Twelve Months.

Hey Aves, happy birthday!

You, my dear, are one. year. old. It feels impossible. We celebrated the enormity of this milestone with a little fete with family this weekend, a trip to visit family in Bend last weekend and there are two more parties on the horizon. Hey, you only turn one once, right!?

I've been adrift in sentimentality the last few days. Indulging the memories with eyes closed. Seeing again, a year later, the moments that led up to your arrival.

Those early hints of an early labor. The false alarm that sent Nana scrambling for a last-minute ticket to PDX that soon became a not-so-false alarm. The friends who pinch-hit and packed bags and picked up Daddy from the airport so he wouldn't miss a moment.

I remember the denial. Heading into work (in labor) to tie up loose ends and satisfy a doctor's order for bed-rest. Obsessing, later that night, about preparing for your arrival. Oblivious as to how soon it would actually come.

My body ached. My mind raced. Your Nana and Daddy kept chiding me for hours to lay down. Shaking their heads at my refusals. I finally let myself rest around nine. Fell asleep to the hypnobirthing CD--the one your dad and I had taken up a habit of using to lull us to sleep. It was one of a six-disc set but we had never made it past the first ten minutes. My water broke not five minutes after I had finally drifted off. Instant agony. Contractions racing, raging waves through my trembling body, one after another with not enough seconds in-between. Nana fibbed about their timing so as not to send me into a panic.

Daddy hit the gas. Twelve minutes to the hospital. A lifetime. In transition.

A life in transition.

Daddy stopped at the speed bump and I jumped out. Couldn't bear to sit in the wheelchair that Nana was begging me to wait for and insisted instead on walking to the doors. Tunnel vision. Sights fixed on the purple elevators that would deliver me to the epidural I had planned to refuse and would now walk over hot coals to find.

The volunteer at the check-in desk insisted on my name, social security number and the name of your pediatrician. Couldn't speak. I tried to oblige. Politeness stolen by waves of paralysis that held my breath hostage and forced my head to my knees. Another woman walked in with her husband. Bags packed neatly. I noticed she could talk. Wondered if she was really in labor when my thought process was interrupted by a sudden need to decorate the trash can with my dinner. Not sure I've ever been so embarrassed and unabashed at the same time. Totally uncontrollable. Biology has taken over. 

My antics in the lobby get us a front-line pass to the triage room where a perky new nurse with a blonde bob then took waaaay too long to deduce just how quickly we were progressing. So many questions. So much waiting. So much telling me just what they were doing, measuring, documenting. I couldn't hear.

Couldn't they see I was having a baby!? (Where was that epidural they kept promising!?)

Finally (Nana swears it was just 15 minutes later) we were being wheeled down the longest hallway I've ever seen. Slick floors and white walls seemed dark with my pain-blurred vision but I remember the halo that Helen, our most beloved midwife, wore as she greeted me. "You're about to meet your baby" she said. ("Indeed. Where's the anesthesiologist?" I wondered.)

The birthing suite was huge and looked north into the forested hills. This was the same room we had been in two nights before when we thought you might come even earlier. I noticed that after the drugs kicked in. Finally, a moment of relief. A complete thought. My sight returned.

It was after midnight. Three of the fastest, longest hours of my life behind me and I could actually think about you. You were coming. On your way. Contorting yourself through seven cardinal movements that would send you screaming into this world. I hoped you weren't hurting too, held Daddy's hand and resisted the urge to push. Not yet.

Later, folks will say I'm lucky to have had such a short labor. But a good friend and fellow mama who has logged two births of her own--one long, one very short--says it best. With a long labor, you get to be the frog in the pot while the water is still cold. Then, slowly, the heat brings you to a boil. With precipitous labor, you're just the frog thrown into a bubbling pot. Either way, you're still a frog in too-hot water.

Helen convinced me it was time and that I could do this. I had done the hardest part, unbeknownst to me, in the car ride here. She swore the pushing would be easy. Trust. Focus. Seven minutes and the oxygen mask went on. You were in trouble. I wanted to give you my breath. I've never sucked air so deeply in my asthmatic life. Three more minutes. One last push. You slipped into daddy's hands. A moment suspended.

Not much bigger than both palms cupped behind your tiny body. 5 pounds. 8 ounces. Legs still curled askew, I could see now where your toes had been tickling my ribs while a severely coned, bruised head revealed why it had been so hard to walk for weeks. So much revealed.

Your cord was short. Not alarmingly so, but when Helen lifted your little pink body onto me and you barely cleared my belly button--my own 'mama connection.' We all cried.

When you learn you're pregnant, you spend so many weeks wondering how this moment will come to be. I had expected to feel relieved. To revel in the elation of that singular moment. To glow with pride and awe. And, indeed, I felt, lived, all of these things. But what took me by surprise was how normal it felt too.

Of course you were there. Three and a half weeks early and right on time. Born in the wee hours of a September morning. Our daughter. First born. Avie. Sweet baby with bird legs, who painted wings on our hearts and taught us what it feels like to soar.
 
One year later and the proverbial cord has stretched. You took three solo steps the night before your birthday. You are intrepid, my love. Seeking to climb and lift and push and indulge your curiosity in ways that require me to live always on my toes.

You are a reader. A lover of water. You savor all things silly. Chief of belly-laughs and commander of funny noises. You still fill the hearts of strangers with huge grins with every trip to the grocery store. My little magnanimous beebuh. Cheers to celebrating every moment of 12 months of sweetness. Yep, four parties are definitely necessary.

With more love than can ever be said, spelled or typed.
xo,
Mama