All about Ashlyn: One year ago today.....

One year ago today our little girl was born. Ashlyn Riane McGrath was born at 12:34 pm on Jan 22. She weighed 7lbs 13oz and was 19 3/4 inches long.

I got to pick my delivery date since she was breech and I was having a c-section. I picked Jan 22 because my day off was the day before and I wanted to make sure the house was clean and I had a day to rest. Plus Jan 20 was the inaugaration and I really wanted to make sure I didn't miss such a historic event. Dr Bauer offered to do my section on the Sunday before but I said no. I wasn't ready, still had things on my to do list. Plus I like to sticking to a plan.

Almost everything went exactly according to plan. Surgery was scheduled for 12noon. Dr Bauer asked us to be there a little early (she had a meeting at 1pm), so we showed up at 9am ready to go. They were real busy that morning so we got a little tiny pre-op room to wait in. The nurse tried to put in my IV in my arm and she blew out the vein. That had never happened to me before, I thought it would hurt, but I didn't feel a thing. So another nurse came in and tried it on my hand. Not sure what happened but it wasn't working. I was supposed to have one whole bag of saline before surgery and the first bag was barely dripping. It was probably because I was so darn swollen. Probably the worst part of being pregnant for me was the swelling. So for the third and final try the anesthesiologist came in and put it in the other hand and it worked like a charm. I had one bag in less than 20 minutes. There wasn't really much to do while we waited. I'd already pre-registered and they'd already asked me all the questions (done any drugs, illicit sex, need a paternity test...I'm not kidding!). So we waited and waited. Finally a little before noon, the anesthesiologist took me in to the operating room. I jumped up (more like waddled) onto the table and he put in the spinal, which wasn't as bad as I feared. My legs went almost immediately, totally weird! They lay me down and the nurses immediately prop my legs in the air and put in a catheter. Nobody but you cares that your almost completely naked. I've been one of the people walking around the room and we really don't care. When you're the one on the table, you seriously care that you're half naked! Not being able to feel anything just makes it more weird. Soon Dr Bauer came in the room with her backup and her trainee, then they let Jered in. He stood at the head of the bed with the video camera. I totally wanted to watch but she wouldn't drop the drape in front of me. After reminding that she had scalpels and lasers and would be cutting into, I gave up asking. She did her thing but Ashlyn's head was stuck. I have a funny shaped uterus, one of the reasons for the c-section and her head was stuck at the top. Jered said she was pushing pretty hard on my belly and finally at 12:34pm Ashlyn was born! We heard a little cry and it was the best sound ever! Everything seemed to be going so slow until she handed her to the nurses and then finally they gave her to Jered. After that I'm not sure what was happening, I assume she sewed me up because there isn't a big whole in my stomach. We just stared at her and kissed her and touched her! Before we knew it we were back in our room. After attempting to breast feed (which is whole other story) everyone came into our room and we showed off the most beautiful baby girl ever!

I was so tired, they put something into my spinal that made me really sleepy. There was no way I could sleep though! We were running on pure adrenaline. After everyone left we just held her and stared at her and touched her all night long. That's pretty much all we did the whole 4 days we were stuck in the hospital. It was nice the first two days but by the third day I was ready to go home! When the doctor on call came in to discharge us, he made the mistake of saying I could leave at 5pm. I quickly corrected him and told him Dr Bauer told me I could leave at 11am. We were out of there before noon!

One year later out little baby girl has turned into a little person. She has such personality! She loves music, loves to dance, she is constantly talking, one of her favorite games is peek-a-boo, she loves books and listening to mama read when she has her bedtime bottle. She is so curious about everything, always opening and closing drawers, cupboards. She is very cautious, she likes to observe and check things out before she tries it for the first time. She loves playing with the dogs and bathtime is her favorite time of the day. As soon as she hears the water running in the bathroom, she gets all excited and crawls as fast as she can down the hallway. She plays in the bath until the water starts to get cold, then she lets you know its time to get out. She has 8 teeth and she loves to eat! She's a pretty good little sleeper too. She lets Mama and Daddy sleep in most weekends as long as we get up and give her a bottle about 6am. We've had some rough patches when she's teething or going through a growth spurt. We've avoided any major sickness thank goodness! She did have one bilateral ear infection that didn't require any medicine. She always seems to have a stuffy nose and she's had a few coughs but nothing major.
We see the pediatrician next Wednesday and we'll be talking about gluten. The plan is to just feed her like normal for a few weeks and watch for any sort of reaction. Then after a few weeks do the blood test. If it comes back positive, she'll be gluten-free like her Mama. We won't be doing the biopsy like I did. I won't put her through that.

Her birthday party is going to be the 31st here at our house. Our good friend is making the cake. I can't wait to see it! She went to culinary school and she makes the best goodies! I told her to just make it all girlie and 1st bday-ish :) It'll be amazing. I also went to my cousin Angela's ceramic shop last week and painted a plate for Ashlyn. Its so cute and I can't wait to see how it turns out. I brought it home with me and I'm going to have everyone sign it, then we'll get it fired and glazed.

I love her more and more every day! She is the best thing that Jered and I ever decided to do. Its been hard for sure but all of those hard days and nights are totally worth it. I won't lie, the pregnancy was definently not my favorite part. The 4 month hang-over, the massive swelling, the weird groin pain, the strange weird fears and thoughts you have the entire 9 months, the 9 months of no drinking (well except for a few sips of wine, but seriously a sip, so not worth it!), the weird hormonal mood changes, the after pregnancy hormone weirdness (ugh!). So much to not love, but it was all worth it, for Ashlyn!