Katherine Heigl Shares Baby Bump Throwback and Reflects on Son's Difficult Delivery

Katherine Heigl shared an emotional Instagram post on Wednesday about the delivery of her son in honor of his first birthday.

The actress revealed she underwent a difficult labor with 1-year-old son Joshua Bishop Jr. as she shared a topless photo of herself with her baby bump.

“At 9am one year ago today I had @joshbkelley take this photo of me so I could remember how incredibly pregnant I was right before we left for the hospital and my 12pm scheduled cesarean,” Heigl wrote in the caption.

Katherine Heigl's son, Joshua Jr.
Katherine Heigl's son, Joshua Jr.

She continued, “Joshua Jr had been in the breech position for over a month and had still not moved an inch a week before his due date so I made the decision to have a cesarean and was incredibly nervous and a little scared this time last year.”

The former Grey’s Anatomy actress who had never “ever had any kind of surgery” wrote that she was nervous before her C-section and said the doctor “struggled” to deliver her son as he “was really wedged in there and not quite ready to leave the womb.”

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“When she finally pulled him out at exactly 12:33pm he didn’t start breathing and they worked quickly to get oxygen in him and start his tiny lungs,” Heigl wrote of the terrifying ordeal.

She said her husband, musician Josh B. Kelley, witnessed their son take his first breath and that she “thanked the heavens for his breath, his life and for making me a mother three times over.”

“He was so tiny and new, so fragile and tender,” she wrote. “Yet here we are, a whole year later and it’s only the photos that remind me my brute of a boy was ever so new and small! Now he’s 26 pounds of rolling, tumbling, grasping, giggling, shouting, curious, jolly energy!”

She added, “He is everything and more than I could have hoped for and he has brought our family even more joy, love, laughter, abundance, bliss and yes, exhaustion and exasperation too! It’s been a hell of a year and I could not be more grateful for it or him! Happy Birthday to my little man! Maybe I can make this next year go a little slower!”

Heigl is also mother to daughters Nancy Leigh, 9, and Adalaide Marie Hope, 5.