Happy Birthday Elly...

In the wee dark hours of the morning, my husband and I woke up and got dressed. We toted our bags to the car and bid my mother-in-law adieu. Anxiously we drove to Elkin and I ate my "last" meal at McDonald's. A tasty biscuit and gravy. I cupped my hands around my belly and tried to memorize how it felt to be pregnant. What it felt to feel that precious life inside of me, kicking and rolling and hiccuping. For this would be the last day that the sweet darling was in my belly. Our last day sharing a body. A bittersweet feeling. Letting a piece of your heart leave your body and go out into the world to fend for itself. A heartbreaking, soul wrenching feeling that brings the prick of tears to your eyes while making you want to laugh and sing and shout all the same time. Becoming a mother is no easier the second time. Though it was at least more familiar. It was no less scary nor any less wondrous than the first time.

The day was February 7, 2011.

I was 37 weeks pregnant. I was huge and I was so very ready to be done being pregnant. My doctor was concerned about the size of the baby and so had scheduled an induction for first thing Monday morning. Evie had been a big baby and he was worried Elly would be even bigger.

Everyone told me second labors were faster. I thought I would have a faster day than I'd had the first time around. I spent 18 hours in labor with Evie. I was hoping to have Elly out by lunch time. Elly had a different idea. By lunch time the doctor had taken me off the pitocin and had me walking around the OB floor because not only had the baby not progressed any in the 5 hours of contractions, she had actually moved back UP. He was afraid she was too big or that there was another complication. He was considering sending me home and scheduling me for a C-Section in a week. Of course, I was devastated. Since my husband and I and my mother-in-law had already taken off work to have this baby. It was really going to throw a monkey wrench in my well-planned maternity leave. Not to mention the idea of a C-Section TERRIFIED and HORRIFIED me. I've never had any surgery. I don't have any scars (unless tattoos count).

After thirty minutes of walking and crying and jumping jacks (yes, I did jumping jacks!) to try to move the baby back down, they put me back on pitocin and we all hoped and prayed. After the doctor's office closed my doctor came back to see me and check the baby. I tried to brace myself for bad news. Instead, he decided to break my water and see what happened. A few hours later the contractions were unbearably painful. I was having back labor and it just wouldn't ease up. So I went ahead and got my epidural. Progress was slow and it was midnight and there was still no baby. The nurses thought that it might be the next morning and tried to tell me to get some sleep and rest. At about 1 a.m. I had a weird feeling. The nurse came in the check everything and I asked her if she'd check me. Because I was sort of having the urge to push. Which seemed crazy because the last time she checked at around midnight I was still only at about a 5. As soon as the nurse checked me, she looked up and said "Don't push."

Okay...

"You're dilated and the baby is RIGHT there. Don't push. We've got to call the doctor and get everything ready."

Okay...

The doctor arrived quicker than I thought he would, the nurses got everything ready and the pushing started.

Less than 30 minutes later, Ellynor Genevieve Dowd was out.

Five minutes after she was born, she smiled at me. Honestly, made eye contact and smiled. And despite the  rough patches since then that has really been her attitude from that day forward.

And there have been some rough patches. I know I have said it before but being a baby buncher is no picnic. Or if it is a picnic its the kind that gets rained on and invaded by ants and broken up by ravenous wolves and a pack of stampeding pachyderms. Maybe having two under two is easier for the stay-at-home crowd. Or maybe I just suck at it. Because my children are much meaner to each other than my friends kids. And although I keep hoping and praying that they will become best friends, so far they aren't. I hope if Elly reads this one day, she'll be chuckling over the notion of she and Evie not being friends. And it'd be nice if she would chuckle a bit about me sucking at this whole baby bunching thing. Because it has been a rough year.

There have been a lot of ups. And I wouldn't trade a second of it. But it has been difficult going.

At 10 days old Elly was diagnosed with RSV and admitted to the hospital for four days. When we got home from the hospital we all got a 24 hour stomach bug which is probably the sickest I have been in my life. Elly was jaundiced and didn't grow much at first as a result of the illnesses. Then she had awful reflux and had a tendency to throw up everything she ate. That lasted until she was about 8 months old and she didn't really stop spitting up as much until she was probably 10 or 11 months old. Elly had awful colic at night until about 4 months old and we spent several weeks sleeping on the couch or propped up in the bed because she would only sleep laying on our chest. To this day, the nights of uninterrupted sleep that I get are a rare treat. Between teething and nightmares and random bad dreams and lost pacis...some nights I spend more time in one bedroom or the other than I do in my bed.

Through it all, Elly has been a good-natured baby. Easily pleased for the most part and happy to a fault. She loves her sister dearly, even though Evie beats, flails and pushes her frequently. She loves to cuddle. And it melts my heart when she crawls into my lap and lays her head on my leg and just smiles. Elly also has this precious little head bump that she does. Just a happy little greeting she does when she's glad to see someone. It can be painful if you're not paying attention! She is also the most talkative baby I've ever been around. Her 12 month-old vocabulary is bigger than Evie's 18 month-old vocabulary. Though Elly regularly reminds me that she is not a trained monkey to do tricks on command and hates saying words on request. Compared to the small handful of words Evie could say at a year old, Elly has more than a dozen words. And adds to that number regularly. Hi, bye, Mama, Dada, Papa, Ma, baba, more, give, ball, Dora, Backpack, Map, yeah, dog, and apparently now cat (which she said for the first time to a friend at her birthday party) are ones that I know she's says and says correctly. There are other sounds that she makes to mean words but don't really sound like words. Like she has a sound for fish and a sound for car. And a two syllable sound that means "what's that" but sounds more like "Ga-dt." She loves to share and has a contagious laugh. She's a sweet and precious girl.

And in just a few more hours she will officially be one. It's surreal to think back to just one year ago, lying in a hospital bed with lil Elly still in my belly. Surreal how little time a year is...and yet how much can change. How that little life started squirmy and crying and covered in grime...and now she's a laughing, talking, crawling and SOON walking little person. A person who hates green veggies and loves cinnamon toast. One who cries when I put up the bag of cheese puffs or use a harsh tone with her. A girl whose favorite item is a hand-me-down fuzzy blanket and a stuffed hippo. Who loves to have her head rubbed and likes to sleep with a blanket over her face.

So here's to my little Elly G. My dumpling. My sweet, happy Ellynor. I thank God every night for your sweet smiling face. And I pray that a hundred birthdays and more stretch out before you. I hope that for each of those birthdays you are just as happy and surrounded by friends and family who love you as you were this weekend digging into your smash cake. I could not have imagined how much things were about to change one year ago. But you are everything I dreamed you would be, lying awake feeling those kicks and jabs from inside my belly before you were born. I love you sweet girl. Happy First Birthday.