Maybe we will post more now.

Wow. It's been a year. As everyone has said it would, it has flown by. I decided that we need to post more and often. Anna is getting bigger, stronger, and funnier by the day. She's walking now and saying words. After we had her birthday party I started to reflect on the past year, how it's changed our lives, our marriage, and the way I look at things. I also noticed that I had posted NOTHING to this blog! Well it's time I start. Let's take a quick peek back at the past year, in words and pictures.

I had a decent pregnancy, I actually enjoyed being pregnant. I had little to no morning sickness and my hair and nails have never looked better. I did end up being borderline diabetic, so I had to eat less sweets. Which to tell you the truth was rather difficult when that's all I wanted. Then I developed preeclampsia which is basically high blood pressure. Ended up spending one night in the hospital and going on bed rest to keep it down. This was only for about 3 weeks, but that ate up 3 precious weeks of FMLA (need to move to Cananda....).

I was finally induced because Anna thought it was pretty comfy in there and didn't want to come out. They started me on Thursday the 15th and she was born Saturday the 17th. Yup, 37 glorious hours of labor. I went with no drugs for the first 24, then when the doc said I was still at 2 and I might want something to get me though the night, I said hell yes. I then pushed for 3 hours. It's a good thing that Anna is cute. I then had to be rushed to the OR because I almost bleed to death (I'm not joking I almost died). That was fun. But I tell you readers this because she has been worth every second of it all. I would do it all over again just to have her in our lives.

Then we came home, we were doing great I tell ya. Until the end of that week. I found out Anna had lost a pound and 7 ounces, we didn't have to go to the hospital because she drank some formula. We found out that from the blood loss, my hormones were all very low and I wasn't producing anything. Oh I was heartbroken, my child had been starving, I was killing her, I was a failure as a mother. These were the thoughts that ran through my head. I pumped for 3 weeks, took drugs to up production, took supplements to up production, I power pumped, I read everything known to man on the internet about it (not that it helped one damn bit, just made me feel worse). Alas, I never produced even an ounce. I cried for weeks, nay months. I obsessed over it and I finally had to mourn not being able to breastfeed my child. I still get a little teary about it, I wanted that for my child and I couldn't give it to her. However, we started to bottle feed, I held her close and we snuggled a lot. This way Tim also got to snuggle and be close with her. There were benefits to formula feeding. At my 6 week checkup the nurse asked how I had dried up, I told her I didn't know what that meant, there had been nothing to dry up. The more I talked to other women, the more I found how common this actually is, not getting milk or our bodies not producing enough. Well, it is a biological function, makes sense it might not work for some people. Some people can't get pregnant, same principal right?

While I was home I enjoyed every minute of her. Sure it was rough, but I treasure those 3 am feedings now. She was an absolute delight and we have loved watching her grow and learn. We had other issues arise (that stupid helmet!), but we got though it all. We have been truly blessed with a laid back and healthy child.

Hopefully you can see a glimpse of our year through these pictures (I'm going to try and add a slideshow to use less space). It's only getting more fun. Anna walks (almost running), she points to everything, and blows excellent raspberries. She says lots of words now: Mama, Dada, book, uh-oh, woof woof, bubble, yes, cracker, and just started saying Grandma this weekend! I hope to post Anna/family updates more often so that our far away family can enjoy Anna just as much as we do!