Chloe thought it was important that she be in the first picture taken of Addy now that's she's 1. I totally agree.
After a celebratory dinner, and getting the kids tucked into bed, Pete and I found ourselves sitting on the couch holding hands. And reflecting on life exactly one year before. It was a sweltering hot week in Virginia, and the trees bloomed and covered everything in a thick coating of pollen. At that exact moment, we were in that blissed-out euphoria that follows the birth of your baby. That week was simultaneously one of the hardest and most joyful weeks we endured. By that Thursday, the pediatrician was talking about ultrasounds and tethered cords. On that Friday I sat in the ultrasound room at Children's as I cried silently and held my newborn still, as the radiologist explained to me, in the calm practiced voice we learn as healthcare providers, the additional tests we needed and touched on all the possibilities of what could be wrong. And when I first ached to be sitting on the other side of the exam table, using my calm practiced "provider" voice, instead of where I was. It was a year ago, on that day, that I started blogging.
However, if you had asked me a year ago to describe what I thought life would be like in a year, I would have been way off base. Not just the small things like where we are living, but the big things like Addy will be starting to talk, starting to use sign language, so close to walking. That Addy would be beautiful, and not just in that "in your mother's eyes" sort of way. (Remember, we thought we were dealing with a huge hemangioma, that would grow and cover a significant portion of her face.) I wouldn't have thought that I would be OK with not fully knowing what caused Addy's venous anomaly, and what the future still may hold. I couldn't have known I would be a stay-at-home mom.
And now, we eagerly look ahead to the next year. When we will again sit on the couch and hold hands, and reflect on our journey.
Some throwbacks. A year ago, this week.
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