Happy birthday to our Becca Grace! We’ve had a great two weeks celebrating in the midst of Micah’s birthday and Thanksgiving festivities. Becca’s countdown calendar had a Clue Game theme. Each frame that was opened included a treat as well as clues to who did NOT commit the crime. Becca started the game by making her own guesses. Treats included ice cream, going to the salon for nails and hair, movie, sleep-over, gifts, etc.
Becca’s birthday fell on a Sunday, so we celebrated on the Friday before and then had a sleep-over Sunday night. Becca made a brownie cake with peanut-butter icing and decorated it herself. We had lasagna and salad for her birthday meal, played Cadoo, ate cake, gave gifts, and then watched a slideshow of pictures and movies from her 14 years.
Becca is in the 8th grade and is an avid reader. She has read almost all of Dickens’ works (saving a few for our plane ride back to the US next year). Recently she was reading the works of Shakespeare. Becca is a very expressive pianist and works hard each morning to practice. She gets up at 5:30 every morning to start her day and practice the piano; she’s usually the first person up every morning. Becca teaches our younger kids a SS class during our Khmer Bible study. She plans her own lessons and activities, working through the Bible. She also teaches an English class every Sunday afternoon to our neighbor kids. Becca also enjoyed writing. She has several different non-school writing projects in process. She also produces a family newspaper once a month. Becca enjoys art – painting, drawing, and lettering. She also crochets stuffed animals. It’s been fun to watch Becca grow in so many different creative abilities.
Sunday night Josh left for Pastor’s Bible school, so Becca and I had a sleep-over. We ate popcorn and played lots of Dutch Blitz. For Becca’s birthday movie we watched Lamb & Flag Studio’s Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place. It was an excellent production and well worth the time and money to rent.
We’re delighted with God’s gift of Becca and His protection in her life. Thankful. Happy Birthday Becca!
Today is Micah’s 3rd birthday! This is Micah’s first year to have a birthday countdown calendar, and all he cares about is being able to put it in his shelf once it’s completed. When I told him it was his birthday he said, “Then I can put the calendar in my shelf.” We went swimming for his birthday last Saturday.
We gave Micah his birthday present several weeks ago when his old moto broke. We didn’t want him to go weeks missing out on all the fun riding with Ezra.
Micah is a fun little boy who is full of energy and is almost always ready for a good time. He loves laughing and being a goof. He’s mostly potty-trained and still wears a diaper at night. He still sleeps in his pack-n-play. He eats a lot – but it’s not very evident from how skinny he is – he still wears size 12 month shorts.
He loves playing with Ezra inside and outside. They are double trouble and love laughing together. Micah loves to build with Magnatiles and to play outside with trucks in the dirt. He loves to be read to and enjoys joining in with Ezra’s school, learning his letters. I’m surprised at how much he is able to do with Ezra. Every time I see those boys playing together I’m so thankful God gave them to each other!
Micah wanted a tiger cake for his birthday. He helped bake it the day before and watched me frost it this morning. Tonight we’ll have spaghetti for dinner, eat cake, give gifts, and watch a slideshow of pictures of Micah’s 3 years. Isaiah gave his present (play dough) to Micah this morning to spread out the fun during the day!
In the afternoon, Isaiah made a fort with the boys and they did a craft together. Micah enjoyed his cake and loved the gifts his siblings gave to him: Becca – clothes, Anna – a giant dump truck, Clara – small truck, Ezra – guns.
We’re so thankful for our Micah and look forward to seeing all the ways he’s going to grow this new year!
One of the things I love to do is help people learn/memorize Scripture through music. The Word of our Lord is strong and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword. My hope is that people will know God’s Word and that He will bring it to their minds throughout their lives.
Today we celebrated Cambodia Coronation Day by crowning 7 Kings and Queens of Cambodia! The morning included crown-making, face-painting, and the coronation with entertainment included. This evening we will have a piano recital with recitations by each of the newly crowned monarchs.
Last Saturday we had a family carnival for our kids just for fun. It included lunch downstairs and several games, then ended with ice cream and soda.
Our little three month old loves to smile and talk…and maybe sing, since her talking sounds like singing. She’s full of smiles when I interact with her, but they are hard to capture with the camera. Since last month, Maria has become an avid thumb sucker, which is a huge help in her napping and sleeping. She is starting to take naps in her bed in the mornings. I think she was born for sucking her thumb.
Maria continues to sleep great through the night, usually from 9ish to 6amish. Becca finished her gift to Maria and presented her with Elinor, a pink elephant.
Right at the 3 month mark, Maria started rolling from her stomach to her back. This causes a slight problem, since she won’t sleep on her back. But that’s ok.
We’re all loving watching little Maria grow little by little. She still has her crying time while I put the other kids to bed at night, but Anna seems to be her favorite, and Maria quiets down soon after Anna goes out and holds her and sings to her.
One of the blessings of being in PP during Maria’s birth was all the friends, new and old, we were able to interact with. There were several families that stayed at the CMA Family Home while we were there and our kids enjoyed getting to hang out with them.
Our kids especially enjoyed when the Waldocks stayed a fews and overlapped with the Kanes. It was like an MK summer camp – lots of loud, fun group games. Our teammates the Kanes and Farmers were also there for several days. It was nice for the kids to have friends to play with.
We enjoyed many visits with the Nhoemvans. The kids worked on the Mary Poppins rehearsals twice each week and enjoyed those get-togethers. I enjoyed all the extra chats with Ayra and Kim C.
We loved being able to attend CCOP each Sunday. The younger kids loved having a service in English and going to their classes. We enjoyed meals with the Whittakers – who have been our friends since we arrived in PP. A few people from CCOP provided us meals after Maria was born – I was so touched by their kindness. I cannot mention meals without thanking Heather W. for providing us at least 4 freezer meals…and she is a very busy IW.
We thoroughly enjoyed Josh’s participation with the SIL Grammar workshop. Our family got to eat lunch with the participants each day, and the kids loved interacting with the grammarians. It really was a treat for them. The kids also did baking for the grammarians to have snacks. At the end of the workshop the whole group along with other SIL workers went on a dinner river boat cruise. It was a bit stressful with little kids and not exactly safe railings, but the kids loved it! And there was karaoke! I rewrote the words to My Favorite Things and started off the evening singing about Grammar. I think all our girls got up and sang hymns without accompaniment and Josh joined a group of guys to sing a S&G song. Very fun.
I wouldn’t chose or suggest having to travel 9 hours away to have a baby, but if you have to do it, it’s a blessing to be in a place where there are people who love you and your family. We enjoyed getting to know other new people too – who would invite us over or visit with us. So thankful for the IW family in PP and for the kindness of the staff ladies at the Family Home.
We left PP on August 14 and drove to Crowelys’ house and then returned to our home the following day. Everyone did great in the car and a few days later a friend came to welcome us back. So Thankful!
We celebrated International Talk Like a Pirate Day the third week of September. In the evening, the kids did a great production of Jonny Duddles’s book, The Pirate Cruncher. Becca wrote the script. They did a great job.
The younger boys have been keeping busy watching the builders, copying the builders, and just playing and having fun. Ezra is almost done with learning all the lower/uppercase letters. Micah usually participates with us. Micah wakes up at night once in a while and Josh walks him back to sleep.
Maria turned two months on Sept 22nd. She has a cute smile and loves to talk. She’s happy one minute and crying the next. As far as we can tell, she just likes to cry before she falls asleep…in someone arms and NOT in her bed. Her toughest time of day is around 7pm when I’m putting the kids to bed – she wails! For some reason, she takes no comfort from Josh and often Anna or Clara walk her around until her falls asleep, or I come out again. However – she’s a great sleeper in her bed at night. Maria now consistently sleeps through the night, going down around 9 and sleeping until 6am-ish. It’s a nice gifts from her!
We’re all enjoying our baby girl, and more and more she seems to be enjoying her family. She loves people and hates being alone.
Here’s a few comparison pictures when Anna was the same age.
Maria doesn’t like to sleep in her bed during the day, though she sleeps in bed like a champ at night. So we just go with the flow and try our best to continue the day.
Around 3 in the afternoon, the day Maria was born, Josh brought the kids over to meet her. They had all seen her briefly that morning before we left for the hospital. All the siblings were very anxious to hold their new sister. Micah just kept laughing with excitement while holding his new baby “aria” (he was having trouble remembering the m).
No one seemed bothered that the new baby was a girl, instead of a boy. And our boys kept commenting about how cute Maria was.
I shall start with my three doctor’s appointments before Maria was born. At Orienda I never met with the same doctor, so I didn’t feel like I had a relationship with a doctor for delivery. This made my appointments a bit frustrating as I had to do all the hospital protocol tests, but never had one doctor I was discussing things with. (The two little boys were always delighted to go to my appointments, since Josh would take them to the pediatric floor and they loved the play area there. They also loved the free boxed soy milk and candy.)
At all three appointments I had to have 20 minutes of fetal heartbeat monitoring. These ended up being frustrating, since at the first two, the doctor was never satisfied with the first 20 minutes, and I would end up lying there for over an hour for two more monitoring sessions. I couldn’t tell what the problem was, since the heartbeat was usually within normal range – they just didn’t like that there wasn’t enough variety. I didn’t even feel like the monitoring was necessary since I was very aware of Maria’s daily movements. At the last appointment, I drank orange juice at breakfast to rouse Maria from her morning nap, so she had lots of heartbeat variety!
My last appointment before Maria was born had me at the hospital from 9 to 1. Most of the time I was waiting, but it was very frustrating since I often didn’t know what I was waiting for. Everyone was very nice, but things had to be checked off the protocol list. I had to meet with the anesthesiologist just in case I needed a c-section or wanted pain relief. He was the nicest anesthesiologist I’d ever met with, and he didn’t think I would need any pain relief. (I told him moaning was a form pain relief!)
When I finally met with the doctor that day, she checked my cervix and measured me dilated at a 3-4. She wanted to admit me to the hospital (this was Monday, July 17th) and told me that I would have the baby that night. I strongly requested to go home and be allowed to come back when I was in labor. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to go into labor that night and didn’t want to be committed to the hospital and risk a c-section. We discussed how close we lived to the hospital, and once I said I would assume full responsibility for my decision, the doctor was happy to let me go. I did have to fill out a “Patient Refusal to Accept Medical Advice” form. I was hoping the doctor was right, but as it turned out I didn’t go into labor until 5 days later, so I was very glad I didn’t agree to be admitted into the hospital.
Josh had been praying we would make it to the hospital for the birth. He was initially surprised when I said I wasn’t praying for that and that I was simply praying it would just happen at a good place. Once Josh saw how frustrating the hospital appointments were for me and felt good about the hospital being so close, I think he was ready for another guesthouse birth if that’s what ended up happening.
Because I had contractions almost every night, I told Josh that if I went into labor during the day, we’d probably make it to the hospital. But I just couldn’t stay awake every night to “see” if this was going to turn out to be real labor. At night my goal was to just try to go back to sleep.
The guesthouse manager had also supplied us with a box of old towels, just in case. 😊
The night of July 21st I went to bed feeling very heavy. I didn’t start having noticeable contractions until sometime after 3am. This was unusual, since I’d been having contractions from 1-3am most nights; they always stopped around 3. That night I didn’t look at my watch until a little after 4am, and since it was after 3, I wondered if these contractions were going to turn into active labor. I started thinking about waking Josh up.
I knelt at the bed (due to contraction pain) and woke Josh up and told him it was time to go to the hospital. He was up quickly and got ready to go. But I wasn’t getting ready too fast, since I had to keep stopping to get through contractions.
I continued to mentally prepare for going to the hospital, but then my water broke and I knew we were not going anywhere. I was not going to attempt walking down three sets of steps to get to the car. From there things happened fast and after about three pushes, and Maria was caught by Josh. I remember him saying she was slippery. I was able to hold Maria, making sure she was breathing. She was interested in nursing right away.
Josh woke the rest of the kids up so they could see their baby sister, and then we walked down the stairs and got into the car to go to the hospital.
Once at the hospital – they took us into the ER and cut Maria’s cord. They didn’t take her from me until after they wheeled me into the labor and delivery room. My least favorite part – the hospital L&D room. Once they finished up their work, I had to wait 2 hours in the L&D room. While was there, the doctor who had seen me earlier in the week and wanted me to stay whisked in. She told me that my home birth wouldn’t have happened if I had listened to her on Monday and stayed. I laughed and told her that she said I would have the baby on Monday, and then I proceeded to count all the days using my fingers – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday – showing her that it was now 5 days later! We had a good laugh over it! She asked me if I had a headache or felt dizzy and then jokingly told me I could go home.
I ended up in the L&D room for over 3 hours before they were satisfied and moved us up to our hospital room. We had Maria with us the entire time, except when they took her to weigh her and do a check-up. It was lovely.
Hospital protocol required me to have the IV in for 24 hours (though, by the time they took it out, it was more than that). Another least favorite part about being in the hospital. I think I was a bit of a surprise to the hospital staff. In less than 24 hours, I was up and waking around, wanted a shower, and was asking to have my IV out. The hospital staff would often tell me that I was “strong” – they would say the word in English. I think they were surprised that I refused the paracetamol they offered and that I didn’t want to take unnecessary medications.
I was in the hospital for three nights. All three nights I had Maria in the bed with me and we both slept terribly, but that’s hospital life. Becca spend the nights with me, so Josh could be with the kids at night. Josh brought breakfast to me in the mornings (Khmer breakfast wasn’t great for milk supply) and kept me supplied with snacks and fruit smoothies. We had two friends watch the kids in the mornings and then Josh would bring them to visit in the afternoons. I had two friends visit me in the hospital – Ayra and Crystal.
The hospital staff was very kind and the room was nice. We were visited by a pediatrician and an ObGYN twice a day (usually a different one each time). The nurses were great. No one “scolded” me for having so many children – in fact a few doctors told me to have three more so we would have 10 children. 🙂 The hospital did a photo shoot of Maria and then a “exit” photoshoot of Josh, Maria, and me. It was hilarious.
Afterthoughts:
I loved Maria’s birth. It was the first birth that Josh was very involved and mentally prepared to be involved. I loved it because we did it together. (The only thing I would change would all the hospital interventions afterwards.)
It was around Thanksgiving that Maria began making her growing presence known. I wasn’t expecting my pregnancy symptoms to start so soon, but Thanksgiving dinner was not as pleasant to eat as I had hoped. Thus started my nausea that ended up lasting almost my entire pregnancy. By late third semester it was on and off, but still with me. I’m thankful that I never had severe nausea or throwing up, but I typically had “yucky” feelings after meals and a metallic taste in my mouth, even after eating something “delicious.”
Due Date
I had two due dates – July 26 and July 21st – depending on whether you wanted to go with natural counting or ultrasound measurements, so we just told people the end of July. I’m not a big fan of due dates – it’s so much easier to have a range than a specific date in mind.
Picture at 17 Weeks
Braxton Hicks
My Braxton Hicks with Maria started before 20 weeks and continued all the way until birth. Every night I would wake up with multiple Braxton Hicks and run to the bathroom, but this was just my was normal for me and didn’t really bother me at all. I just figured I would be in tip-top shape to give birth.
Picture at 21 Weeks
Gallbladder Pain
Sometime in Feb/March I started having upper abdominal pain, which seemed to be associated with eating. Sometimes it would be severe and last only a short while. Sometimes it would be mild and last for hours. And when it stopped, there was no explanation for why it ceased. I realized that eating nuts (my go-to snack that Josh kept me stocked with) set the pain off and soon it seemed like all eating was a problem. For over a week I did very minimal eating since I didn’t want to deal with the pain.
On April 7th I had an ultrasound done at a local clinic to check Maria’s amniotic fluid (I always like to do this around the time Becca’s was low). I asked the doctor to check my gallbladder and he found a few polyps. This wasn’t a surprise, since after Micah was born the clinic did a routine post-birth ultrasound and noted that I had a few polyps. But this was the first time that they caused me significant pain. I was able to contact a doctor who specialized in gastrointestinal issues, and he gave me some advice. So I stopped eating nuts and watched my other food and was able to usually ward off the pain for the rest of the pregnancy.
Pictures at 23 Weeks
Exercising
One thing I didn’t deal with much in this pregnancy was back pain. Sometime in 2nd trimester, I started exercising with Classical Stretch for pregnancy and it was very helpful. I kept up exercising until probably a week and a half before Maria was born.
I also dealt a lot more with side ligament pain much more than other pregnancies. I’m not sure if it was because I had been exercising before and my muscles were in better shape, or if it was just a fluke. My varicose veins in my left leg were a continual problem. I’m sure the exercising helped, but it’s just one of the things I’ve had to deal with in my later pregnancies.
7th Child
I’d spent so many years wondering if we’d be able to have 6 children (due to Becca’s premature birth, 2 c-sections, miscarriages), that it was a new concept to think that we were going to have 7 children. For some reason the jump from 6 to 7 seemed major. Going to American the following year with 7 children was on my mind a lot. That’s a big family to house when visiting churches. That’s a lot of people to manage in a continually changing environment with trying to visit people and with being with people constantly. And then of course there is the overwhelming gift of having another soul to nurture and point to Christ. I’ve always said that feeding and clothing a child isn’t that hard – but discipling them is another issue. It’s a huge responsibility.
Telling the Kids
We didn’t end up telling the kids about Maria until our family Valentine’s Day party. I figured some of them had noticed my growing belly (but none had). Isaiah and Becca thought it was funny that Josh and I had gone out for a bit one afternoon (for an ultrasound). We were decorating heart cookies and I did one that said “Baby” on it. The kids were mostly surprised and excited!
Finding a Doctor
One of our challenges was finding a doctor in Phnom Penh. Even though I’ve had 4 VBACs since my two c-sections, I am still considered a risk by most doctors, and they prefer to c-section. The doctor who I went to for Micah had left the clinic and was nowhere to be found. I needed to find a doctor in Phnom Penh who would allow me to have a VBAC.
We traveled to PP May 22nd to find a doctor. The first doctor I went to, Dr. Ty, had her own maternity clinic and was very positive toward big families. I really liked her. But when I asked her, “If I go into labor, will you let me deliver?” she wouldn’t give me a straight answer. She spent a long time talking about the risks and recommending a government hospital, but she wouldn’t say no or act like she didn’t want me to be her patient. I even said, “You are the doctor, and I want you to be comfortable. I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. Are you comfortable with allowing me to give birth naturally if I go into labor?” Again, she wouldn’t give me a clear answer, and I left feeling like I would end up with a c-section if I stayed with her.
The next place we went was Royal Phnom Penh Hospital – a hospital connected with a major hospital in Thailand. I met with Dr. Mumu, who a few of my friends had delivered their babies with. She was a very nice lady, but hospital policy was going to make a VBAC difficult. As it ended, I was going to have to have a special meeting with the hospital safety management team, if I wanted to attempt a VBAC. This also left me with the feeling that if I went with this doctor and that hospital, I would end up with a c-section.
Picture at 33 Weeks
Our last resort was a brand-new hospital, about 3 minutes from the CMA guesthouse where we were staying (in fact we could see it from our window). We walked in without an appointment and asked if they allowed VBACs and if I could see a doctor. They sent me right up to the maternity floor. I joked with Josh that I would probably see some young male doctor, and indeed when I saw called in to see the doctor that is exactly what he was. This doctor had no issues with my having a VBAC. In fact, he said that since I had already had 4 VBACs the hospital wouldn’t even consider me a VBAC (with pricing – VBACs are always more expensive). I was so happy to hear this that I knew immediately we would go with this hospital.
One of the issues about visiting three different doctors is that each doctor seemed to find something different wrong with me. The first two doctors reminded me that I had two C-sections so I was at risk for uterine rupture, I was old so of course there were issues with hemorrhaging, and I had had six other pregnancies which would also increase the risk of hemorrhaging. Not very encouraging.
Dr Ty noted my cervix was shorter than normal and decided that I was contracting too much and gave me 15 days of medicine to stop contractions. Which I never ended up taking, since 15 days wasn’t going to help that much and she hadn’t explained the medication at all.
The doctor at Orienda International Hospital made a comment about my amniotic fluid being on the borderline of being low and then said If I had more than 10 contractions in a day I need to come back.
All these things gave me a lot to think about as I returned home to Oyadao. We were only home a few days before I suspected I was leaking amniotic fluid and was having increased contractions. I contacted two doctor friends and said we were considering getting thing checked out. Both thought that was wise, and since I had been told to return if I had more than 10 contractions, we decided it would be best to go back to PP. We left in a rush Tuesday around 1:30pm and arrived in PP a little before midnight. It was a crazy trip with several downpours in the dark, but we made it, and the kids did well. The next day I went to the doctor and everything checked out fine and they said I could go home. (In fact, they measured more amniotic fluid than the week before.) So even though it was a crazy trip, we were glad we went for peace of mind the next two months!
Picture at 35 Weeks
Unfortunately, at that appointment, with all the rush and concern, I forgot to tell the ultrasound doctor that we didn’t want to know the gender and she told us at the beginning. So, Josh and I found out we were expecting a girl, though we didn’t tell others the news and let it be a surprise.
Things continue as normal, for me, until the night of June 20th. I had a few hours of contractions that were like the ones I’ve routinely had before giving birth. The issue with these contractions is sometimes they stop and sometimes they switch into active labor fast and it’s hard to know what will happen. That night I was trying to think about where I would give birth in our house and then what we would do. The next morning Josh and I debated what to do and by supper time we decided that we would pack up and go to Phnom Penh the next day. Josh didn’t want to wait another night or wait for another bad night until deciding to go and thought it was best just to go down and wait until Maria was born. So we left two and a half weeks before we were planning to. Thankfully, from our previous trip, I had kept many things still packed up or in one place so it wasn’t that difficult to pack or take school stuff with us for our – what was now going to be a – long weeks in PP.
Once we got to Phnom Penh there were no more nights of contractions and things seem to settle down. I decided that Maria just really liked being in Phnom Penh. Thankfully before we left Josh was able to set up everything for the Bible translators to work with him online, so he was able to continue working with the Bible translators on the translation while living in the CMA guest house.
So, we started our long stay at the CMA guest house with a thought that Maria could be born at any time, and though there were contractions every night there were never those pre-birth contractions like I had had back at home that I feel like we’re going to send me into preterm labor.
Maria wins the medal. Last night she slept 7 hours! Sunday night – 5 hours Monday night – 5 hours Tuesday night – 6 hours I know this could stop, but I’m hopeful that she’s on a new, early sleeping trend. Maria’s up a lot during the day and doesn’t like to nap in her bed (I hold her a lot during the day) and often eats every two hours. So she keeps us all busy – thankfully, Maria has several older siblings who can hold her when I need both hands free. BUT if Maria is going to sleep most the night, I’ll take it!
Tuesday we celebrated Maria’s one month birthday. We’re so glad to have her in our family. The other night, as I was putting Ezra to bed, he said: “Maria is so cute. I’m glad Maria is a girl because I wanted Maria to be a girl. Because she’s so cute!” (This is bogus – before Maria was born, Ezra insisted that the baby must be a boy so he could help be one of Ezra’s workers. He would not accept the possibility that he might have a sister! But I’m glad Ezra has repaired his memory! 🙂
Last week we celebrated Ezra’s 5th birthday in Phnom Penh. We started with his countdown calendar, had his party on the 9th, and had little treats until the 13th (including root beer floats). One nice thing about being in Phnom Penh was easy access to a large variety of gifts. The real hard hat was given to Ezra by Isaiah.
We had our friends the Nhoemvans and Kim over for Ezra’s party. Dinner was hotdogs with Mac & Cheese. Ezra wanted his cake to look like a favorite stuffed animal dog named Boy. Part of Ezra’s party was playing Tiger, Tiger, Hunter.
One of Ezra’s favorite things is building roads outside – using trucks, dirt, and sand. He loves being a worker and having workers help him. He was hoping his new sibling would add to his force of workers – he associated worker with brother. But he’s been pretty happy to have Maria and always talks about her being cute.
Another thing Ezra loves to do is cook. Usually at home he’s helping our helper cut vegetables. Some of his gifts included a cutting board, measuring cups, and a pot (all real – not toys). Ezra is full of life and loves talking to people. He loves his friend Map here at home. And he loves playing with Micah – they are a bunch of fun and full of energy!
We’re thankful for our Ezra! Happy Birthday to our newest 5 year old!
Monday night our children along with the Nhoemvan girls performed the Mary Poppins Broadway musical. They have been rehearsing together, twice a week, every week since we’ve been here.
We had a dinner, then watched the play, and ended with dessert. Becca starred as Mary Poppins, Isaiah was Mr. Banks, Anna was Mrs. Banks, and Clara was Miss Corey, the maid, and a few other roles. Kolianne was the Director of the musical and played the role of Jane, Jodanai was Michael, and Mileah was Burt and a few other roles. Everyone did an excellent job and they all had fun performing. It was a great success!
July 20 I celebrated my 41st birthday. We were wondering if Maria would arrive on my birthday, but she decided to wait, which was my preference. (I do so much for my kids’ birthdays – I was not sure I wanted to be exhausted on my birthday every year! 🙂
Josh and the kids had a lovely breakfast ready for me in the morning, complete with a watermelon fruit basket, bacon, eggs, and croissants. Afterwards we went to a pool and spent most of the day swimming and eating lunch. It was a very relaxing way to spend the day with our family. And I did a lot of swimming, which felt good.
We came home later afternoon and the kids made a pound cake. We had subs for supper, pound cake with strawberries and whipped cream for dessert. Then we did gifts and a slide show of my life. 🙂 It was a lovely day and my family made me feel very special. And all that swimming did not coax Maria to arrive, even the next day.
Last week and this week, Josh has been assisting an SIL Grammar Workshop, right where we’re staying. This workshop has been scheduled for 3 years, and it ends up the timing worked perfectly with Maria’s birth. The workshop is for SIL Bible translators who are working on a grammar for the language they are currently or going to translate. There are nine translators from four different countries here for the workshop. Josh is a mentor to two of the participants. Every morning there are intense lectures by Dr. Paul Kroeger (from Texas) and every afternoon Josh works with his two mentees (both missionaries in Cambodia). It’s a 10-day workshop with a weekend break in-between. They finish this Friday and in the evening we’ll all go out on a dinner boat ride on the river.
Dr. Kroeger was one of Josh’s linguistics professors at UTA and was on his dissertation committee. When SIL was setting up the workshop, Paul especially requested that Josh be involved. It’s been a thrill for us to spend extra time with Dr. Kroeger and for Josh to be able to work with him.
Our kids have enjoyed baking snacks for the grammar participants and eating lunch with them and hearing different stories from their home and host countries. We’re the only family/kids here, since that was part of Josh’s conditions in agreeing to participate in the workshop. He didn’t want to leave us for over two weeks. It’s been a great experience for our kids.
We ended up coming to Phnom Penh to wait for #7’s birth 2.5 weeks earlier than planned, because of some unusual contractions I had one night. Due to how fast I go from having mild contractions to giving birth, Josh decided he’d rather not wait until I had more bad nights to come, so we arrived in PP June 22nd. Thankfully there was space in the guesthouse for us to stay the extra time, and we only had to move once.
The first thing we did after arriving was to visit a lady from our church who was at a hospital in PP for intestine complications that resulted from 2 surgeries. The doctors were sending her home with no hope for recovery and said once she left, she would probably live about 5 days. Her daughter is one of my Jarai ladies Bible teachers at our church. I was so glad we were able to visit with them and say goodbye. She left for home a few days later, and amazingly it’s 3 weeks later and she’s still living and started eating and drinking again.
We had several things we were hoping to get done before the baby comes, like going to the dentist (his picture is at the top of the blog). One of the most important was renewing most of the kids’ passports at the American Embassy. We had our appointment last week and were only in the Embassy about an hour – very thankful. Afterwards we went to a place that had an outdoor playground for lunch to celebrate.
I brought some school for the kids to do while we are here – so that really helps give us some routine in our day and keeps people from going stir-crazy. The younger girls have science and spelling, the older two have history, science, and spelling/grammar. We’ve also had time to do some extra things. The first week we were here Clara made an apple pie. We visited a craft store and the boys bought plaster of paris magnet kits to make and paint. The boys also bought astronaut helmets to design, though Micah reused the stickers to decorate faces!
I think we’ve finished most of our errands, appointments, and repairs (jewelry, computer, camera). Josh and I had a nice anniversary date. The last thing I wanted to do was get my pre-birth hair cut. I haven’t had a good haircut since right before Micah was born – it was quite long.
We’ve settled into a good routine. Josh has been able to work with his translators over the internet and is getting more work done than he expected. The kids are working on rehearsing a musical with their friends the Nhoemvans twice a week. They plan to have a performance before we leave. We’ve enjoyed going to English speaking church and getting together with friends that we have down here. One evening we had a Christmas carol sing with some friends.
Anna and Clara were invited to a princess birthday party last week – first time to ever be invited to an all-girls party. They were so excited to go. The two younger boys love going to my doctor appointments, since the pediatric floor has a playground. Micah can’t wait to go to the “doctor place.”
So now we wait. While we’d rather be home, we’re very thankful for the place God has provided us to wait in and for the things we’ve been able to do. I’m very thankful for air-conditioning at night and during naps. I’ll be very happy to be holding our new baby and have all the uncertainties of birthing (hoping for another VBAC) in Cambodia behind me. This is a good time to practice trusting in God’s timing and planning, when things are out of my hands. Thankful!
Written July 15 – who knows, maybe by the time this is published we’ll have a baby here!
