Katherine Heigl shares a racy photo as she looks back on the difficult birth of her third child

Katherine Heigl/Instagram

Katherine Heigl has paid tribute to her son Joshua Jr. on his first birthday with a series of never-before-seen images from the day he was born. She shared the photos on Instagram along with a deeply personal caption in which she recalled Joshua’s difficult birth.

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“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,” the actress began. “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,” she continued.

“I had never been hospitalized or had ever had any kind of surgery and had no idea what to expect,” Heigl added in the caption of her Wednesday, December 20, post.

Heigl continued to recall the events of that day in detail. “They numbed me up, gave me some morphine and opened me up. My doctor struggled to get him out because he was really wedged in there and not quite ready to leave the womb,” she wrote. “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’s husband, Josh Kelly, was standing right there when their baby boy took his first breath.

Despite the bumpy beginning, Josh Jr. is went on to be a perfectly healthy baby boy. “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!” Heigl wrote. “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 documented much of her pregnancy online. After announcing she was expecting, she turned to her blog with a heartfelt post about becoming a first-time biological mother.

“We were considering adoption again, fostering, or pregnancy if possible,” she explained. “Seeing as I have never been pregnant and as my OB/GYN reminded me last year, I’m of advanced maternal age, I wasn’t sure pregnancy was even in the cards for us. Turns out it was very much in the cards!”

Congratulations to the happy family!

RELATED: Kristen Bell shares some adorable throwback pregnancy pics that are bound to melt your heart

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