Our sweet, sweet Manny

Emmanuel Jude Hartness
Born September 24, 2008
11:06pm
7 pounds, 12 ounces
21 inches

Sorry it's taken me awhile to get these up. We couldn't figure out how to use the wi-fi in our room....and, well, we've been kinda busy :) Thanks for being patient!

Here's the story if you like details:

My c-section was scheduled for Friday the 26th at 7 am so all last week we were running around like crazy trying to make sure we had everything ready. I had been feeling a lot of low pressure and just figure the baby had dropped or something. Josh's mom came and helped me organize our nursery and I washed several large loads of girl clothes and blankets and had them neatly folded or hung in the nursery closet. I was very confident I knew this was a girl...I even registered for a few pink things.

I had been doing a lot of cleaning and running errands and Tues night I thought I was losing all bladder control. The thought hit me that it was possible for my water to break before Friday so I went into a cleaning frenzy around midnight scrubbing the bathrooms. Wednesday I was still having trouble not peeing on myself (yes, embarrassing) everytime the baby moved. That morning Isaiah and I went to the mall to meet our friends Kristin and Lily for one last play time before the baby came. The kids played, we got coffee and I found the cutest "Big Brother" shirt at Carters for Isaiah. That morning it hit me that he didn't have one and, of course, he "needed" a big brother shirt to wear at the hospital. Another sweet friend, Kelly, met me in the parking lot and gave me a bag full of food she had made for our freezer (that spaghetti was awesome, Kelly!). I got home and cleaned and finished laundry while Isaiah napped, then woke him up and went on a marathon grocery run to Walmart to make sure we wouldn't be out of anything when we got home from the hospital. It was late when we got back and I was very, very tired. I crammed a huge bowl of spaghetti down, fed Isaiah and put him in the bathtub, all while complaining that I kept peeing on myself to Josh. Then it happened and there was no mistaking it...I was not peeing on myself. I called the Dr....the water kept coming so we freaked out and tried to remember what to pack. It was 2 days early and we hadn't gotten that far in our planning yet. Josh was wiping away tears as the reality hit and was making all the phone calls to our families. Our parents met us at the house and we got to the hospital at 9:00pm.

They took me straight back, hooked me up to all the normal stuff and prepped me for surgery. Thankfully they weren't that busy so I had Dr Panner's full attention and by 11:06pm we had Manny. It was a crazy moment for Josh to stand up and start laughing as he said, "it's Emmanuel!" I laughed and cried at the same time....I couldn't believe it. Earlier, right before my water broke, I had said to Josh how it would be funny if God had the baby come early...as if to say, " you know nothing. You think you have this whole thing planned out, but you really know nothing." Then I followed that with, "And what would be really funny is if the baby comes early and it's a boy!" I really think God laughed hard with us in the OR when they took Manny out of me.

Anyway, he's perfect. His apgar scores were 9 and 9. We couldn't ask for a healthier baby. I call him my cuddle bug because he is SO cuddly! He was pretty unhappy the first night in his little cart by my bed so he slept pretty much the whole night on my chest. Isaiah was in the nursery and was very stressed as an infant so this has been really different. Manny is easily soothed by being held and swaddled in a blanket. He LOVES skin to skin contact and noses around until he finds skin...it's precious. He's a good eater...though I'll spare you nursing details :)

Isaiah LOVES him! In fact, the first time he heard Manny cry he burst into tears and acted desperate for someone to fix whatever was wrong with his little brother. He wanted to kiss all over him and hold him, calling him "my baby" or "my Manny." He hasn't seen him a whole lot but is coming home from the grandparents tonight for his first night home.

Thank you for all the prayers, visits and calls. It has meant the world. And please keep praying for us. I'm still very nervous about this transition and taking care of both Isaiah and Manny well. I'm also in a bit more pain than I remember with Isaiah so please pray that I heal quickly.

I'll update more soon :)