hello lovelies!  this post is officially inspired by my beautiful bloggy friend over at silence and noise.  as precious little bresho approached age one miss andrea made a daily countdown to the big event: twelve seperate posts, one day representing each month of her little man’s life, starting at twelve months old and ending as a newborn on his birthday…  to put is simply, a fantastically lovely idea.

i’m putting my own spin on andrea’s wonderful concept.  i’m starting this little “series” thirteen days before my darling babe’s first birthday.  i’ll be publishing one post every day leading up to p’s birthday, each post representing one month of her life.  tonight’s post brings us to the month before darling poppy was born.  the month before my life was unequivocably changed for the better…

the month before i became a mother, i was busy but mostly relaxed.  i was worked full-time as an office assistant and daydreamed constantly about meeting my little miss.  i enjoyed an extremely healthy, uncomplicated pregnancy and poppy was a delight from the start.  she was very active, which was always reassuring, and she flipped head-down at around 28 weeks and made herself nice and cozy!  at around 32 weeks p dropped and things got a bit less comfortable for me.  still fun and incredibly exciting, mind you, but holy toledo  no one can prepare you for how it feels to have an infant doing karate on your diaphragm!  around this time, i began crafting like a madwoman, furiously cleaning our apartment, and eating everything in sight.  here is what poppy (and i) looked like right before she was born:

the above photo with the yellow shirt is the last picture taken of me pre-labor.  at 37 weeks and 3 days along, i rolled over in bed and suddenly realized my water had broken.  i had read enough about pregnancy & labor to know exactly what that meant for me:  within a day or so of that moment, prepared or not, i was going to become a mother!  it was exactly midnight, and i’ll never forget the sensation and bewilderment of trying to contain my excitement and rest up, thoughts spinning wildly through my mind.  some were silly:  worrying about how i’d word the call to my manager in the early morning saying i couldn’t make it to my shift – “um, i’m like about to have a baby and stuff, so someone else is gonna have to handle the deposit” and “oh shit, i seriously need to shave my legs before i go to the hospital.”  other, more serious notions crossed my mind.  “she’s barely full-term.  what if she has breathing complications?”  and “am i strong enough to get her here safely?”

i tried and tried to rest, but simply couldn’t manage to get any sleep.  at around 4:00am i woke david up and pleaded with him not to freak out, but the TIME HAD COME.  as any self-respecting daddy-to-be would do, he promptly freaked out and pretty much begged me for a task to busy himself with while i got myself ready to head off to the hospital. so i sent him to safeway for spearmint gum, vitamin water and jumbo-sized maxi pads (cause HI i was leaking like a water balloon with a hole poked in it!)  i showered and smiled to myself as i haphazardly shaved my legs.  i was thrilled to realize i’d be meeting my poppy girl so soon…

the entire story of my labor is going to have to be saved for another time.  it was an incredibly profound experience in my life, and in many ways a very scarring one.  it was full of excitement, fear, pain, disappointment, more pain, some relief, some terror, ridiculous amounts of pain, and ultimately unparallelled joy.  my labor experience was long and incredibly difficult,  and is a story for another day.  but for now, i will leave you with the incredibly beautiful end result:

my daughter.

poppy madeline reese bilbrey.  born april 11, 2009.  5 pounds 14 ounces of itty bitty perfection.  and mine to cherish for eternity…

tomorrow i will bring  you the story of month one in my life with poppy.  cheers, friends!

11 months old, adorable photos, birthday stuff, biscuit, crafty mama, reflecting

March 30, 2010

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