My Baby Is 1!!!

Warning, picture heavy post!

I can't believe that a year ago today I delivered Miss Madeline Marie! My baby is one year old today! As some of you know, my pregnancy wasn't the easiest. Here are some things that I remember the most:

• We were both shocked I was pregnant. It took us almost 3 years to get pregnant with Peyton and I was only off birth control for two weeks. It wasn't planned, it was definitely a surprise!
• The surgery/procedure I had in Portland cause me to be quite uncomfortable the rest of my pregnancy (unlike when I had the same surgery with Peyton).
• We bought AirLife insurance in fear of having to be air lifed to Portland during my pregnancy. It was grounded due to a storm the day we needed it.
• I'm so thankful we had time to get the steroid shot to speed the development of Maddy's lungs. I think it made a HUGE difference in our NICU stay.
• The process to undo the surgery was incredibly painful and LONG. The doctor removing the cerclage mentioned a few things that made me wonder if it was a botch job.
• I struggled with thought of missing out on 6 weeks of feeling Madeline move inside me. It was my favorite part about being pregnant.
• When it came to delivery time it was quite the party in my room. Chris and my mom were in there as well as my doctor, her nurse, then the NICU doctor and two nurses as well as a Airlife medic standing by for worst case scenario of Madeline having to be taken to a major hospital right away.
• Being pushed into the NICU room and seeing Maddy in her little crib thing with all the monitors on her just broke my heart.
• We stayed at the Ronald McDonald House, which was just a hop, skip and a jump from the hospital (walking distance). Let me tell you, this is one incredible organization and place. They made the whole process so much easier on us. I can't even begin to express how grateful I am to this place and the women that run it!
  

Here are some picture of her when she was first born:

We celebrated her birthday on Saturday. I went with the lady bug theme and made her invitations. Safeway made this adorable ladybug cake and we had lots of family and friends over to help us celebrate. Overall she did pretty good. She didn't dig into her cake like I had hoped she would but she responded better than Peyton did with his 1st cake. She got pretty tired in the middle of gifts and sacked out shortly after we were done. Here are some pictures of her party:

Since she didn't dig into the cake, we thought we'd try again. It cracked me up that Chris and Peyton were right there digging into her cake too!

If you made it all the way through this post, kudos to you! lol...I had a hard time choosing just a couple photos!