Happy Birthday Little Monkey!

Today is Colm's 1 year birthday! I can remember this time last year, I had been in labor for a solid 2 1/2 days, trying to have this kid. We had a pretty tough delivery. The Saturday night before he was born, I started having contractions. This being our first kid, we decided just to go into the hospital, just in case. We had been using a midwife, with the total intention of doing natural childbirth. However, she wasn't there when we got to the hospital, so we were forced to use the midwife that was on call (which I didn't like very much to begin with). Upon her insistance, she suggested that since it looked like we were in for a very long day ahead of us, that I should get some sleep and take something for the pain. Now, not knowing what to really expect from all of this and having never gone through childbirth before and trusting that these are medical professionals, we decided to take her advice, even though there were red flags that were going off with both Matt and I. So, she gave me both Ambian and Morphine and I conked out. It was a mere 2 hours later, that I was being awakened by a frantic nursing staff, straping an oxygen mask to my face and shooting me up with Narcam to try to wake me up. Apparently, after taking all of these drugs, I went into respiratory distress and it was affecting both me and Colm. I freaked out, frantic, was completely disoriented and alone. I had sent Matt home to get some sleep, so he wasn't there when all of this was happening. I called Matt and he came rushing in to see what was going on. So from that point on, my body was never insync with my contractions. They tried to induce me for 2 days and wouldn't let me eat anything. I had catheters inserted to try to stimulate dilation, was on pitocin constantly and had the cytoteck inserted, but NADA. So it was Monday night when I just couldn't take it anymore and opted to have a ceasarian. I have got to say that throughout all of that pain, that epidural was FANTASTIC! The whole procedure probably only took 30 minutes total, but it seemed like an eternity before I could hear that wonderful little cry. I was out of it because of the drugs, but can remember the doctor saying "Look at all of that hair!" So, it was then that 9.8 lbs of lovin' was born. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen!

So to mark this special occassion, we gave him a wonderful birthday party this weekend. He really enjoyed smashing cake into his face, playing with his friends in the pool and romping through all of the package wrapping. He had a wonderful time and I feel so fortunate to have so many people that love him as much as I do. He's really the most important thing that I've ever done in my life and such a special little person. I feel like the luckiest girl on the planet for having such a wonderful little boy! I love you, little monkey!