Happy Birthday Little C

She's one today. I didn't much time to reflect today on a year ago. Tonight, for a moment, I did. It was after we shipped the other four off to bed and I was just holding my little miracle.

I went to my doctor's appointment 1 year and two weeks ago and the high risk doctor told me to go straight to my hospital and check in. Do not go home and do not pass go.

She was my little companion in the hospital for two weeks. She was a temperamental little thing even then. When I would shift off my left side or sit up she would let me know by having decelerations. I watched her strip more than the nurses. I could get up twice a day for ten minutes. The doctor didn't want me to end up with blood clots like my mother and grandfather and so twice a day I had a little freedom. He said that if she got into too much trouble in those ten minutes they would just deliver her.

She had a rough time last year on this day. She was having a hard time recovering from her decelerations. She struggled and had the nurses worried. I told my friends and family that I was telling the doctor that I couldn't sleep until she was delivered because I knew she would die when I was sleeping (occasionally they would get busy delivering babies in the night and have to leave the monitoring... in the morning I could tell my strip would get a little spotty from her moving away from the monitor). He looked at the strip and told me to call DH because we were having a baby that night in about 30 minutes.

I'm so grateful to him. I worried a bit that it might not be the right decision to deliver her 5 weeks early when I was already in the hospital. But I had that gut feeling. The one that I had with Joshua and Nikolas. The same one I had pushed aside before.

So out she came with a cord just like Joshua's. It was going to kill her two. She was very very tangled up in it and it was so tight between her belly button and her neck where it went around and around. Every time I moved it was stealing her of her oxygen. The doctor concluded that it was the right decision to deliver her and that she might not have made it, or made it without being compromised, had we not delivered her when we did. I'm so glad to have listened to that feeling and for a doctor that was willing to trust me on it (and a bad day of medical strips).

She has been one tough baby but boy do I love her. She is a non toddling toddler. She has those toddler personality traits of being pouting, doing fake crying, teasing, etc. She's just missing out on the toddle.

She LOVED cake today. I am hoping it doesn't make her sick. We still haven't tried all the foods on her tummy to see which ones she can handle. She doesn't seem to get sick over everything anymore. We just don't want a repeat of T and intestinal biopsies, etc.

She received two small toys. I feel bad to say that I bought them on clearance and spent a total of $4.98 plus tax on them. Still, she was thrilled. Surprisingly enough, she was possessive. L kept trying to take them to play with them. Then the boys decided they were great. C just crawled around hauling the one with her like an extra appendage.

She is our little miracle baby. Like M, C helped warm our hearts after having them so sad from Joshua. A baby after an angel is a special kid. It's not that they are really any more special than the rest of them. It's just that they are so healing. It's always more fun to snuggle up to your own living kid after you have ached for one than to hold someone else's. They help you to feel like you can walk past the baby aisle again in Target without thinking that it's forbidden territory and that it's almost a sin to want to look. It's okay to look and even touch the little baby clothes again without feeling like a poser.

Now, remind me of this in 12 years. This one has a strong personality and is going to cause me some grief I am certain. Remind me to come back and read about today.