My baby is 1!!

My Ahsy Grace is one year old today! I can't even believe it! This last year has really flown by. We are having her party up in June Lake this weekend. It's the fishing season opening weekend there and so most of Ricky's family will be there so...we figured it'd just be easier to it that way. ;-) I just have a few last minute things to buy here and then I think I'm gonna head up there tonight. It all depends on how tired I am.

Anyway...getting back to my Ashley Grace... ;-) I remember the last month of my pregnancy with her like it was yesterday. I was soooo uncomfortable (and I wasn't even that huge) I was just sooo over being pregnant. I actually went to the hospital 3 times thinking I was in labor, only to get sent home an hour later. Ricky would take me for rides on the motorcycle almost everyday to try and get me to go into labor. i wonder what people must have thought seeing an almost 9 months pregnant chick riding around on the back of a motorcycle. LOL But..it didn't work. Actually..it wasn't until the Saturday before my due date (it was the 22nd, and I was due the 26th) Meredith, Stephanie and I all went walking around the mall for 5 hours. I was having contractions like every 10 or 12 minutes. I could still walk thru them, but they were getting worse. I was really thinking that this was it. We got back to my house and as soon as I sat down.....they stopped. I was soooo ticked!! All that walking for nothing. The rest of the night we all (me, Ricky, Mere and Daniel, Stephanie and Jared, adn Cohen of course) hung out at our house. We had a BBQ and then I'm pretty sure thatwas it. We went to bed and everyone else went back to Mere and D's.

At around 2am I awoke to some pretty bad contractions. I thought to myself. "I'm gonna time these for a 1/2 hour, and only then if they are at least 10 mins apart will I go to the hospital." I was soooo not gonna go there only to be once again, sent home. Well...I think I timed like 3 contractions and that was it. They hurt soooo bad! I woke Ricky up, got stuff together and off we went. I had to stop twice in the hall before we even got to L&D, they hurt so bad. By the time we got there and I got all hooked up it was 2:30am. We called Mere to come get Cohen. Then I had to wait an hour before they'd give me an epidural. They wanted to make sure I was truly in labor. So, at 3:30am they checked me again, and yup sure enough....I was. But then I had to wait another hour while they gave me an IV of fluid *before* I got the epidural. SO...at 4:30am, 2 hours after my contractions had started, I got my epidural. I spent the next few hours, throwing up, only a few times, but still..nasty. And trying to get some sleep. At 6:30am I was ready to push, so they got everything ready. I really couldn't feel anything, b/c of the epi, so it wasn't that bad. And 20 minutes later at 6:56am, Ashley Grace was born. :) It was a pretty easy labor. No complications, and I healed pretty quickly. The next few weeks I tried to adjust to life with a 2 year old *and* a newborn.

It's been a crazy year, but I can't imagine life with out her. She's just so cute, and seems to do something new everyday. She's definatly a keeper. ;-)