Today is a year from Kailee's due date. I wanted to acknowledge it because it was a date that I looked forward to for a very long time. Reflecting on the last year, I am so greatful to be where I'm at today. I remember this day last year and it was so hard to get through. Today I remember this day as I sit here and watch my son sleep. Life is good today.

Colson is 3 weeks old. I can't believe how quickly it has gone by. My days, which used to drag on waiting for him to get here, have been consumed with feeding, changing diapers, rocking, playing and various other fun baby activities. There have been many times it has been overwhelming, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

He is such a good baby. He sleeps very well and wakes up 2-3 times per night to be fed and get his diaper changed. It's been so much fun to watch Brent be a father and it makes me love him that much more.

I am surprised by the fact that I feel guilt. I feel guilt that I'm not waking up with Kailee on my mind and going to sleep thinking of her. I know the guilt isn't warranted, but it's still there, regardless. I find myself wondering what she would look like now. Colson has already changed and grown so much in 3 weeks. He's turning into a little man!

I was at church yesterday and a visitor baby came into the nursery. She was 4 months old and her name was Kailee. Someone named all the babies in the nursery, and it was so odd hearing "Kailee and Colson." The names of my two babies.

When I was in labor with Colson, the nurses' had me walk laps around the hallway in order to get labor moving. Brent walked with me and we kept walking past "Labor Room 2". This was the same room where I had Kailee. We were walking past it for what seemed like the hundredth time, and we heard a baby being born. We heard the baby screaming and it was incredibly emotional. There are happy memories in that room, too!

Colson's arm is improving. Yesterday he was able to move it at the shoulder and wave it around. It surprised him! I don't think he knew it was his arm! Very cute. He still hasn't bent the elbow, and he continues to have trouble moving the arm if it's too far behind him, but it is definitely a huge improvement! We return to the doctor this week so he can check on it, but I imagine the doctor will just wait it out at this point since he's shown so much improvement in 3 weeks.

I'm sitting in the hospital. Brent is singing Jingle Bells to Colson while rocking him and I have never been happier.

He is perfect and sweet and every second of pain was absolutely worth it! We were scheduled for induction on Wednesday night, but ended up going Thursday morning. We got to the hospital at 8am and they began Cytotec at 10am. I immediately began contracting, which was good because I was only dilated to a 1 and 20% effaced.... Within 4 hours, I had dilated to a 3 and effaced more (can't remember how much) The doctor said she was impressed and usually it took 2 doses of that to get things started. At this point, I thought I was going to be lucky and have a breezy labor. Ha!

I kept having regular contractions. They had me walk the halls of the hospital and this made the contractions worse. They were 4-7 minutes apart on Thursday evening! The contractions were not comfortable, so I opted to get the epidural at this point. I slept all night and woke up at 2am when the doctor came in. She checked me and I was STILL only dilated to a 3! At this point, she stripped my membranes- NOT comfortable, by the way!  I went back to sleep and woke up the next morning.... still at a 3....

They started Pitocin at this point to help the contractions along. With the pitocin, I dilated to a 6, then back to a 5..... It went this way all afternoon. At 3:00, the nurse came in to talk with us. She said that it looked like my body didn't want to dilate past a 6, and I would more than likely end up with a csection within the next 2 hours. There are many, many reasons why I didn't want a csection and many reasons the doctor would rather me deliver vaginally.

The nurse said she wanted to try one last ditch effort to get me to dilate. They put in an internal monitor to measure the strength of the contractions and then they started the pitocin at high levels to try and get the contractions to a level where it "should" dilate me. At this point, I realized that the epidural wasn't working so well on my left side. It hurt.... a lot. We got the anesthesiologist in there and she readjusted the catheter in my back. Then they kept giving me bolus' of extra medicine trying to numb those 2 spots I could feel. It didn't work very well and I thought I would just have to suffer through it. I was crying in the hospital bed and Brent was just rubbing my head through each contraction. I started to feel TONS of pressure and I told Brent I had to push really, really badly. He went to get the nurse and she checked me. She said I was dilated to a 10, but still had a lip on my cervix. She asked me to hold on for another 45 minutes and then we would start pushing. At this point, I was in so much pain. I couldn't stop my body from pushing. The anesthesiologist came in and gave me more medicine which helped TREMENDOUSLY. Soon, I was feeling just fine. We watched about an hour of television and the nurses' came in. I told them I was still completely numb and couldn't even figure out where to push. They set me up and had me do a practice push. Well, I was able to. By this point, Colson was down to +3!!!!!!! So, we began pushing.

I forgot to mention the all day, everytime I would lay on my left side, Colson's heartbeat would become unstable. I had to spend all my time on my right side. During the pushing part, Colson's heartbeat kept going down. I had been pushing for an hour and 10 minutes.... half of his head was out, and his heartrate went down to 30! The doctor told me that we HAD to get this baby out on the next contraction. They discussed the use of forceps with us. We weren't entirely comfortable with this route, but the alternative was to push baby back up and do a csection----- We went with the forceps. The doctor tole me to push with everything I had.  I pushed so hard! There were at least 8 people screaming at me to push harder! When they saw I wasn't going to be able to do it, the male doctor jumped on top of me, told me to push and pushed my belly down as hard as he could until Colson came out.

During this push, I was picturing planning and attending Colson's funeral. It was very surreal.

Colson was taken immediately to the NICU bed once he had been born.  They didn't let me see him. He wasn't crying when he came out and I knew he was dead. (This is what happened with Kailee. I wasn't able to see her because they took her away so fast). I was sobbing and asking why he wasn't crying. The nurses' kept telling me everything was okay, they were just checking him out, but I didn't believe them. Brent finally came to my bed and showed me a picture of him on the camera. Then I heard a cry from the NICU bed and began sobbing.

I tore, but it was only a 2nd degree tear. Thank God, because he came out fast and it could have been really bad! Colson has a lot of bumps and bruises. He has a mark on his head where he kept bumping into my pubic bone. The worst thing was that his shoulder got caught on my pelvis. He hasn't been using his right arm a lot and the hand is positioned funny. the doctor told us that it is probably temporary nerve damage from where he was taken out so fast. We will talk with our pediatrician about a course of action. either it will resolve on its own or he will need physical therapy.

He's absolutely perfect, though. He came out all swollen last night, but a lot of the swelling has gone down and he's just an angel. He cries some, but is very easily comforted. He likes to snuggle and he also likes to just sit in the bassinet and look around with his wide brown eyes! (That's what he's doing now as I type!)

I love him so much.