Jael's Journey: The Beginning

To say the least, our little girl's adventure in joining this big world has been eventful.  Her nine-month birthday will be on June 26th (Thursday upcoming), and in celebration of that, this next week or so will be devoted to her story.  Frankly, it's a miracle there's a story at all.

           I'm pretty bad with dates and inclined towards fiction, so if there's a supplementary post from Rachel correcting EVERY LAST FACTOID that I incorrectly spew here over the next few days, know at least that from an emotional standpoint, everything I write is true, if not factual.  (As my very favorite college professor would always boom at us from behind his desk, "Nimon, when the truth and the facts collide, the truth must always win out.") Words to live by.

          I'm pretty sure that Jael was the first time that I reacted correctly to being told we were/ she was pregnant (with LJ I said, "Good for you!" and walked away; with Judah I may have forgotten to say anything), so three weeks after that mountaintop moment, when Rachel had all the classic signs of a miscarriage, there was a definite pall over the house.  I walked around aimlessly at work all day; Rachel went in to our amazing midwives to confirm the inevitable.  The boys, to their credit, did their best to keep the mood light by smashing down the house like it was every other day.  It just wasn't any other day.
  Except... Jael's just tougher than that.  To this day, we're not really sure what went on-- but when they hooked Rachel up to a monitor, Jael (who I'm pretty sure we called Bean at that point) was doing great.  Strong heartbeat, nothing unusual, just a normal 3-month old baby hanging out in utero.  Jael 1, Life 0.
After that, we started calling that day the "miracle day," which was perfectly appropriate.  Life, however, would have a few more things to chuck at Jael before 2013 was over.  Stay tuned.

   P.S, At the end of each of these I figure I'd answer a teaser that I threw up there on day one.  What wakes  LJ up at 5:30?

The answer -- I kid you not-- he wakes up thinking his underwear smells like someone tinkled in it.  Not the one's that he's been wearing-- THE CLEAN ONES.  We had a total showdown about a week ago because he refused to wear any clean underwear in the drawer that didn't pass his 'sniff test' -- and they all failed.  ALL of them.  I was so tempted to obliterate them with Axe or Febreze or something and have him sniff them again, just for the effect, but it was 5:30 in the morning.  Needless to say, with his legendary ability to talk quietly, that was a fun morning for all involved.  And now you know.