A whole year of life

You're one. How is it possible?

It seems like this incredible year just began yesterday. I have such distinct memories of the pregnancy:

-being told to prepare for a miscarriage by the emergency room tech at 8 weeks
-the 50 percent chance odds you would survive next to a clinging second embryo
-seeing that finally everything was okay and that you were going to make it--such relief!
-eating "pain au chocolate" in urgence at the french hypermarché and enduring all the stares from french shoppers
-doing all those baby scans--eight in all
-all that jelly still smeared on my stomach after the scans--feeling very sticky all day
-the first time I felt you move, it was easter weekend and it felt like a huge serpent rolled over in my stomach
-going into labor and having that "knowing" feeling but refusing to trust my instincts
-that baby they plopped on my chest and those little half squinted eyes

And in the hospital together:

-the little red marks on your head from the forceps
-your hands--they were enormous and not at all like baby hands
-your beautiful pink skin--an enviable palor
-having you curled in my tired arms at 4am and how you cried all night long that first night
-the next morning, trying desperately to stand while they instructed me on how to bathe you
-taking notes on "how to bathe baby" the second day because the nurses were so intimidating "no, no, not like THAT madame!"
-the night we cried together in frustration in the hallway of the hospital because you were hungry and I couldn't feed you
-late at night both exhausted I was changing you and you just wouldn't stop crying, then "Too Many Teardrops" came on the hospital radio in the nursery--I laughed and laughed to the point of tears
-the weigh-ins every day and feeling so anxious about your weight gain
-having to endure all the transfusions from the anemia I was finally diagnosed with
-feeling helpless because I couldn't help you--I was just too exhausted
-being scared to take you home because I didn't know how to care for you
-packing our things at the end of a very long five days and feeling as if I was stealing hospital property

It's been such a roller coaster this first year. I've never had so many highs and lows in any one year period of my life. From surviving all the three a.m. colic episodes to hearing your first belly laugh. From one day delighting while you splashed foolishly in your little blue bathtub, to trying to maintain my sanity the next day while you wailed and wailed all afternoon. I have lots of memories of breastfeeding through dinner while I ate with one hand and held you with the other. I loved watching you eat your first foods, bananas and avocados, and making all the food as you sat strapped in your little carrier on the table beside me. It was sometimes difficult carrying you everywhere until my arm was broken, but I knew you were happier that way. I knew if I put you down it would be a crisis for you and we'd have to start all over again, me reassuring you that everything was okay. I distinctly remember looking out the door in February to see snow piled up to the front steps and my heart sinking knowing that stroller would never push through it. Another winter afternoon stuck inside. I never wanted to get off the roller coaster. I guess when you have a child you know this is the ride of your life and you're in it for all the times; good and bad.

I'm so happy that I got to share this first year with you. So happy you picked me (or however it works, but I feel like you chose us somehow). I can't wait to share the other years with you and watch you grow into this beautiful, good hearted, sensitive and loving person I know you'll become. I'm so happy that we were so close this first year, you in our bed and now trailing on my apron strings through the kitchen. In fact as I write this I can see now that all those difficult moments we shared were what made me love you so much more.

I love you very, very much.