I could have written a blog post entitled "Heartburn: My first real pregnancy symptom".  I spent the entire morning in bed, and the entire afternoon lying on Jan's couch.  I remember that my chest hurt so badly, that I spent a good portion of the morning crying.  I had been up all night with that terrible chest pain, what I thought was heartburn.  I threw up violently about 3 am, and the nausea stayed with me until well after noon.  I remember that I finally ate a piece of dry toast in the evening, and the pain was starting to subside.  That is, all except for that pounding headache...  Whew! That was over.. or so I thought.

Of course you all know the story, and if you don't, you can go read it here:  The Day We Became A Family .  I was actually terribly ill with HELLP syndrome. Since this isn't meant to be a depressing post, I'm going to leave it at that.

So anyway, a year ago today, I had just hit 33 weeks with my baby girl. I was so excited about seeing her in 7 more weeks!

Of course, you also know that I actually gave birth to Katie Beth a mere 48 hours later.

And then, just one year later, before I've even had time to blink my eyes...

My bedroom floor looks like this:



You read correctly. That's MY bedroom floor, not Katie Beth's.  When did she become old enough to throw toys around like that?  And when did she get big enough that she needed a push toy to help her learn to walk?

Today I made KB's very first birthday cake.  I am no cake artist, but I sincerely believe like a baby's very first cake should be one that is made by Mommy.  That includes mommies who have absolutely zero talent when it comes to decorating cakes.  Here is KB's very first birthday cake, made with lots of love:


And here is KB eating her first birthday cake, with even more love:


And lastly, here is my precious Katie Beth sharing a piece of her cake with Mommy, because she loves her as much as she loves the cake:



To be honest, I really just wanted to share this picture because of the awesome face she's making. I love that kid!!

So yes, suffice it to say that we've made it through a whole year, and I can't believe it.  We've conquered a life-threatening disease, super prematurity, terrible baby reflux, two trans-Pacific moves, fussy eating habits, two deployments and 43 total hours on airplanes. We've made it!

Happy birthday, Katie Beth. Your parents love you more than you will ever know, and are thankful for you every single day!

(For the record, the cake we use for her birthday party will come from a bakery. No one needs to see my works of art that close.)