He is here...Zachary Alexander

God and Zachary decided that this past Wednesday night would be the time to arrive instead of waiting until November 3 for when things were all planned. I had my first contraction at 8:23pm as I was getting in the car at church to go home. Andrew and I made it home and when I got out of the car I think is when my water broke. I was in complete denial that anything was happening because I didn't know what a real contraction felt like. After getting Andrew straight to bed I took a shower and was still having contractions. They were coming about every two to three minutes by that point. At 9:30 I went ahead and called Eric to tell him to get home quick. Still not knowing that I was in labor I thought we could go to the hospital incase it might be false labor. Eric got home about 10:00 and we all jumped into the car (Andrew was really hard to wake back up) to go to the hospital. Eric asked if I wanted to go to the Mansfield hospital instead of where we were registered and I told him no. Even though I was in quite a bit of pain I still wanted something to go right.

Eric did a fantastic job driving and keeping his calm even though he was a wreck inside. The roads were wet and it was still raining. Made me a little nervous because we were running red lights left and right (as careful as possible). Only once did we almost get into a wreck but God spared us all (that was a major praise). My contractions were coming every 30 seconds to 1 minute by this point. We pulled into the ER and Eric ran in to tell them that his wife was in labor. They ran a wheelchair out to me and than started getting me into triage to check my status. I remember the lady saying "Oh, she is ready" and I was thinking "Oh my goodness, this is so painful". I was feeling the urge to push before we even got to the hospital but the staff continued to remind me not to push. Obviously that is easier said than done. The doctor got there just in time and I think once they told me I could take advantage of the urge to push it only took about 4 pushes and we heard Zach's cry.

Through God's grace and mercy I ended up having a VBAC without any meds. Praise God! I was fully prepared for a c-section and a much longer recovery. Eric told me that he got to actually see Zach being born which was something he didn't do with Andrew since Andrew was an emergency c-section. What a neat privilege.

We are all so excited to now have Zach as a physical part of our family now. He is such a sweetie pie. He weighed 7lbs. 14oz. and was 19 1/4 inches long.

I will write more later but wanted to get some pictures up as soon as things were somewhat calm. Here is our new bundle of joy and happiness.

Mommy and Zach.

Daddy and Zach.

Baby Zach.

Big brother Andrew and little brother Zach.

Mommy, after a wonderful shower and Zach .

Andrew waiting to take his little brother home.

Baby Zach ready to go home.

The whole new Stratton Family.

One more cute picture of the super cute brothers.

That's it for now but when things calm down even more I will try to update some more.

Love, Stephany

Time is going by so fast.

We have had a great weekend together as a family. Andy and Daddy worked on a class project which highlights Andy as the student of the week. It turned out really cute. Eric took lots of pictures of Andy today doing things that he loves and then we printed them off to glue to a poster board. Then Andy got to put stickers all over and color in with markers wherever he wanted.

Zach is still the mover he has been and I don’t know if I would change that. It helps me to know that he is okay. We only have just a little more time before he makes his entry into this world and a more physical part of our lives. We worked on getting his room almost completely ready. We are just waiting on the mattress that my mom will be bringing with her when she comes later this month.

I have been trying to volunteer my time to Andy’s teacher before Zach gets here because I know I will not have time for a while once he is here. I really like helping and I feel it is right up my alley.

I have a super awesome best friend. Shela has gone out of her way and is throwing me a baby shower tomorrow with some other friends. She is so kind and thoughtful of others. I really wish I had her gift of being lead by the Spirit so well. She is also such an encourager even when she herself is going through so much. I constantly pray I can be half as good a friend to her as she is to me. (No, I am not talking height wise. LOL, she’s taller than me by at least a foot)

Eric has been quite the rock for me this pregnancy. Although he has taken a few more cracks at me than the first time. I can’t say I blame him. His sense of humor is one of the things that can turn my gray days sunny. He is doing so much in trying to get us ready for Zach and keeping things going with Andy. He is the peacemaker in our house, especially on the days when Andy and I just can’t seem to get along.

I haven’t put any pictures up for a while so here are a few pictures:

Here is our super cool dude!

  Here is me bare foot and pregnant in the laundry room, lol. The irony is I went straight to the kitchen next to make breakfast.

Here is Andy with Perry the Puppy. This is our family gift to baby Zach. We made him at Build-a-Bear last weekend. We all added one heart each. We then let Andy take over and groom him, name him and bring him home. I will be adding a red bandana to Perry to kind of match the doggy in the nursery theme.

Have a great night and God bless, Stephany