Time goes way too fast!

A year ago, my baby was born on Feburary 23rd at 7:51pm. This has truly been the fastest year of my entire life! I have a feeling that the next 17 are going to go rather quickly too. I cannot believe that she is one.


A year ago, Matthew and I got up at 5 am and headed to the hospital to be induced (my doctor thought that Nora could weigh around 9 pounds and didn't want me to have to go through any additional turmoil). I changed into the gown and got hooked up to the Pitocin and settled in for the long haul. You can imagine my surprise when they told me, before they even hooked up the Pitocin IV, that my contractions were already 3 minutes apart. I couldn't feel a thing! I thought this labor thing was going to be a piece of cake :). Fast forward 2 hours when my water breaks...serious labor pains started and I begged for my epidural.


You never know how you are going to react to the pains of labor. Will I be a yeller? Will I moan or scream? Well, I was silent. During each painful contraction, I silently counted in my head and clung onto the bed rails for dear life. When I got the epidural, I became a sleeper-lovely sleep!




It is also amazing how quickly I was able to go from 3 cm dilated to 10 cm dilated! I didn't feel a thing! Which means, I could not feel to push. Guess what that meant...they TURNED OFF the epidural! In about 30 minutes, I was able to feel everything! Again, I became silent.

I pushed with everything I had. Matthew was such a great coach and so encouraging. Guess who was not encouraging? My doctor. Here is his quote (maybe not exact...but what I remember), "Um, Dallas, the baby has turned and I have stuck my hand all the way up to your throat to try to turn her around and she just isn't turning. Now, I remember at our visits you told me that if we had to do a c-section, then that would be alright. I think we are going to have to." Me, "Does that mean you will turn my epidural back on? If so, yes!" I don't remember much after that. They suited Matthew up and went to tell my family that I was about to go into surgery. I was only concerned with the pain factor and wanted to make sure they had extra "juice" running through my veins. Thankfully, when they stuck me with the needle to make sure I didn't feel anything, I didn't feel anything.




The next few moments were whirlwind moments. The opened me up and pushed on my stomach, hard, and got Nora out (who, by the way, only weighed 7 pounds 10 ounces...wrong guess doc). She cried loud for us and we cried too.



I wish I could say that the next few moments were moments I had dreamed of, but honestly, they weren't. I didn't get to hold her because my arms were strapped down. Matthew brought her over to me and I did get to look at her, for a millisecond, before they whisked her off to the nursery to weigh and measure.




So, I was stuck in the operating room, all alone, surrounded by doctors who were sewing me up. And I was shaking SO HARD. They kept asking me if I was cold, which I wasn't, and I kept saying, "I guess I'm just nervous." Turns out, I had drug overload in my system and was experiencing some sort of drug induced shake-fest. Not fun. They gave me a shot of Demerol to ease the shakes and it did the trick.



Finally, they wheeled me back down to my room and I was able to hold my baby for the first time. THAT was the moment I had been dreaming about! Sadly, though, I have to re-live it, not in my memories, but in pictures. You see, since I had so many drugs in my system, I remember little of what happened after they took me back to my room. Matthew claimed that I kept falling asleep and he would have to poke me awake. And when I wasn't sleeping, I was laughing like a crazy woman. Nice. Poor Nora kept falling asleep too. Our first nursing session lasted about 2 minutes because neither one of us could keep our eyes open.


(here I am laughing...I think the nurse is laughing with me just to make me feel better)

Thankfully, the rest of her 12 months have been tremendous. She is the best thing that has ever happened to Matthew and me. I really can't imagine not having her. It has also been the most challenging 12 months of my life. There have been so many times when I have looked at her and thought, "I have NO idea what to do!" Thankfully, she has survived and seems pretty happy that I am her mom.

A few things about the year of Nora:

• she has 4 teeth (2 on top and 2 on bottom)


• she is not walking yet, but does pull up on everything and kind of creeps along furniture


• she laughs a lot, a true belly laugh


• she is always so excited to see either me or Matthew when we go pick her up from a nap or in the mornings


• she has had 2 ear infections (one of them a double ear infection, so I guess that means 3)


• she eats so much food and gets very upset when a mealtime is done


• she only weighs 16 pounds 13 ounces (a rough estimate. This was taken at the doctor's office on Tuesday with a wet diaper on...she was there for already mentioned ear infection)


• she never got to wear most of her summer clothes because they were too big for her...sad for me because they were all so cute


• she has had a bow in her hair most of her life


• when she was an infant, she did not like to be held close to anyone, she liked to be turned out so she could see everything


• she has been on an airplane 4 times so far


• she was nursed for 11 months and refused to ever take a bottle


• she LOVES whole milk


• she has never slept a night in our bed because she thinks it is a party


• she loves to be read to


• she used to hate Sunday School (and sometimes still does) and would be so vocal about it that most everyone in the church could hear her. They had to come and get me several times.


• she is the greatest gift that God has given us
  

Happy Birthday baby girl! I cannot wait to see how much fun you become and how much more I will fall in love with you.