One year ago today

A now, a trip down memory lane....One year ago, the day before Thanksgiving, our lives took an unexpected turn. I was 31 weeks pregnant with Matthew and had just come home from a family breakfast to IHOP (pumpkin pancakes are the freaking bomb you guys.) About 5 minutes after we got home, I got a call from my OB-GYN saying that my pre-term labor test had come back positive, I was officially on bedrest and there was a decent chance that my baby would be born within 2 weeks. Obviously, this phone call put a halt to all Thanksgiving plans, pregnancy plans, and most importantly, our plans to hit up the mall that afternoon....For the whole story, you can go back and read it here.

I spent the rest of the week on hospital bedrest. Everybody was pretty sure Matthew was going to come almost 10 weeks early. It was scary and stressful and pretty annoying that I was eating my Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital and not with my family. However, we made it past that first hurdle and I spent the next 6 1/2 weeks on strict home bedrest. If you need a reminder of how that super fun time was spent, you can refer back to my bedrest survival guide posts. :)

It was not the holiday season that I wanted. It wasn't the way I wanted the season to go for Jonathan and obviously not for Matthew! At the end of it all, Matthew stayed put just long enough. 7 weeks later, just 24 hours after being taken off the medication that was keeping me from going into labor, I was back in the hospital delivering a beautiful, HEALTHY, baby boy.

So this holiday season, I am vowing to make it memorable (in a good way. Not in a "holy crap, if I move a muscle the wrong way my baby will be born 10 weeks early and be in the NICU for weeks" kind of way...) We are going to sit around our table tomorrow and be thankful for our healthy babies. We will decorate our house for Christmas just a little more than before. We will spend the holiday season shopping, going to parties, making cookies, forcing the boys to make handprint art to put all around the house, eating more than necessary and just spending as much time possible as a family.

It's been an amazing year since that phone call last November. And this week, I am especially thankful for my wonderful, sweet, kind, nutty, super fun and most importantly, healthy little boys. Thank you Lord for protecting them, every step of the way.