At This Time Last Year...

Taken last year in the month before Baby L was born.

Seriously, I've been thinking that all day.  It's actually getting to be a bit annoying but I can't help myself, since Baby L's first birthday is approaching at lightning speed.

So, right now, it's like nearly 11:00 pm.  A year ago, I would have been in labour at home and timing my contractions with the hope that I might actually be allowed to head to the hospital.  And I would have been focusing on breathing, as opposed to what I'm doing now, which is surreptitiously decorating our humble home in preparation for Baby L's big day.

In all honesty, I am so very glad that I blogged throughout the later part of my pregnancy, because I would not have remembered half of those details were it not for those posts, which I have since reread and reminisced over.  Pregnancy and the subsequent months of sleeplessness totally warp memories, so that you only remember little bits and pieces.  I couldn't even remember Baby L's birthweight anymore, except that it was blogged.

But I am in a bit of shock, because last year feels simultaneously like it was forever ago, and like it was just yesterday.  I look back at those first few weeks of seemingly-incessant crying and 45-minute bursts of sleep like it was a bad dream or a tragic plot from some movie, because in my mind the whole thing seems vaguely familiar but also not entirely real.  Did it really happen like that? I think I lived in fog for three months, honestly.  It only takes one look at Baby L and then at her birth pics, however, and I feel like I'm time-traveling at warp speed between 2012 and 2013.  Like, she was tiny yesterday and now she's practically too big to hold.  Where did my baby go? I have a nearly-walking, always-talking toddler on my hands already.

Anyway, at this time last year my contractions were just about frequent enough to warrant a trip to the hospital.  Not to spoil the ending, but they sent me back home after we were there for a few hours listening to other pregnant ladies moaning and groaning (an incredibly unpleasant experience).  Oh, and I got a needle to the ass.  It didn't hurt like I thought it would, either, or maybe it just seemed less awful because it came with the promise of easing the intensity of my even more powerful contractions. 

But yeah, I'm pacing back and forth down memory lane tonight and tomorrow.  What a ride this has been!