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A year ago, right this very moment, I was...well, I think maybe I was in the car, coming home from breakfast with a girlfriend and her son and then a manicure and pedicure, which resulted in the last time my nails were painted. Kinda sad. I got home, took a long shower, shaved my legs (another last-time-for-a-long-time event), got dressed, and sat directly in front of the air conditioner watching the last two episodes of the first season of Gilmore Girls, trying to stay cool (in both ways), waiting to leave for the hospital.

My mother-in-law picked me up and took me in for the amnio. I still remember vividly the imbecile playing on a drum machine in the L&D waiting room. It still seems just as absurd. I remember my husband arriving unexpectedly, after not being able to take the torture of waiting to leave work until we had the official go-ahead for the induction. I remember my son taking a good long nap, prolonging the time I had to be hooked up to the monitors, until finally, finally, the perinatologist gave up and started the amnio. My OB was there, too, and a student, who was given the honors of sticking me with the gigantic needle - which my son batted out of the way before a good sample could be taken. After three horrific sticks, the sample was obtained, and we held our breath until we finally got the good news that the induction could begin. From there, it was an easy coast until the next morning when my fabulous son peed on my chest.

While said son took his morning nap today, my husband and I started looking at his earliest pictures. He was so beautiful when he was born, and then he gradually turned orange and baggy as he slowly starved on my insufficient milk supply. I'm glad I didn't realize then how bad he looked - I was still so starstruck that I thought he was the most beautiful thing in the world. I cringe now when I see those pictures, but I'm also so thankful to be able to compare them now to this robust, beautiful (really!) boy who's sitting on my husband's chest and bonking my leg with a 25-year-old wind-up Smurf radio that was my brother's.

I read old blog posts this morning, too, from that other blog, the one started after my first son's stillbirth. I meant to just see what was going on this time a year ago, but I ended up reading through several months of posts after my second son's births, and it made me so sad to read all the fabulous, supportive, joyful comments left by my fellow bloggers - sad because I have lost touch, for the most part. I miss being a part of that community, even if my reason for belonging sucked ultimate ass. I have a million excuses for it, but they all boil down to life - life keeps happening, and priorities reordering. To keep up with my old blog life would require a near shutdown of my non-virtual life. But I still think about the old days, the lovely people, wondering how those subsequent pregnancies and TTCs are coming along. My participation in the loss-blog community was the pure silver lining of the worst time of my life.

Tomorrow my living son will be one. His official party won't be for a couple more weeks, due to scheduling nonsense, but he has a planned birthday tour for tomorrow: stopping by his great-grandmother's to say hi as well as visits to both of his grandmothers' workplaces, a one-year-old checkup, and a celebratory frozen custard with one of his little friends. Who would have thought it? Not me.