Happy Birthday Reid!!

Today my precious baby boy turns one.  He is without a doubt a beautiful gift from God, & there is not one day that goes by that I take that for granted.  I thank God for Reid everyday.  I have never been more proud of anything or anyone in my life.  The love I feel for Reid, & the love I know I will feel for my other children, scares me sometimes!  I am a better person today because of Reid. 

Ok, now that I got that off my chest, let's do a little reminiscing.  One year ago today...
I was three weeks away from my due date.  Everything had been going along wonderful.  I had a dream pregnancy. I don't want to bore yall, so I'll sum up the few days before.  My blood pressure had been up for a few days, which was really strange.  I was having to go in & out of the emergency room to be checked for hours at a time.  I had blurry vision & dizziness on Sunday morning, so they told me to come in with my bags packed.  This was me right before we left:

I was really expecting to be sent back home after being checked for several hours, but instead she told me to call the family...I would need to be induced the next morning.  She was worried I may develop preeclampsia.  My "last meal" that night was Keifer's.  I ate entirely too much & grossed myself out...I don't think I've eaten Keifer's since then. 

They induced me around 7:30 the next morning.  I was 2 cm dilated & 80% effaced, so I just knew this would be a fast process....boy was I WRONG!!  These pictures were from early in the day, after the epidural...happy times:) 

Little did I know that later in the afternoon the epidural would wear off, I would continue to dilate at an amazingly slow pace, & I would feel a pain for about 3 hours straight that felt like an alien was trying to come out of my butt!  Seriously, I thought that possibly his arm or leg might be trying to come out the wrong end.  Thankfully that didn't happen, & Reid was finally born at 8:23 pm.  I could not believe I had a dark headed baby!!

A few hours later, just when Nick & I were falling asleep, a nurse called my room & said that they had to take Reid to the NICU because he was having "blue spells"?  That's the only thing I can remember them saying....obviously it had something to do with his lungs.  I was physically, emotionally, & mentally exhausted, & this just sent me over the edge.  I was scared to death, even though in my heart I knew everything would be fine. A good friend of ours that is a doctor took a picture of him in on his phone.  He emailed it to me the other night.  I had never seen it before. It just breaks my heart looking at it!

After more issues with my blood pressure & a severe case of jaundice, we finally convinced them to let us go home on Thursday, only to return everyday for the next four days for them to check his jaundice .

The time in the hospital & the next couple of months was the hardest, most challenging time of our lives.  Thank you God for giving me strength & patience I never knew I had, & for giving me a husband that loves me unconditionally!

 

So I guess that's all the reminiscing I will do.  Now on to Reid's 1st birthday party....

For starters, I could not have asked for better weather!  Sunny & low 70's.  It was beautiful.  We had a great time, there was a great turnout (18 kids total!), & the food was awesome...thanks to my mom! I put my sister in charge of the camera...here are some of my favorites.  Bare with me, there's a lot.

He loves his new Cozy Coup!

We obviously had more than one person taking pictures;)

I did not plan on the cake being that big!  Kroger made it for me, & they apparently don't make them any smaller.

Overwhelmed!

I thought this picture was adorable of my two neices

Typical Jacob!

Well, I guess that wraps up my celebration of Reid's first year on this earth. 

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident in this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:3-6