Wesley came into this world on December 9th, 2015 at 10:23, weighing 7 lb 15oz, 20 inches long and 1,000% perfect. The moment of his birth was easily the best moment I've ever experienced. Labor was hard, like hated every second of it hard but then pushing was worse. I pushed for almost an hour and everyone said how "good" that was for a first time mom. But I wanted to die the whole time. I know this is dramatic and if you haven't given birth, you may not want to continue reading and skip to the happy day we celebrated this year. I had labor all in my back which I guess was unexpected and although the epidural took that pain away, I suddenly felt it in other places and still had to work on meditating and I feel like I felt everything while I was pushing. But like I said, the moment when he came out and came to me was insane euphoria. I'm sure there were so many hormones going on that made me instantly love everyone in the room who I had felt intense dislike for only moments before. But this isn't really about his birth story (click here to read that), I want to talk about the day we celebrated two weeks ago. It's just hard to talk about that and not talk about his birth.
We decided to do a small celebration with our families at Layton's parents house. I bought a mini donut maker a few weeks previously and decided to make over a 100 mini donuts for the treat plus cupcakes (I mean, the kids gotta have a cake right??). I stayed up until midnight baking and decorating and I was super pleased with how they turned out even though I was so exhausted. I don't condone this type of behavior, I think it's better to prepare ahead of time and to make sure you take care of yourself, I just didn't anticipate how long it would take plus, our families are huge so I wanted to have enough for everyone to have a few.
The next day, Layton and I went into Wesley's room to get him and sang him happy birthday. He had no clue what was going on and just wanted to get right to business: nursing. He still loves it so much. I am amazed that we made it to a full year. At the beginning it was rough. I had to use a nipple shield for almost 12 weeks and we struggled nearly everyday, I would break down and scream and cry about how hard it was and why it wouldn't work the way I thought it should. I was finally able to wean him off the shield and then when I went back to work, the bottle presented another challenge. He loved it, more than my breasts. I worked hard and had tough moments where he wouldn't accept the breast even though he wanted the milk or I'd have to revert back to the shield. He finally got to where he could transition smoothly and it got better and better. Oh, and I didn't even mention the pain that I felt every time, the whole time, when I nursed him, for nearly four months. He was latched correctly, we were doing it right, it was just not something my body was used to at all and it was painful. We are finally now to a year and I used to long for it to get here so I could say we made it and now, I don't want it to stop. Thankfully he still loves it and it doesn't seem like he is wanting it to end too soon, and there are of course still days and moments where I don't want to and I'm tired of it, but it is such a special time, especially because he is so active now. I love being able to just be the two of us, snuggled together with nothing else to do. It's the best.
Layton's mom takes care of Wesley on Fridays (which is the day his birthday was on), so Layton dropped him off and then we went to work. After work we went over to their house and had some super yummy food, opened his presents which he loved and sang him happy birthday. I was soooo happy with how he handled it all! Sometimes he gets scared around loud noises, but he loved everyone there and he especially loved everyone looking at him and singing happy birthday. He also loved looking at the cupcake with the candle on it and when we finally gave him the cupcake, he seriously demolished it. He laughed and smiled and was such a joy, I could not have asked for anything better. I got a ton of compliments on my donuts and everyone was super shocked to hear I made them. With the donut maker it was seriously so easy (and you just use a box cake mix so they end up tasting like cake in donut form), it was just the decorating that took forever.
We slept over that night and woke up the next morning to celebrate our sister-in-law, Tara's birthday with breakfast. It's fun that she and Wesley's birthdays are just one day apart. It was really fun to all be together and I loved that we got to celebrate their birthdays on the actual days they were born. Sometimes it's so hard with big families to celebrate on the day which is fine, I just think it's fun to do it on the actual day.
I felt a tiny bit sad the days before his birthday, just thinking about how much he's grown and thinking about how one day, he really won't be my baby anymore. I wish I could go back and see and hold newborn Wes again, but I love the little boy he's becoming. He has such a personality, he's so vivacious, social, expressive and fun. I feel so blessed to be his mom, and I am grateful for his timing. Even though he wasn't planned, it's obvious now that his timing was perfect and just what we needed. We love you so much Wesley and Happy Birthday.
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