One Year Ago

A lot of things happened one year ago today.

There is one thing, though, that I'm trying not to loose sight of. That is my baby was born. I may always call her my baby. If she's one or twenty-one, she'll be my baby. And so, on her birthday, this post will be all about her. Less me, more her.

So here we go.

The last couple of weeks of my pregnancy seemed to get harder and harder. There are a lots of reasons I attribute this to. She was my third baby in 5 years or so. Let's face it, I didn't get any younger with each baby I carried. For the previous 3 and half years I had worked full time, night shift. Our schedule went something like this. I would work Sunday night through Wednesday night. The kids would go to a baby-sitter on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday morning when I got home we would send David off to work and then I was up for the day. Much of that time he was in school so he didn't come home until after we were in bed on those nights. Needless to say Thursday was not a very high functioning day. I think we ate pancakes for dinner on Thursday nights for weeks on end.

I really think all of these factors combined meant for hard times for pregnant me. I had planned to work up until my due date, like I did with Miss Thing, July 13th. During the last week in June I started having contractions that would come and go. It made for rough nights of working and rough days of sleeping. It was after this week that we decided maybe I shouldn't go back to work the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy. At my doctors visit that week, after very little progress being made toward labor, I expressed all of this roughness. He told me that the following week he would feel fine to induce me. I didn't think that is the way I wanted to go. Nevertheless he told me he would schedule me at the hospital just in case. That way if I changed my mind the option would be available to me.

After much prayer and pondering and even a priesthood blessing we decided to go ahead and induce. I called the nurse at the beginning of the week just to make sure I really did have an appointment set up. I thought it would be for July 3rd. (Which, by the way, was a cause for some discussion. David did not want a baby being born on the 4th. His holiday. He didn't care if it was the day before, or the day after, it just couldn't be on the 4th.) When the nurse got back to me she told me that I did have an appointment scheduled but it was for July 2nd. A whole day earlier. It was also the day of my doctors visit for the week. Having it an entire day before I thought it was going to be was such a relief. It felt so good to have an end in sight. David came with me to my dr's visit and when the dr came in the first thing he asked was, "are we having a baby today?" I didn't have to think about it, I didn't even hesitate. I was so done being pregnant.

With that we headed to the hospital. Where they were waiting for us. Having a couple available rooms we even got to pick our Labor and Delivery Room. We chose room 6, the same room that Miss Thing was born in.

They started me on Pitocin first, to get the contractions going. At about noon the dr. came in and broke my water. Everything was going pretty smooth. Once the epidural was in things started to move a little quicker. By 3:30 I was feeling like the epidural was too strong. The nurse came and turned it off, quite sure that I would be delivering sooner than it would wear off. She called the doctor in and after just a couple of pushes Mary Adeline was born at 4:00 in the afternoon. She weighed in at 6 lbs 1 oz (just 2 ounces shy of her brother and sister) and 19 1/2 inches long.

She was absolutely beautiful. We noticed right away that she looked a lot like her brother did when he was born. Right away we knew she outnumbered both of us in chromosomes. While we felt a sting of pain with that knowledge it melted quickly. We knew we had lived through it once, we could do it again.

For a little less than an hour I got to hold her and nurse her and start falling in love with her. I'll always treasure that time I had. It was here that the pediatrician was at the hospital to check her over. It was here that my troubles began. But this is not so much about me, more her.

She couldn't have been more healthy. Which I think was the Lord's way of compensating my health struggles for hers. She was even released from the hospital before I was. It does make me a little sad that we have no pictures from the delivery room, just after she was born. For those first few days I couldn't hold her. My mom would have to feed her and then prop her up next to me. My comfort in all of this is knowing that she won't remember that those were her first days of her life.

I can't describe the joy she has brought to us, to me. In the beginning she was the reason I got out of bed. Her presence gave me that push to get up and get moving. And the push to move on. I sometimes have a hard time letting go and moving on. She was that force for me.

And now here she is. One year old. It hardly seems possible. There is so much we love about her. Her infectious smile. Her laugh. The way she watches her brother and sister, I can tell that she looks up to them and longs to be able to run and play as hard as they do. Really, I just can't get enough of her.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!