My Baby is One!

Today my baby turns one. Now I know turning one is a big deal in general, but its especially a big deal for this third child. Don't get me wrong, this birthday is everything it should be: a celebration of her life, but its also the day my husband and I get to look at each other and say, "We did it! We kept all three kids alive for a whole year!" So, while we're celebrating her life we're also high fiving and fist bumping on the down-low.

I know you think this sounds a little dramatic, but let me tell you when your kids are not even 2 1/2 and 5 months old when you find out number 3 is coming along, you begin to severely doubt your ability to meet everyone's physical needs more or less nurture their souls like a good mother should. So, yes, there are some high fives around here!

For a good portion of my third pregnancy I did what any mother of two other young children would do: I pretended it wasn't happening. I focused on the two I had in front of me and tried not to think about how crazy life with one more would be. God knew what he was doing when he made gestation 40 weeks. It's funny how with my first it felt like it would take forever before I was holding that baby, and by number three I was begging for a few more weeks. Even though my back hurt, I peed every 15 minutes, and I could breath while laying down, I knew the easiest part of parenting was while they're in the womb.

Three months before my due date we moved to North Carolina. New state. New people. New doctor. New hospital. Husband has a new job. No family. I had my reservations about this new life, but followed my new found mantra of "Just keep living." It works well. My new doctor agreed that number 3 should be induced just like number 2 to prevent what happened with number 1. One great thing about this plan was that my mom was able to plan a trip to be here with plenty of time before the arrival. (Hallelujah!)

Mom here? Check. Baby girl newborn clothes pulled out of storage? Check. Bassinet ready? Check. Bags packed? Check. Camera charged? Check. Let's have a baby!

We showed up at the hospital at the crack of dawn like instructed to find out that they had no room for me. My amazingly awesome nurse brought me into a triage room to "start things". Now, I call her amazingly awesome because when I informed her this baby would show up very soon after my water broke, she listened to me. She decided she didn't want to personally deliver the baby in the dinky triage room so we waited until a room was ready, then my doctor came in and broke my water. So, what does a woman who's had one baby with an epidural and one all natural do with the third birth? Everyone has their own options and beliefs about this, but I am proud to say that I had 5 bad contractions before the epidural kicked in. As they say "Fool me once..." I felt no need to knock on deaths door like I had previously experienced. Been there. Done that.

Turns out I was right. The little squirt made her appearance within an hour of my water braking. One push and there she was! We're not exactly sure how much she weighed. The scale was doing weird things at the time of her birth and somehow she magically gained a whole pound in 2 hrs, so we're guessing she was around 7 lbs. Right in between her brother and her sisters size.

A few hours later the bed was full of my whole family. All 5 of us. A crazy moment for me to look from OUR 3 year old, OUR 1 year old, and OUR newborn. I remember thinking, I sure hope this works! Flash foreword a year, and our lives would have a great hole in it without this little one. She loves to laugh and her favorite things ever are her older sister and brother. She marches right along with them. She's been walking now for a few months and practically runs from room to room with the clan getting into all kinds of fun stuff. She's our "sweet pea" and loves to snuggle. It amazes me how she filled a hole in our family we never new we had.

Life can get crazy around here. There are days when all the tantrums, teething, and poop make me go batty. Or nights with fevers, bad dreams, and teething that make those nights of feeding a newborn every three hours look heavenly. But the good far out-ways the bad, and I can't imagine life without the little monkey around. Happy Birthday Sweet Pea!