Five years today...

At 12:19 pm, after 14 hours of labor -most of which I slept through- I gave birth to my firstborn, Zoe Elizabeth Hayford. I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before, but her name has some significance to Jeff and I.  We both selected Zoe due to the fact that we've never heard of anyone using the name, except that Jeff did have a teacher that named his daughter Zoe.  We had the name picked out before we found out that she was a girl; however, it took us several weeks to decide on her middle name, until one day we were driving home from somewhere, and I asked Jeff, "How about Elizabeth?" and he asked where I got the name from, and I replied, "It was my imaginary friend's name." Apparently, I had named my imaginary friend Elizabeth when I was about 2 or so.. to this day I have no clue where I picked up the name from.

Zoe was unplanned; but she was NOT unwanted. Due to being diagnosed with Endometrosis at the age of 16, I went the next three years assuming that I wasn't going to ever be able to get pregnant without medical intervention, and even then that was far reached; there was the remote and very real possibility that I was never going to even have children at all.  I discovered that I was pregnant with her when I was approximately 10-12 weeks along.. and that's a long time to realize something was off, but a side effect of having Endometrosis is that your periods are extremely irregular.

Her birth was a tremendous blessing for me, because I knew that without any help from any doctors, I defied the odds and was able to conceive naturally. Never have I taken the ability to have children granted. While I love my kids with equality, Zoe's most special in the sense she was truly a miracle, especially after what I was told.

In addition she was also born on Thanksgiving, and also on my inlaws' 34th wedding anniversary. Nothing can beat the birth of a grandchild as an anniversary present!

So without further ado.. this is what she looked like 5 years ago:

She was 20.25" long. Doesn't look too happy does she?

And here's what she looks like today.. and when I say today, I mean within the last 15 minutes.

Happy birthday Zoe!  I can't believe you're five, time has surely flown by!