaxed today and took naps :). I'm not sure I will sleep much tonight so I'm glad we both got some rest this afternoon. We have to be at the hospital at 6am.

Finally have a few pics for ya.

This first one is kinda random but funny. It's Chris and me at Fazoil's. It was taken earlier this week when we went with Erin. She took it cause we have spent MANY dinners at fazoils throughout the pregnancy. It's weird cause we never went there much before but for some reason it sounded good to both of us a lot and they have some pretty good deals (espeically Thursdays) so we ended up there a whole lot. :) Basically we are recognized by the staff. Haha. Chris took this yesterday. This is a pretty common site. Our dog thinks she is a person and she LOVES laying with us like this. Since I've been pregnant, especially lately, she doesn't spend much time laying with Chris. I'm wondering what she will do once her pillow is gone and there is a baby in her place. ;)
Don't you just wanna squeeze her!! :)

Ok here is the last and final prego picture. I feel huge next to the tree. Haha! I think its the angle...and the fact that my tummy is quite large. :) I have been very uncomfortable this whole week and in lots of pain...it's hard to get up once I'm laying down. It's pretty funny though too.

Well, we would appreciate everyone's prayers tomorrow. I hope things go smoothly and quickly and safely. Hopefully we will be posting pictures of a beautiful, perfect little boy soon!!

I will be a mommy very soon..wow!

Drumroll Please......

I had another appointment today. 38 wks and 3 days according to the doctors schedule. Everything was pretty much the same, aside from the fact that I am in pain a lot more (this kid is getting bigger and bigger the longer he waits). :)
We did FINALLY get some ultimatum though - if nothing happens before then - we will be inducing on Monday. Yes, November 30th!
The doctor did a "thorough" exam in order to - as she said - try to help contractions start on their own. I like to call it - OWWW!!! Haha, it did NOT feel good. But so far nothing has happened today so we will see.
I know that once the process starts there is no stopping it but I feel ok about the fact that I at least know something will be set up for Monday if nothing happens before. I am just so tired of anticipating!!
Please be praying for us and the baby. Chris is really in his busy season at work, poor guy, and he is trying to get everything lined up and under control for the next several days so that he can be free when the time comes. I am anxious but trying not to anticipate pain or complication or the overwhelming experience we will be going through once he is here. :) I just wanna see him too!!
I've been having migranes the last couple of days. Didn't end up seeing the neurologist because he was "called out of the country on an emergency"...which they failed to let me know until I was ON MY WAY to the appointment. But really its ok with me cause I would rather see if there is still a problem after the baby is born or if it just seems to be pregnancy related before I go to a neurologist anyway. Doctor was fine with that.
Who knows maybe we will have a Thanksgiving baby....then we would all be holidays! (technically - if april fools counts). ;)
I know I have been HORRIBLE about posting pictures. I need to take some now since this is apparently the end. I am so huge I don't see how I continue to grow but it sure does hurt at this point. :) I barely have any clothes that cover me up. Anyway, I will try to remember to take a few pics but if not - you will have to wait til there is a baby to see pictures of. :) Woohoo!

So the Dr. Says...

I'm sitting here in Chris's office - still no luck with the internet at home. Thought I would give a little update cause I had another appointment this afternoon.
Nothing has changed since last Monday according to the doctor. Still 3 and 1/2 cm and 90% effaced. She says the baby is still sitting really low. (I am definitely well aware of that- VERY sore pretty much all the time now)
It took her a loooooooong time to find the heartbeat today which has never happened before but he kept moving out of the way. I would have been freaking out a little if I hadn't felt him kicking himself away from the machine. It was kinda funny. She said it's been a while since she has had one try THAT hard to get away from her. :) Once we FOUND the heartbeat it was fine though.
She said she was going to "let me go" one more week. We go back next tuesday and I guess if nothing has happened by then we will discuss inducing and stuff. She said she doesn't really think I will still be pregnant by this time next week though. I would be more excited about that comment....except that she told me 2 weeks ago that she didn't think I would still be pregnant last weekend, so really that could mean nothing.
I am getting pretty anxious. It's not fun to be this big and uncomfortable and STILL waiting on my baby boy to get here. I feel like we mentally prepared ourselves 2 weeks ago and nothing has happened and I'm just getting impatient. :)
On a random/interesting/weird note: I have had a couple of spells where I have had weird vision issues in the last week and 1/2. I didn't think much about it cause I know people say your vision can get worse while you are pregnant, but when I told the doctor today she seemed a little concerned. Basically, 2 separate times I have had spans where I cannot see correctly - as in, I try to read something and can only see half of a sentance or only portions of a page or screen and no matter how hard I try - I cannot focus on the rest. It's the strangest feeling. What made it a little more concerning is that the first time it happened I was also slurring words for a few minutes. (I think I tried to say one sentance to Chris 4 times in a row and there was one word I just COULD NOT spit out no matter how hard I tried.) I also tried to type an email during that time and had to keep erasing it because I was typing things....just not the words I was trying to type. It was SOO weird. That only lasted a few minutes so I let it go. Then my vision went all wacky again yesterday at lunch for about 45 minutes (no slurring this time) so I figured I'd better ask about it. The doctor said it COULD be nothing but that if it happens again she wants us to drop what we are doing and see her immediately because she wants to do some tests with my blood pressure. My BP has always been really good, even throughout the whole pregnancy. The doctor always tells me that mine BP when I'm pregnant is better than hers is when she isn't pregnant. But it's possible that something could be triggering it to increase at certain times and she just wants to check it if something similar happens with my vision or speech again. Hopefully it won't happen again.
So that is basically it. Every morning I wake up and wonder what I am waiting to feel that will let me know that I am in labor. I'm not looking forward to the pain, but I am looking forward to something happening that means our baby will be HERE. :)
Please oh please let him come soon! - as long as it's healthy for him to do so of course. ;)

A lots has happened

This is Chris. I am making my first appearance on this blog. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks so I thought I'd post a little update. Our internet at home has not been working lately, so Christie has not been able to get online much. Here is the latest:

A week ago Monday we went to the doctor. It was an educational visit for me. I learned a lot of new vocab words like dialated and effaced. Apparently our baby is ready to get life started sooner than later, because we were still over a month from our due date and she was 3 cm dialated and 80% effaced. I was not shocked until the doctor explained what these new words meant... then I was a little shocked. She seemed to think that there was a good chance that she would go into labor before 37 weeks, which would be considered full term. Today, marks 37 weeks, so we are pretty relieved that he did not come before today. Apparently our hospital has a policy that if a baby is born before 37 weeks (even 5 minutes before) they automatically keep the baby for the first 6 hours to monitor the health. We are thankful to be able to avoid that.

So basically what I am saying is that we are in hurry up and wait mode. We went into a little panic that day after the appointment. We rushed to pack a bag for the hospital and get a car seat so that we could actually take him home if he came early. Here we are, two weeks later, still waiting. We are still 3 weeks before the due date, but we are awaiting Zachary Paul Kauffman's arrival any day now. I'll keep you posted.