Day 5 - A Quiet Day and Zeka Time

It has been a fairly quiet day today which is great news for the Zilkies.  Julie got her best night of sleep yet and said she felt good this morning when we talked.  Several Rooftoppers stopped in today and she has enjoyed the fellowship time immensely.

Befuddled

Well Julie's situation is looking better and better with each day.  As we wrap up Day 4, her fluid levels were up a centimeter, from 12 to 13.  The doctors have even begun slightly to question again if her water really broke...

New Room

Julie's condition has stabilized enough that they have moved her to a new room (568) where she will have less monitoring and is designed more for comfort and waiting.  I have not yet seen it, but am excited to here soon.  If you want to communicate with Julie, emailing her at zilkie4@yahoo.com is your best way to contact her.

Day 4 - A Blessed Night & Better Morning

Well yesterday Julie turned 38 years old and officially became a year older than me...again.  This happens every year on the 5th of June until November 13th when I have my birthday.  I once again am now married to an "older woman"...which I think is really cool actually.  She really cherishes these 6 months every year and any references I make to them. :-)

Day 3 - Birthday & Back Pain

It has been over 48 hours since Julie's water broke and she has not gone into labor, that is a very good benchmark.  Most women go into labor within 48 hours after breaking their water so we have moved into the next percentage of women and the likelihood has increased for the baby hanging on.

This morning is Julie's 38th birthday.  Evidently , our usual night out to at Trattoria Marcella is not happening this year.  Our waiter is going to wonder where we are. :-)  We have another visit with the kids planned today and I am going to try to bring in some nicer food for a pseudo-birthday dinner, not sure if TM  cooks to go or not.

Our First Hospital Visit: Morning of Day 2

This morning after preparing breakfast, getting the house cleaned up, getting children dressed, helping them do their chores, and trying to take care of my own stuff...we finally got out of the house for a hospital visit around 10am.  It was great to see Julie but as I expected, 5 young children pouring into a small hospital room with a Mother who can't move was not as "romantic" or "nostalgic" as either Julie or I were thinking.  Nothing like a dose of child reality to help keep ones feet planted on the ground.  We had a good visit as I took a couple kids at a time down the hall for a walk so Julie could try to get some better 1 on 2 time with each of them.  Julie made the brilliant observation that we would try to talk later on the phone.

End Of Day Update - Day 1

Whew!!!  What a day.  I can say that neither Julie nor I went to bed last night with any idea of what today would bring.  We had 3 miscarriages the past 3 years, but this pregnancy had been going so smoothly up to this point.  We got through our first trimester just fine, reached the 20 week point and had our ultrasound...everything looked great and this child had a nice healthy big head like its Papa.  We were gearing up for the uncomfortable 3rd trimester in the Missouri summer heat, but felt as if we were in the clear regarding the health of Julie and the baby.

Settle In For The Night - 2PM

Well it looks like we will be here for a while.  Julie is leaking amniotic fluid from somewhere but nobody can find out where.  She has not yet begun laboring and we don't want to since the baby is only 24 weeks along.  There is still a lot of fluid in the womb, so they think that the leak may be higher in the womb and not at the bottom where it would all leak out.  Anyway, this is their initial best estimate of what is going on.  There are a number of steps and procedures that the hospital will begin as a result of their findings.  So now we wait and pray and take one blessed day in the womb at a time.  Please pray that the baby grows strong and that Julie does not go into labor.

A Turn In The Road - 11AM

It is Sunday morning, June 3rd, and we are currently sitting in St. John's Mercy Hospital here in St. Louis.  Last night Caroline had been up sick at around 2:30 and then again at 4:30am.  At that time Julie felt some fluid flow while lying in bed.  Concerned, but not wanting to overreact, she laid back down and ten minutes later it happened again.  This second occurrence led us to call our doctor.  He recommended us coming into the hospital as our doctor was in house for the evening.  When we got there, our doctor came in, ran an ultrasound, ran a standard test, and from everything he saw did not think the fluid was her bag of waters, which was the concern.  There were many pockets of fluid in the womb which could be seen on the ultrasound and the baby's was doing fine, so we agreed things looked good.

Parenting DOJO (Workshop) Resources - Part 2

Below are the "Parenting DOJO" resources for the 2nd workshop we gave in May.  The various topics are listed in bold and the resources pertaining to each topic are underneath.  Please comment with any questions you might have.  We would love to assist and help in whatever way possible.

(If you purchase these items through Amazon and do so through our links below, we would be very grateful.  There is no extra cost to you and we receive a referral credit from them.)

Scripture Memory:




A Scripture Memory System we recommend


(more below the fold)