Happy birthday baby girl

*I wrote this yesterday on Cali's birthday, but am only getting around to actually posting it today*
!Warning: may have a bit more information than some of you may want to read :)!
Four years ago today we were coming to the end of a very long and very stressful pregnancy. At 13 weeks I was vacuuming the kitchen (yes, our kitchen at the time had carpet! Terrible!) when suddenly I felt like I was peeing my pants. It caught me completely by surprise and I “held it” and ran to the bathroom, cursing pregnancy. What I found in the bathroom made me sick to my stomach. I can’t even find a fitting word for the amount of blood that started coming forth. In a panic I called my OB and received direct instructions to get there immediately (being as we were in Washington farming at the time, the doctor was an hour away). In a panic I called Chandlor who was luckily in a tractor right outside our house, and not half way across town. He came in to watch the three girls while I drove to the doctor's. It was so bad I was leaving puddles of blood in every chair I sat in. I was apologizing profusely and the nurse kept telling me to stop apologizing. After an ultra sound confirmed that my baby was still alive (it was at that point that my panic turned into tears of relief) they hospitalized me, waiting to see if I would miscarry. I did not. I was sent home and put on bed rest. I had three little girls to take care of and I had to miss Bill and Jessica’s wedding, but somehow we made it through a month of bed rest. By the end of it I decided that I had to get up. I had to take care of the children I already had. After a month of bed rest I went in for another ultra sound where they found that the placenta had hemorrhaged and Cali , though we didn’t even know her gender at the time, was surrounded 50% by blood. I was given a 50/50 shot at keeping her. They were afraid that the placenta would be too weak to nourish her and hold her as she got bigger, or that she would run out of room to grow with all the blood around her. From there we started weekly stress tests and monthly ultra sounds to check on her. We passed the time for miscarriage and started worrying about premature birth. Finally, two weeks before she was due (she was due on my 26th birthday) we went to the hospital to check her lungs, hoping they would be developed enough to have a C-section and get her out of there… me. Her lungs weren’t ready, so the C-section was scheduled for the following week, my doctor giving me every reassurance that the count was high enough she was certain one week was all that was needed. After six months of weekly doctor’s visits (an hour one way) I was exhausted from the emotional and physical strain. Jan 28, 2005 I went into the surgery, and nearly lost my life from complications of my own body. We had never, through all the ultra sounds, found out Cali ’s gender, and everyone in that delivery room knew that we had three girls already. What should have take 15 minutes took and hour and a half. I had the anesthesiologist at my head the entire time. I was fighting to breathe and stay focused, I felt distant and disconnected from what was happening and he could tell. Finally, “it’s another girl!” Cheers and laughs from the entire room and tears from me. My baby made it, and so did I.
The one thing that drives me INSANE about Cali is her stubborn streak, and her outrageous will to do it HER way on HER time. And we butt heads constantly on “you have to listen and do these things when it’s time”. But I’m so grateful for that outrageous stubbornness of hers, for it’s exactly that got her through the pregnancy.
Cali is four today. So in tribute to my “beast”, or as my (step)dad calls her, “nitro”, here’s four things I love about Cali :
1. Her absolute energy for life. It’s exhausting at times to see how intense she always is, but I’ve learned to pick my battles and sick back and laugh at it. She does everything full force, holding nothing back. This little girl is going places in life.
2. She is my cuddliest girl. Even in the hospital after she was born, the nurses would come in and comment on how this baby just wanted to be held all the time. It made for a very hard time when she was a baby and I had to run the rest of the family, but I love hugs and cuddles with my Cali .
3. She is so crazy. Some of the things she puts on in the morning… and when I ask her to please change, as we’re actually leaving the house today, that stubborn side kicks in! I must admit I’ve taken her to daycare in a dance tutu and snowboots before, just to save a fight. And when asked a bit ago how old she was, instead of saying three she said five. When called out on it, she simple smiled and said. “I’m pretending.”
4. She is so eager to learn and do all the things her big sisters do. “Can I cook today?” “We have to read my homework Mom” “How do I do this?” She is always trying to grasp something new in her life. Again, this little girl is going to go places in life.
Happy birthday Cali-boo. You ARE the beast of my circus and I wouldn’t have it any other way!