Diamonds & my JB

Friday morning as I sat in the chair in my hospital room and attempted to eat for the first time in weeks, JB snuck a gift onto my lap. The size of the box immediately indicated jewelry.

. . . and so the guy had broken two rules. The first rule was no gifts! When Isaac was born, JB had given me a beautiful necklace with three diamonds. I told him that since only 8.5 months had passed, that necklace should double for Elijah's birth as well . JB obviously did not agree. I opened the box to find beautiful diamond earrings. They are beautiful. He broke the rules. But they are beautiful.

I must take a moment, while on the subject of my husband, to brag on him for just a moment. I know many of you out there believe you are married to the best man in the whole world. I feel the same way. My JB is truly my perfect life partner. We are best friends.

If you know us on a personal level (and not just from online) you know that we are a sarcastic, bantering pair. We like to tease and laugh and give each other a hard time. We enjoy watching movies, eating out, travelling, and exercising together. We long ago decided that even if it was just the two of us (and Scrubs) forever, that was going to be okay. We were going to make the most of it.

During the last week, JB has stood by me through sleepless nights and eternally long days. He was with me at the hospital nearly 20 hours a day while still trying to be a father to two tiny boys. He encouraged me, hugged me, cried with me, and loved on me all the while doing everything for a new life that a mom normally does. He'd sit on the edge of my bed and explain, for the umpteenth time, what was happening. Why something had happened. Why I had to do what they were telling me I had to do. Why I was feeling the way I was feeling. He carefully straddled the world of husband with that of a physician.

When it became apparent that I was very sick, we began discussing with the nurses and doctors and lactation consultants whether I could continue breast feeding. I was in so much pain and could barely hold Elijah. Even the lactation consultant who is quite "breast feed or die" in her philosophy of life, told me she would not fault me at all if I just said it was too hard.

JB would change Elijah, bring me every pillow and blanket imaginable, help get him set up, and then return for him as soon as I was done to do the burping and swaddling and rocking. He'd do this in the middle of the night, sitting up while I fed, waiting for me to finish, so he could get him from me.

When I was in too much discomfort to feed, JB had the nurses show him how to finger feed Elijah, running a catheter down his finger in order to prevent nipple confusion had he been given a bottle. In the midst of my sleepy state I would get a glance of JB sitting in the chair, his finger in Elijah's mouth, his other hand working the syringe, acting like this was the normal thing father's did after their children entered the world.

When Isaac would come for visits, JB's face would lighten up and even if he hadn't have slept all night, he'd scoop that little guy into his arms and hold him next to me so I could kiss him to my heart's content. If I wasn't in the bed, he and Isaac would take it over, building forts and wrestling and jumping around. He'd take him on walks around the hospital, and give him a bottle. He'd also help me to try feed Isaac, letting Isaac lie next to me and jumping right in when he started to get a little too rambunctious for me to handle.

He bought Dairy Queen Blizzards for all the nurses on L & D. He helped me take showers and get to the bathroom and get in and out of bed and up and down out of chairs. He ate the food that I wasn't allowed to eat.

As I sit here now, I am flooded with gratefulness for this man that the Lord brought into my life. It isn't of course just the last week and a half that have convinced me I have fallen in love with the right man. It is the fourteen years we have spent together and then ten and a half years we have been married that have convinced me of such. He stood by me during five hormone intensive years of infertility -- even when it became obvious that our inability to have children rested solely with me and that most likely, we would never have a biological child. He ran our household while I taught and coached and worked 70 hour weeks. He put himself through school while running a business out of our home. He has loved me and been my best friend every day since I met him. I am so amazingly blessed that he picked me to be his wife.

JB, I am so proud of you. I don't tell you often enough how thankful I am for you. How much I appreciate you. What a great husband and father you are. Thank you for being my best friend and loving me even when I have been in the same hospital gown for three days and don't remember the last time I washed my face. Thank you for loving all of us!