From Blast to Birth to Birthday!

On Wednesday, my sweet little babe turned one. I can't even tell you how many times someone has told me, "They grow up so fast, my baby starts college this year!" They were all right! She has grown up way too fast and I've never wanted time to slow down so badly. I love every minute of every stage and I just wish they would last longer. 

One thing that is actually really neat about having a baby through in-vitro, is that you get to watch them grow from day one (well, technically day 5 for us!)

These are the actual blastocysts that they implanted for our third transfer. We're pretty sure the top left is Isla because that is the only one they said looked like it could turn into a viable pregnancy. Who knows though, Isla could have come from one of the other two and be even more of a miracle than we think!

In the ultrasound from our transfer, you can see three tiny bubbles. Each of these bubbles has a blast inside it, they're just too small to see. IVF really is an amazing process. Did you know that if you have multiple babies from one egg retrieval, they are conceived on the same day but can be born years apart? Our doctor told us that during our consultation and it really is kind of crazy if you think about it!

Our final ultrasound was just six days before Isla was born. Look at her huge cheeks! We knew she was just going to be perfect!

And then she was here! We couldn't have been more excited! (Read her birth story here!)

Every week for the last 52 weeks, we have taken a picture of Isla on Tuesday (lets be real, sometimes Wednesday or Thursday, but mostly Tuesday). It has been so neat to look back and see how much she changed from week to week. You forget so quickly what they looked like only two weeks ago.

Isla has been our biggest blessing throughout the past year. She has been the best baby. She rarely cried and I can honestly count on one hand how many times I've stayed up the whole night with her. Right after she was born, James and I kept saying that we were going to be in trouble with our next baby. Isla was honestly so easy that now we expect that! At the time though we didn't realize that she needed to be easy so we could handle what was ahead of us. We needed her to be happy so she could add light to James' day when things got hard. She has been everything to us and we are so thankful that we have such a beautiful spirit in our home. Hopefully we have taught her as many great things as she has taught us.

Happy Birthday beautiful girl! We love you!