One Year Ago from Today...

Hayden came into our world

And made us a Family of Four!

(This was Christmas last year, I was able to leave Christmas Eve, but she had to stay in the NICU for a couple more days. Luckily, nothing was serious.)

We had our scary moments through her first year in the PICU,

but she endured them well.

I thought that I would post Hayden's journal entry for today on our blog to share with you what this little Miracle Baby means to me:

Dear Hayden Girl,

I write you this letter on your First Birthday with a full heart. My love for you is so strong and has been so present from the day you were born. I know without a doubt that you, exactly you, were the one who was supposed to come into our family and especially into my arms at the time that you came. Your tender, sweet personality was needed to soothe my heart and soul. To bring me such exquisite amount of joy and happiness that I never knew was possible from the first seconds after your quite amazing and unexpected delivery (you were three weeks early and came so fast that I didn’t have time to get medicine to dull the pain). But that is how your life continues to be. If I am ever sad or struggling with something all I need to do is turn to you and you bring warmth and peace to me as I squeeze you tight in my arms. You are also a symbol of strength and endurance. The start of your life was in the NICU and then twice afterwards you fought for your life as you spent weeks all together in the PICU. I was so scared of loosing you, but though you had such enormous amounts of pain in your eyes you were so strong and brave on the exterior. All the doctors and nurses loved being around you because of your resilience and happy demeanor. I know you were just an infant on the outside, but your soul on the inside knew you had so much more to live for.

Now at One you are turning into a fun loving, spunky little girl. You have a flirtatious, teasing, toothy grin that cracks me up and sends everyone into laughter. You love to be wherever your brother is and to play with his toys. He dotes on you, most of the time, and sweetly refers to you as “Honey.” Though you are a very tender soul and do not like your feelings to be hurt, you are still a tough cookie and enjoy a good challenge. Right now your favorite challenge is going up and down the stairs and you like to practice often. You also enjoy the challenge of trying to sneak into the bathroom before Mom catches you and closes the door. I don’t know what it is about the Bathroom, but that is the room you always gravitate to, you just want to climb that toilet. Maybe you will be an easy kid to potty train – here’s to hoping!

Right now you are crawling and can walk around as you hold on to things. You also enjoy walking behind the walker Grandma Bonnie gave to you for your Birthday. Like I said you enjoy climbing up things like the stairs. We have started working on baby sign language with you and you can sign “more,” “eat” and we are working on “all done.” You love to growl at things like dinosaurs, dogs, lions/tigers in books, etc. For such a little girl, you do have one ferocious growl. You love to eat food. Your favorite food is ice cream. We always have to be cautious of when we get the ice cream out because once we start feeding you ice cream we are in it for the long haul. You get quite a food grunt going on if we slow down and don’t get the next bite in at the precise second you are ready for it.

You said your first word a few months ago and it was “Mom.” You love your Mom!! “Mom” is a word that you use for just about anything that you want or that you are excited about. You love to snuggle up to me and I LOVE to snuggle up to you! When you wake up, you snuggle into my chest and just sit there for a couple minutes. This is such a precious time. If something scares you, you like to snuggle into whoever is holding you at that point as well. Also, whenever you get shy, you snuggle in and bury your face in my chest.

Hayden, you are also a very beautiful girl! I love to watch your blue eyes that you got from me sparkle and dance. Those eyes can light up a room. Your hair is so wild and crazy the only way it can be tamed now-a-days is by being pulled back into one or two pony tails which is always completed by a big bow of some sort. Who would have thought that I would be so much into accessorizing my little girl? You are so much fun to doll up and Daddy loves to show you off! He loves his little girl with all his heart.

Thanks Hayden Yvonne for coming into our lives and being our little “Angel” and “Honey”!

I love you with all my heart,
Mom