Introducing.. the poop-face

My mom has always joked about how, when I was a baby, I used to make this specific face when I was pooping. I laughed it off every time she reminded me of this.. until these past couple days. Jack definitely gets this face from me. While this face is cute, you have NO idea what kind of mess is lurking about 10 inches south from this decieving adorableness. I truly belief that God made babies cute because otherwise people wouldn't like them. Don't mistake my words for meaning I don't like my son, I love my son dearly and wholey. But my lord is he stinky sometimes! I had no idea his little body could even produce such a "show". We have been lucky enough to only get a few of the dreaded explosive "gifts" so far. But I have heard that the TNT gets worse and more frequent with age. I guess we will find out. For all of you out there with children, why didn't you warn me? hello? And for all of my family/friends without children, I'm more than happy to be your poop-face warning liason to the parenting world.

Past couple days have been nothing out of the ordinary. Jeff and I are enjoying our time together and trying not to think about him leaving. We've mostly just stayed home lately. The UPS man brought me my books for school yesterday! I'm so excited to start at the end of this month and seeing the books, the physical evidence that I'm really re-entering the education world, that just made me even more excited. Last night, my husband and I enjoyed a "date night" at Olive Garden, just the two of us. My mom offered to watch the baby for us so we could have some time out of the house alone for the first time since he's been home (and last time most likely). I achieved a big accomplishment just in leaving the house without Jack. I have been very emotionally unstable in that area thanks to post-partum hormones. But last night, I did it. I was able to put my worries aside and enjoy my husband (and the breadsticks! yum!). Just wanted to congratulate myself, so thanks for letting me gloat.

Currently this morning, the boys are out "huntin' squirrel." By boys I mean Steven and Jeff. Steven has been a staple here at the Hartshorn/Krebs/Davis household lately. He and Jeff are so funny together. They have one of the most genuine friendships I've ever known. Living proof that some people in this chaotic world we call life really can be fully trustworthy and good-hearted friends. Sometimes I tend to look for the bad in the world and forget the good. Bad often overshadows good, but the good will always overcome the bad.

14 day old night owl

Jack is 2 weeks old today, well he will be at 15:37. He has changed so much since he was born. He is awake a lot more these days. Unfortunately, its mostly been during the nighttime recently. He was doing so good, and now it seems that his days and nights are confused. I guess it is to be expected with infants, especially newborns. Daddy and I are just hanging in there, and so are the bags under our eyes.

Good news for today: Jack had his 2 week check up and he is healthy as can be! He weighs 8 pounds 8 ounces, which is 10 ounces up from last week, and 6 ounces up from his birth weight. Go Jack! Somehow I'm not surprised considering he loves his bottle. Sometimes we have to take it from him because it seems he is trying to suck that thing inside out! He's eating about 4 ounces every four hours now, sometimes less, often more. We've started to recieve the oh so pleasant blessing of formula fed, horribly smelly diapers. Who would have thought that such a little person can make such a big mess?

Blogs have been few and far between lately, I know. I'm enjoying my family for this short amount of time I have them both together in one place. Everything else is negotiable right now. I promise the updates will pick back up soon. I'm not looking forward to Jeff leaving (obviously). I get kind of panicky when I think about it right now. Could be the hormones, could just be that I'm more in love with him right now than ever. Seeing him with our baby boy, its just amazing. He's such a good daddy already. You can tell that he loves his "little man" as he's come to call him, more than anything. Andddddd..... he loves me! And I'm going to miss him. I know, I know.. Right now you're saying "It'll be okay Kate, he'll be home soon, and you have Jack now, and blah blah blah." I don't mean to offend anyone trying to encourage me, but you can never understand until you've been there. It's a different kind of hurt, a different kind of worry. One you can't prevent and can't turn off, ever. My husband is the only one that I want to talk to about it, when he's gone. I'm going to miss his arms around me. That's my safe zone. I feel like nothing can hurt me there. When I look into his eyes right now, I see that he doesn't want to leave either. But we don't talk about it much. As much as it hurts to admit it, we've kind of fallen into a routine for him leaving out of habit. And we've done it without ever discussing it. We don't talk about it or plans for the day he leaves until we absolutely have to. We almost act like its not happening soon. Sometimes of course, I have breakdowns, and I cry, and I tell him I don't want him to leave. I feel so badly when I do that, because I don't ever want him to feel guilty for the huge, courageous sacrifice he's making in fighting for his country. But he never fails to make everything better when I have those breakdowns. He just sits with me and holds me until I've calmed down, and thats exactly what I need at those times. Amazing, how he knows exactly what I need huh? I couldn't ask for anything more/better. He's my only need. He and Jack are everything in this world to me. I try to always tell myself that when he's gone, he's gone for good reason. He's helping protect other people's families... Other people's everything.

:)

Its been 9 whole days since I last wrote but as many of you know, I have much good reasoning for that. My baby boy is HERE! and my husband is HERE! I do not even have words to explain how happy I am (notice the title). It feels like everything is right again. My life is together and nothing can touch me right now, nothing can break me.

Jackie James Davis II was born on September 17th, 2009 at 3:37pm. He weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. And if I do say so myself, he was the cutest baby in the nursery. Getting him here was not the easiest task in the world, but it was definitely worth the prize. I woke my mom up at 1:30am on Wednesday the 18th because my contractions were 5 minutes apart and getting stronger rapidly. She called the doctor and we headed for the hospital. Upon getting there, I was 7cm dilated already, so they took me straight to the birthing room. They were thinking I would be delivering fairly soon. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I cried through contractions for the first 2 hours, and then my savior came! Mr. Epidural came to stay with me starting at around 4am and I was able to get some sleep for a couple hours. Around 8am, they checked me and I was at 9cm! With the baby coming soon obviously, Dr. Parks had me start to push for practice. Everything was going well, and then the monitor said otherwise. Jack's heartrate dropped. And it didn't come back up. Dr. Parks gave the word for an emergency C-section and the room turned to a chaotic, scary mess. People running everywhere unhooking me from monitors, syringes shooting meds into my IV and epidural tubes, doctors and anesthesiologists frantically explaining risks to me. I just started crying, I was so scared. I didn't know what was happening, and most of all I just wanted to know that Jack was okay and no one would tell me that he was. They wheeled me towards the door and Dr. Parks stopped and said "wait, lets hook him back up and see, I think he's okay" And sure enough, Jack's heartrate was a strong 130's on average. I was still really scared, but nothing was more comforting than that constant, stron beat on the monitor. So, I got to continue with my labor. A couple hours after the mess of frantic people cleared out, I started to feel my contractions. Dr. Parks came in  and checked me around 2pm and I was 9cm still and miserable. Because I had been stuck at this dilation for SO long, he offered a C-section and regardless of my want to deliver him naturally, I knew that at this point a C-section was what was best for us. I would deal with the recovery if it meant this pain would go away and I would have him safely in my arms sooner. Dr. Parks said that the anesthesiologist would be coming in to make me more comfortable and after he delivered some other women that couldn't wait, I would be having my C-section. Well, he left and the contractions got worse, and worse, and worse. I couldn't speak really, I just cried to my mom to make it stop. I can remember her leaving the room a couple times to ask where the anesthesiologist was. The anesthesiologist never came. I labored, stuck at 9cm, with contractions every 1-2 minutes for 1 1/2 hours with NO relief of meds. My nurse came in and mom told her I was still hurting and she said that sometimes the meds don't work. Mom told her the anesthesiologist never came, and the nurse looked up and said "I am going to kill someone." Obviously she had no idea of this. I was wheeled straight into the operating room after that because I was in so much pain. My little boy was delivered with my mama by my side. I got to see him for about a minute and kiss his forehead before they took him. I told my mom to go with him. He needed to get an IV for meds, and be put under oxygen because of a fluid in his lungs. I didn't get to see him again until the next morning (Friday) after I was allowed to get up from my bed and go to the nursery. After two successful feedings that were anything but easy to achieve, he was able to get the IV removed and be sent to my room to be with me! We spent the rest of Friday and Saturday bonding and seeing visitors, and were able to go home Saturday morning!

I must say that even with finally being happily at home, Saturday felt like it was NEVER going to end. Why? Because we were impatiently waiting for daddy to arrive that evening. Nanny and Granddad picked him up from the Columbus airport at 5pm after hours and hours of flying to get home to his wife and son. He got to my mom's house a little before 7pm. I've never been so nervous in my life. I'm not sure why, but I was so anxious to see my own husband this time. We've said goodbye and said hello again many many times, but this time was different, someone else was saying hello too! I walked outside with my mom's help with Jack in my arms and Jeff's eyes lit up immediately I could feel him getting closer as he was walking but I couldn't take my eyes off his eyes. I could see every emotion through them. I could feel how close he was, and as he got closer it felt like every step took an hour. Finally I felt his arms around me! Finally, my family was together. Finally, Jeff was looking at our son smiling and tearing up just like I had imagined. It was almost a surreal experience, I can't explain it any other way. Jeff had said before that he didnt want to touch Jack until he had showered for fear of spreading some kind of weird Afghanistan germ onto him. And he held himself to that, showering so fast I thought his skin might fall off. He took his son into his arms and couldn't even move. He looked like he thought if he did, everything would disappear. I think until he held Jack, it was all just a thought to him until he actually felt him. My husband and I welcomed our son together on his first night in his crib. My family in the mirror is the greatest sight I've ever seen. I'm sitting here with my husband holding me, and my son sleeping peacefully by the bay window and I want to stay here forever. Someone please hand me the remote so I can push pause. Whoever you are that hands it to me, will have given me the greatest gift in the world.