365 days ago, I had just woken from a somewhat decent night’s sleep. It was 5:30am and I was instructed to call the hospital. You see, I looked like this:
My body was exhausted from building and creating a new life and frankly, my mind was too. My due date had come and gone and so did the year I was supposed to give birth in. I was due on Christmas day 2007. I assumed that I would have already had my precious baby girl home for the holidays but unlike all her other sibling’s, she needed to stay in a secure and warm place a little bit longer than usual. My body had been laboring for weeks, but not enough to put me over the edge. I wasn’t too uncomfortable except for the night that we almost packed the car and drove to the hospital, but contractions subsided and so did my hope of having a 2007 year baby. Despite promises made by my doctor early on in my pregnancy that I would have a baby before Christmas and who convientantly went on vacation the week I was “supposed” to have my baby…the New Year came and I still looked like this:
One year ago, I made that hopeful call to the hospital. I needed to call first to see if there was a bed available to me. To my surprise, Labor and Delivery was very slow that day and welcomed me right in. I took a shower, got dressed, arranged Uncle Jake as a babysitter for the older kids, and Patrick and I headed off to the hospital during the dawn of day.
Everything was prepared for me when we got there. My nurse stayed with me the entire time. Time went quickly. I was having contractions when I went in, but didn’t realize it because I had been having those same types of contractions for a few weeks. My doctor came in shortly after I was admitted with that very familiar “crochet hook”. After my water was broke, and pitocin given, it only took a few short hours before I was pushing. I managed to take this picture:
I call it the “From the patient’s point of view” shot. My doctor knew what she was talking about when she told me that we would get started around 8am and have a baby by noon. Carly Fox Durling was born on January 2, 2008 at 11:41am. She was 7lbs. 14oz. and was 20 1/4 inches long.
Carly’s arrival home was defiantly a memorable one. The great storm of January 2008 in Northern California waited her arrival. Winds up to 65 mph began on our ride home which Carly stayed awake for the entire drive. Power went out, fences blew over, and trees toppled over was a normal site to see. Instead of a fresh blanket of snow in our front yard, we had a fresh blanket of pine needles that Patrick and the other kids got to clean up shortly while Carly and I watched.
I can hardly believe a year has gone by and that we are slowly moving away from the baby stage. Carly has accomplished a lot this past year. She learned to roll over, sit, crawl, stand, eat solid food, and feed herself (for the most part) with the 4 teeth she’s grown. She’s outgrown the reason why we called her Samurai baby with all the new hair on top of her head and she is defiantly a happier baby now that she’s mobile. We expect her to walk in the very near future because she stands up without holding onto anything now. We are just waiting for those first steps to come. She no longer likes baby food and prefers the selection from the Gerber Graduates menu. She plays games like peek-a-boo, catch, and the ever so favorite of “drop the item and watch mommy pick it up”. Carly has grown quite a bit, but not enough that the doctors would prefer. She weighs in at a hefty 15lbs and it looks like we won’t be turning her car seat forward for quite some time (California Law says One year old AND 20lbs). We are truly blessed with Carly’s spirit. She is a very sweet and easy going child (if you would have asked me that 3 months ago, I would have told you different). Looking back at pictures from only a year ago, it amazes me how much a baby changes. I have made a sweet little video to commemorate Carly’s first year. Happy 1st Birthday my Little Carly Fox. I LOVE YOU!
