Gage is 1!

My baby is a year old!  He is my last baby and has been treated as such.  I have loved every single minute of holding him, rocking him to sleep, spoiling him rotten.  He will never doubt how much he is loved.  His daddy, brother, sister and all of our family make sure of that too.  He is the sweetest, most precious baby, and we adore him!

At a year he is right at 18 pounds and 28 inches.  8th percentile for weight and 3rd for height.  It took us 6 months just to get on the chart, so we're happy with those percentiles.  He sits well now and army crawls.  He waves hey and bye, gives kisses, plays party cake, claps, gives high fives, and plays "so big!"  He says dada, bye, mama, yay!, nah-nah (no no), and ball.  He thinks Cooper and Ella hung the moon and laughs more at them than anything else.  He loves to snuggle and be held.  He likes to feed himself and loves to eat!

I can't believe he's a year old!

Tomorrow Gage will be one year old.  Tomorrow will be a day for celebrating him.  One year ago today though was the scariest day of my life.  It started out great.  I went to the doctor, was released from bed rest, and that night Chris and I worked in the nursery.  Then I woke up about 2:00 in the morning to bleeding.  Lots, and lots, and lots of bleeding.  More blood than I have ever seen in my life.  I knew what that meant and how serious it was.  Of the many things to be thankful for that night,   one was that my doctor, Dr. Richardson, was on call.  He knew all about my situation and didn't have to be filled in.   He knew to take me seriously when I said it was a lot of blood.  He had his entire surgical team on the way to the hospital as soon as he hung up the phone after Chris called to tell him what was going on.  He had already ordered blood for me and had it waiting on me when I got there. He met us at the entrance to the hospital, rode up in the elevator with us, stayed with me every second.  As soon as he heard the heartbeat on the doppler, I saw the relief on his face that mirrored the relief I felt.  The whole way to the hospital I prayed.  The closer we got and the more I felt like I might pass out, I prayed in time with the emergency flashers - please God, please God, please God.  I figured God knew what I was begging, for Gage to be okay, for me to make it through everything to be there for all three of my babies.  Gage had always moved constantly in my belly, but he never moved once from the time I woke up until after Dr. R found his heartbeat with the doppler.  I can't explain how I felt when I heard his heartbeat.  It was a relief of course, but more than that I could feel God's peace and His reassurance that he was with me and Gage and everything was going to be okay.  After that I was totally at peace through everything.  The preparations for the c-section, the first spinal not working and having to get a second one, Gage being whisked away so quickly after birth, being moved to another hospital, even through his month long nicu stay.  I felt that peace and reassurance.  There are many things that lined up perfectly in our favor that night.  In Dr. Richardson's words - Gage is a miracle who shouldn't even be here.  I hope and pray that I will always remember that and be thankful for the blessing that Gage is to us, and that he will grow up to feel a close connection with our God and allow Him to guide his life as he so obviously guided him into this world.