Lovin' the 5 years!!

Wow!  How time surely does fly!!!  I still can not believe this little darling daughter of mine is 5 years old today!  It really does blow my mind!  It is almost like I blinked and then bam...she's big and ready for school!  I am amazed at how much fiestiness, happiness, compassion, love, beauty, and caring such a skinny little person can be filled with - - oh, and let's not forget a bit of sass!

The day of Chloe's birth is one to never forget.  How can I?  It was beautiful, but extremely rough all within a few minutes of each other.  She was due 2 days before the 1st anniversary of her older sister's passing.  2 days!  That was too much for me and my fabulous OB agreed.  She let me be induced a week early so that I could separate the dates a bit more.  How grateful I am for her compassion in that regard.  I was still very numb from Karleigh's passing.  My grief and missing of my darling daughter was still so very strong.  Helping my darling almost 6 year old Zach who was missing his sister cope with her loss and missing my traveling husband was, at times, more than I could bare.

We had just moved 5 weeks prior to Chloe's birth from Colorado to Indiana.  I knew no one, except brief introductions to a few people at church...oh, and my OB.  Chris was traveling Monday thru Friday every week from the very first week we moved there as a consultant.  We moved from a house to an apartment where we lived for 7 months while we searched for a new home to buy/build.  And...we had had a 90% outside dog, that now got to be 100% inside dog...who wasn't trained to go to the bathroom on a leash!  To say that it was a hard time would be an understatement. 

One thing I knew for sure though when this little girl baby in my belly decided to come...her middle name would be HOPE.  I knew from the moment that we found out we were having a girl...she would bring me back the hope that I had been missing.  The hope that was buried with her older sister.  The hope that I would ever be happy again.  And HOPE she has been.

Her birth was so anticipated!  I longed to hold a precious little girl for a year!  The induction and delivery went as smooth as could be expected.  She was tiny (6 lb 14 oz).  Right after she came out, Chris and I were oohing and aahhing at her while they were wiping her down, commenting on how she looked like Karleigh, amazed with her full head of black, curly hair - all while my dr was finishing up the post delivery stuff...or so I thought.  I stopped long enough to ask my OB how the placenta looked because although we didn't know it at Karleigh's birth and for a long time afterwards, it was the first sign we had that something was wrong with her. 

My OB just briefly looked up at me worried and calmly said something like, "I don't know, I am trying to get your bleeding to stop."  Immediately after her saying that, I felt like throwing up.  The nurses came rushing over and started mashing on my belly...and I say mashing for a reason!  It was extremely painful.  I felt lightheaded and like I was going to pass out.  They gave me some oxygen...I think.  The room was filled with scurring nurses, someone drawing blood and just chaos.  Chris and my mom (who I invited in for Chloe's delivery) looked worried.  My mom said the dr. was shoving handfuls of meds up me, trying to get my uterus to contract.  It wouldn't.  She finally looked at me and said, "Ok.  If I can't get your bleeding to stop, I have two choices.  I can put a stitch around your uterus and manually contract it down, or do a hysterectomy...let's go!"  And off I went as they rushed me to the operating room where I was knocked out so they could save my life. 

Obviously, they got the bleeding stopped without doing anything drastic.  I recieved 2 units of blood and my dr. was scared to death that I would get an infection.  I didn't and she was absolutely astonished.  All of my IV lines kept blowing, which made her even more scared because if I did have any more problems, she didn't have quick access through an IV.  But, I was blessed to pull through it just fine and after a few weeks of feeling like I had the flu (from the blood transfusion) and mourning Karleigh's loss...I was on to healing and moving on.  And so much of that has to do with my darling new baby that had brought so much HOPE back into my life.

This darling Chloe girl that I love so dearly has been such a blessing in my life!!  She truly does bring happiness into our home and I feel so blessed that nothing more serious happened in her delivery.  I feel so blessed that she has been so healthy and that I had the opportunity to go through all of her "firsts" that I missed so much with Karleigh.  I am so grateful that she is still my girl-girl and loves to be my buddy.  I will have such a hard time letting her go to ALL-day kindergarten in the fall!!  Auughh...I hate the thought of it!!  But I am excited for the excitement she has about it. 

Happy Birthday, darling Chloe! 

I love every part of you and am so thankful that I am your mom!!  I hope I will live up to the task of raising you properly and helping you become all you can be!  I love you with all my heart!