I miss it already.

My baby turns one tomorrow. It's hard to believe. I just finished writing the first pages in her book of life. What the first days, first hours, first minutes looked like when she transformed me into her mother. I can remember it all like it was yesterday. The most silent car ride Kevin and I had ever taken, both in our own little worlds of worry and excitement. The chill in the air that morning when we arrived before dawn to start our induction. The awkwardness as I tried to balance a bursting belly and equally-bursting hospital bag full of birth plans and all things baby. The smile on the nurses face at check-in and the smell of that hospital corridor as we made our way into the room where we would spend our first days as parents. The first time seeing Doc Johnson outside of the typical, uneventful checkup. The look on my mom's face, giving me one last kiss, as they wheeled me down the hallway into the bright lights of the operating room. Laying Jesus-style on the table, covered in warming blankets and looking down to see nothing but a faded blue tarp separating me from my body. My first vision of my baby in the arms of her papa standing next to me but too far to reach. The weight of my baby in my arms instead of my stomach. Our first photo. The warmth of that first post-partum, life-altering shower. The pride when showing off my new little doll to my many visitors. I could go on and on and on with the details of that day. Claire's arrival changed me. This past year, although the most stretching and perplexing year of my life, has also been the most fulfilling.

Tonight, I held my baby for the last time. My heart is heavy as tomorrow is now less than one hour away. She is sleeping so sweetly, unaware that the next phase of her life begins now.