Building a Forever Family: My baby is one!!

Wow where has this year gone?!?! I still feel like it was yesterday when I found out that I was
pregnant with Dru, now my youngest baby just turned one years old!! Dru has been the biggest blessing (as are all of my children) in my life and I honestly can't imagine my life without him. He has always been such a happy boy and has added so much joy and happinesss into our family. I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane so here it goes!
All 3 of my pregnancys before Dru have been different. I went a week over mydue date with Brooklyn before they started me, Austin came SUPER fast the day before I was scheduled to be induced, they induced me a week early with Talon, and Dru came 2 weeks early. Ben found out a few months before I had Dru that he was going to have to go to California for 1 week 2 days after my due date, come home for 1 day and then leave for Singapore for 3 weeks. I was super nervous I wasn't going to have Dru by then so 2 weeks before my duedate, explained our dilema, so the doc decided to strip my membranes and see if that would do anything. Everyone I talked to said it didn't do much for them and it was super painful so at first I wasn't going to do it but then decided it wasn't going to hurt anything to try so we did it! (it wasn't really that painful by the way) I don't think Ben has called me more in his life during that time. "Are you ok?" "Any change?" "How are you feeling?" But nothing had changed by the next day so we were a little discouraged. The second day after having had them stripped I woke up in the night having lots of contractions but they kept going away so I kind of ignored them. Ben had a metting that night that he really didn't want to go to so called me around noon that day and said he was coming home and we were going into the doc just to see what the doc said and it would give him an excuse to get out of his meeting..ha ha! ON THE WAY TO THE HOSPITAL, I started having pretty hard contractions. Once I got into the doc I was at a 4 and the nurse admitted me in...good thing Ben jusd "decided" that we were going in or it could have been another "Austin Birth." They gave me my epidural and after they did that everything kind of stopped. I went HOURS of having no contractions and being so done with the whole waiting game. I know that is SOO normal for most girls having their babies, but the longest birth I have ever had was Brooklyn and it was only 4 hours..and this was my FOURTH!! By 8pm that night they decided to break my water and see what happened...sure enough right after they did that it was go time!! Something I have never had happen happened though and I had the WORST labor shakes ever. I guess it's when your body is in shock and i just started shaking like a leaf! They put blankets on me to see if the warmth would help but nothing worked. My teether were chattering, my hands, legs, whole body was shaking like crazy..so weird. I don't know if it was because I had never had that happened or what but I got super nervous/scared and wanted my mom!!! haha! My parents were out of town during this time (which they were super upset about) but Ben parents were on their way from Idaho so I told them to come on up and I wanted them there!! I'm really close to Ben's family, and even though some thought it was weird, Ben's mom was the best comfort during that time (besides my husband of course!!) and having a mom there with me was so nice! Right as they got there i started pushing and here he came!! The doc made me super nervous because I guess the cord was wrapped around his little neck and his heart rate started going up like crazy, so snip snip and out came my baby boy...BRIGHT BLUE!! Oh my goodnes it scared me to death when I first saw him. I kid you not my first reaction was pure panic, I had NEVER seen a baby look like that and he wasn't making any noises. After a few rub downs and patting and flipping over a few times I finally heard the best sound in the world...my little man's first cry! I only got to hold him for a few short seconds and then they rushed him off to get him some oxygen. Of course that worried me and I made Ben go with them so he wasn't alone and would know what was going on. About a half an hour later they brought him back good as new..I was the happiest mommy in the world. He was perfect. TONS of black curly hair!! None of my babies had hair so this was new for me and I was so excited!! 6lbs 14 ounces 19 in. long, so my smallest baby as well! He was adorable and I cannot put into words the joy of holding the newest member of your family and how much happiness I had with just me, Ben and our new little Dru during that moment. This is FOR SURE something I will soooo miss about having babies. The hospital experience is my fav for sure. The other kids of course loved him and LOVED having a new brother in the fam.
You would think after having 4 kids I would have the whole "baby thing" down pat...wrong. I kid you not, it is like starting over all over again with every single one. Up all nights trying to figure out why they don't sleep, trying every bottle in the box along with 5 different binkies, nights and days mixed up, pure panic going out in public for the first few months, a few panic attachks here and there etc...I don't know if it's because I knew this could possibly be our last baby, but I did have a lot more patience and was able to get through the rough nights/days alot better this go around. I actually even enjoyed that time most nights to be honest. After a few months he started to get the hang of it and we worked it out!! And NOW..he's ONE!!
For Dru's birthday we just did the simple cake and ice cream, a few gifts and called it a night! It was pretty funny actually because I was trying to get him to rip the presents open and instead all he wanted to do was crawl away and attack my bows I had just made for Brooklyn. He's walking all over the place now, getting into EVERYTHING, and is quite the little destoryer. BUT, he takes 2 AWESOME naps a day, hardly ever wakes up at night, laughs and smiles constantly, and loves his food so he has been tons of fun.
Thank you for being such a good boy Dru, mommy and daddy love you more then you can EVER imagine. You make my mornings the brightest with that huge smile and jumping up and down in the crib as soon as you see me. You make daddy's night every night when he comes in that back door from work and you speed crawl while laughing hysterically until you get to him because you are SO excited to see him. And you make Brooklyn's day EVERY DAY when you let her cart you around like her little doll and chase your brothers around grabbing at their heels while they laugh cosntatnly. You have made our family complete and we love you so so much!!!

Me and ma-ma Fullmer with Talon