Today was a very special day as we celebrated Ian's first birthday (one day early). It meant a lot to me that 7 of our family members came up to our house today to celebrate his first year of life. I have done a lot of reminiscing the past few days. His first birthday card came in the mail on Thursday (thank you, Donna!). I almost cried. I felt so touched when I read it. It's a card I'll definitely be saving for years to come. I'm so very thankful for our sweet little boy!
My parents arrived at about 11am and played with and fed the kids before we put them down for their afternoon naps.While Nadia was napping we ate some lasagna, garlic bread, and green beans. Paul's parents and Grandmother arrived around 2pm. Nadia helped Ian open his presents. At first it seemed that Ian's favorite item was a red bow that Ian's Great Gram had attached to the outside of his gift. He held on to that bow for dear life for quite a long time and would sob if anyone dared to try and take it out of his hand.
My parents gave Ian a snowsuit (size 12 months). On Tuesday I took him out in the size 18 month one that Nadia used last year. This one fit MUCH better and had mittens, a hat, and boots attached. He'll make good use of it! Paul's parents gave him lots of size 12 month clothing, which he really was needing as the 9 month pants are more like capris on him these days. Great Gram gave Ian 3 peekaboo books, and his cousin (Shawn) gave him 3 little cars. Aunt Yvonne (who really planned ahead and gave us all our birthday and Christmas gifts through 2012 before she went back to Turkey in July) gave Ian some mega blocks (which will be useful as Nadia has been using her mega blocks to build towers every day lately) and a Little People dump truck, which Ian really enjoyed playing with today.
I had gotten Ian two presents. He squealed with delight when he saw the Grover hand puppet. He squealed MANY times over this. I was really touched that I got him a gift he really liked. It's tough to compete with random things like a red bow, lol. Both kids enjoyed playing with the workbench I got him. I bought two of them. I'm giving the other one to QJ (our great nephew) for Christmas. I am sure not every gift I buy Ian will be a "winner," but I definitely hit the mark for his first birthday.
After the gifts we moved on to the birthday cake. Aunt Millie made a small cake (see above) for Ian to play with and a mandarin orange cake for the rest of us to eat (yummy!). She also sent some vanilla cupcakes, and Nadia and I had made cookies last night. When Nadia turned one, she devoured her cake and frosting. She shoveled it into her mouth. Ian played with the frosting with his right hand. He still had the red bow in his left hand. I put a little frosting on his lips; he cried. However later on he licked it with his lips and decided it was yummy.
He did eat a tiny bit of frosting but then he went back to just playing with it, and then he just wanted out of his highchair. There was a little frosting on his face (only because I first put some there), some on his hands, and some on the highchair tray. It was much easier to clean him up. Paul was probably relieved as he (and my brother) think this ritual is barbaric, lol. He did eat a little bit of sweet potatoes (stage one baby food) by spoon today. I gave him a jar of vegetable stew in his bottles of whole milk today. We shall see what the pediatrician says on Tuesday. I was told on Sunday by a PT at church that he can receive services in our home through Early Intervention (through the public school system). I'm going to look into that this week. I put a tiny piece of a Gerber puff in his cheek a couple of days ago, and he promptly threw up the sweet potatoes I had just fed him by spoon. He's making very slow progress. I know some day he'll be eating steak, but since it's taken 6 months to get him to eat stage 1 baby food (and that still requires significant efforts to distract him so he doesn't realize he's eating), it feels like it might be another year before he's eating any table food. I hope it doesn't take that long, but that's what it feels like to me. I just hope at his 2nd birthday he's eating cake.
My parents left around 3:30, and Uncle Al and Shawn arrived a little after 4pm. I served the same meal again around 5pm. I ate with my parents at noon, and Paul ate with his at 5pm. No one ate the meal twice, lol. One pan of lasagna would have been enough for today (I always seem to make too much food when we're having company), but now we have leftovers to enjoy. It will get eaten! We have lots of cake and cupcakes left over. I'm planning on sharing some with the neighbors (who babysit the kids) tomorrow. We'll enjoy eating some of it again tomorrow as well.
As I've been reminiscing I've thought a lot about December 12, 2009. Here are some of the things that stand out the most in my memory from that day. First, I remember that when my water broke at 3:15am I questioned myself as to whether or not my water had broke. The reason I found this funny (just a few moments after it happened) was when my water broke on June 23, 2008 I had NO doubts as to what just happened. You'd think if I was going to have doubts it would have been the first not the second time. I think it was because I had only been asleep for a few minutes the first time. I was more disoriented at 3:15am. The good news was that it meant I got a few more hours of sleep before giving birth whereas I got less than one hour of sleep the night before Nadia was born.
I also recall that I was assigned th exact same triage bed. There are at least two triage rooms and two beds in each room. I spent some time in triage three times, and every time it was the same bed. I wish they had given me the same room after I left triage because I had a private room in 2008. They didn't give me a private room because they thought I'd be there for 5 days before my c-section. The advantage to them not believing me that I was in labor was they let me eat (at least whatever I could have on a diabetic diet). I thought it was ironic that they were so attentive to checking my vitals (blood pressure, temp, etc.) and yet ignored my requests to be checked for progress with labor. I could tell as the day progressed that Ian's head was all the way down. The contractions were so strong that I even pushed once. I finally convinced a doctor to check me, and sure enough Ian was at station 0 (or as she said - his head is right there). I was 5cm dilated. They still didn't seem to get the picture that I was in serious labor. I asked them to check again 15 minutes later, and I was already 8cm dilated. I wish the dilation had gone that quickly when I was in labor with Nadia!
I thought the perk of going the scheduled c-section route was that I wouldn't have to go be in labor for hours on end. I have to admit I really, really wanted to try VBAC when I found out I was already 8cm dilated, but Paul still wanted to go the c-section route. Looking back (considering that the c-section was botched and could have been fatal), I really wish I had tried VBAC. It was so ironic to me that I had been in the hospital for a little over 12 hours and yet the preparations for the c-section were done as quickly as possible.
This was the most painful part of the experience for me. I kept asking them to stop what they were trying to do (shave me, put in the catheter, etc.) because it was torturous to have them doing stuff down there in the midst of an intense contraction. The problem was that the contractions were coming so close together that it proved impossible for them to work around them. I was wishing for an epidural, but I knew the spinal would be coming as soon as I was in the OR. I was very grateful that I didn't need to be under general anesthesia like I was for Nadia's delivery. It was wonderful to have Paul standing beside me the whole time.
After Nadia was born both Paul and his parents got to hold her while I was in the OR and recovery. This time we both got to see him, but only the medical staff held him as he was whisked to the NICU within a few moments of his birth. Neither of us held him on December 12, but we were able to visit him in the NICU a couple of hours later. I remember asking repeatedly if he was alright right after he was born, mainly because of the concerns by OB kept having about Ian having Down's syndrome. It was a relief to know he was fine.
I had a better experience this second time with getting a pump. I repeatedly asked first to try to nurse Nadia (she wasn't admitted to the NICU until about 14 hours after she was born) or for a pump, and it took 24 hours for them to get me a pump (and they never brought her to me during the night). This time I didn't have to ask so many times for the pump, and although we had troubles with his weight once we got home, my milk production was MUCH better in the hospital the second time around than the first.
Although Ian's birth didn't go as I hoped (since I really wanted him to avoid the NICU and also wanted to be able to use more sick leave during the spring semester so I wouldn't have to go back to work quite so soon), the bottom line is all that matters. I gave birth to a healthy baby boy (aside from respiratory distress syndrome and hypospadias). When I hold him in my arms (particularly when he's sleeping), my heart swells with such love that I feel it might burst. Thank you, Lord, for giving us this precious, sweet little boy. I look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with him in the years to come.
P.S. I should have given the camera to someone today. I took over 80 pictures, but I'm not in any of them since I was taking all the pictures. Tomorrow I'll be sure to get Paul to take some pictures of Mommy and her birthday boy! He's going to be wearing a darling Christmas suit that Grandma and PopPop gave him today.
