It has been an interesting week, to say the least. Not exactly what we planned, but God knows 🙂

We got home late Monday night from a missions conference about 9 hours away (BTW, thanks to the good folks of Grace Baptist Church in Newport NC for an awesome week!). Tuesday was our only free day before leaving for another two conferences starting on Wednesday. Well, since we’re hardly in town these days, we scheduled an appointment with Aubrie’s doctor. With one month to go on our pregnancy, we found out that Aubrie was having contractions every 7-8 minutes, was 4 cm dilated and 50% effaced! Basically, she was way ahead of schedule and at risk to go into preterm labor. Soooo, off to the hospital we went. Aubrie’s doctor wanted to get her hooked up to an IV to get lots of fluids in her and continue to watch her contractions and the baby.

Long story short, we only stayed a few hours before they sent us home with very specific instructions for Aubrie to be on bed rest, mainly to keep this baby from coming too early. The goal is to get us until May 3rd when she’ll be a full 37 weeks. That’s still 3 weeks early, but it will be far enough along that the baby shouldn’t have any complications.

Wait… bed rest? What’s that??

Like I said, it’s been an interesting week! I cancelled our other two conferences and decided to stay home to take care of Aubrie and Amira. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve occasionally cooked meals, washed clothes, washed dishes, changed diapers, cleaned the house and kept up some with our 2-year-old before… but this has been a whole new ball game. Taking care of these things exclusively while Aubrie rests has been an eye opener to how awesome of a wife and mother she is! To think she does this stuff all the time, without complaining and still keeping up with me as we travel… well, it’s amazing! And some people say that housewives don’t have real jobs… ha.

I know you’ll read this Aubrie… Thank you. I love you and appreciate all you do. You’re the best.

Now, if we can keep this child cooking for just a little longer that would be great. Only a few more days left until we can reach 37 weeks. Aubrie is still having plenty of contractions, even with rest. But we know our next little princess will come when she’s ready, and God will give strength and grace to bring her into this world.

I’ll let you all know when our girl arrives. As the day approaches I’ll be posting pictures and micro updates on our Twitter and Facebook accounts if you’d like to stay even more up-to-date. Thanks for your prayers. We love y’all!

Here’s a video of Amira getting ready for her little sister’s arrival. She and her mommy have made a book to read to her. It is adorable.