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One year ago today, was my last full day as a non-mommy. I was a mommy to be. It blows my mind that it's been a whole year already.

The night we left for the hospital

Gary and I have always wanted to have children. In fact, on one of our first dates we discussed that we both wanted children. Really there was no point for either of us to continue dating if the other didn't want kids. It was a deal breaker. Due to some issues that I had (have actually), I knew it was going to be hard for us to get pregnant and it was going to require some medical intervention. After we moved to Texas we knew we didn't want to waste time and the day our new health insurance kicked in, I went to see a doctor. Although few insurance policies cover infertility (ours being one of them), there are some relatively low cost medications and procedures available. To our surprise, I got pregnant on the first round.

I had (in typical Kim fashion) thought of scads of cute/clever/fun ways to tell Gary that we were finally going to be parents. But when it actually happened, when the opportunity finally came, (again in typical Kim fashion) I was too excited to remember any of my clever ideas, and too impatient to put any of the things I could remember into action. I very impatiently waited for him to come home from work. Like, impatient as in sitting in a chair by the front window watching for his car (that's a true story. I sat in a chair by the window watching for the front end of our Jeep to crawl past the corner of the neighbors garage. I'm pathetic like that). As soon as he walked in the door I ushered him to the row (of 5) pregnancy tests that I'd taken. I think we both kind of stared at them for a minute, trying to comprehend the millions of ways our life as we knew it was about to change. There was no way to fully comprehend it though.

The rest, they say, is history. Nine long months of waiting and on January 18, 2009 I checked in to the hospital to be induced. After 17 hours of labor, that was it. We were parents. No longer were we a couple, we were a family of three. Really, still it's hard for me to believe.

The past year has been the busiest, most sleepless, fastest, most trying, most rewarding and best year of my life. And I wouldn't trade a second of it. Grayden has made my life better in more ways that I could ever begin to describe here, and I'm a lucky mom and a better person for having him in my life.

Happy birthday eve, my little monkey! =)

Grayden in his birthday jammies

Such a big boy!