One year ago

After returning from Georgia my laptop was on the fritz until Rick figured out how to fix it last week. Then this week, I haven't felt motivated at all to document Will's first birthday. Maybe my lack of motivation is because it still feels more like winter than spring here (it snowed on Saturday) or that our close friends in Chicago are moving far away or because I'm in complete denial about Will turning 1. How did it happen? It went so quickly, and I feel as though in some ways I missed it. Did I miss opportunities to sit and snuggle with him or lay on the floor and play? I'm already dreading him going off to college!! His two bottom teeth

We first celebrated his birthday a little early in Georgia, so that so the extended family could celebrate with us.

He wasn't that interested in the cake.

Even with extra help from everybody

Then annoyance

This is the only damage he would do

On his actual birthday we had cookie monster cupcakes.

He was way more interested in the balloons than the cupcake.

It's a tradition that when our babies turn one year old, we take them to the toy store and let them pick out their present. Will chose a green bouncy ball and has played with it everyday since.

In the craziness of having a baby last year, I never wrote down the birth story, which is also a little crazy.

I woke up having contractions at 3 am. I busied myself until 9 when I called the doctor to let them know what was going on. Then said to come in to see them. We dropped off Olivia at our friends house. Once there, the doctor told me that I was defiantly in labor (which I knew) and that I should go to the hospital and since I have a history of having babies quickly, they would break my water and I would have the baby.

So off we went to the hospital. Checked in, got settled and the physician at the hospital (which I had never met before) said that my contractions weren't close enough and that I needed to walk around. I would have never went to the hospital if the first doctor hadn't told me to go. I would have much rather walked around my own house. So Rick and I walked around the hospital for 2 hours. We came back to be checked out and the same doctor told me that he would schedule an induction the next morning because I was at a 4 and he wanted to "see more progress". I asked him what the difference between now (4 o'clock) and the morning was. He said "since his shift was over soon he didn't want to have another doctor clean up his mess." That's right, he said that to me.

So we packed up and I left the hospital in tears. I was mostly scared that I wasn't going to make it back in time to get an epidural. I had that happen once and I really didn't want to experience that again. Plus the kids were already with our friends and had given up a day watching them already. We decided that we would get some dinner and go home and try to get some sleep. I was exhausted because I had been up since 3am. We went to dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant here in town. We were in the middle of the meal when I started having contractions that were really painful. The kind that double you over. Rick wanted to go back to the hospital but I'm stubborn and I was scarred that they will send me away again. We drove back home for me to take a shower.

After I take a shower, I realize that I really need to be at the hospital. The contractions are 2 minutes a part now, sometimes less. Now we are in a hurry to get to the hospital. Rick is driving like a crazy person. He actually passed a student driver in a non passing section of the road. We get to the hospital and in the hour and a half that we have been gone, there has been a shift change and we have to check-in again. I'm dying by this point and no one really believes that I'm as far along as I say I am. They put us in a temporary room first until Rick tells them we need a real room quickly. They bring us back to the room we were in that hasn't been touched since we left it. A sweet nurse checks me out and sees that I'm at a 8 1/2. She quickly throws an IV in my arm and and calls the anaesthesiologist. Within 45 minutes I have the epidural! Hallelujah!

Our baby Will was born an hour after that at a healthy 8lbs. 15 oz.

I can't imagine our lives without this face! Happy Birthday baby boy!!