Katherine Heigl Celebrates Son's First Birthday with Topless Baby Bump Photo

12/21/2017 10:06 pm EST

Katherine Heigl celebrated her son's first birthday by posting an eye-opening Throwback Thursday photo, showing her topless with her baby bump.

The 39-year-old Heigl posted a gallery of photos from last year, leading up to Joshua Jr.'s birth on Dec. 20, 2016. The first photo is a topless photo her husband, singer Josh Kelley took just before they left for her Caesarean Section at the hospital.

The other photos show Heigl in the hospital, and Joshua in Kelley's and his mother's arms. The last photo shows Joshua on his first birthday with his smiling mother.

In the caption with the Instagram gallery, Heigl wrote about Joshua's birth and the scary moments in the hospital.

"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 Caesarean and was incredibly nervous and a little scared this time last year," Heigl wrote. "I had never been hospitalized or had ever had any kind of surgery and had no idea what to expect."

Before the surgery, the doctors "numbed me up, gave me some morphine and opened me up," the actress wrote. "My doctor struggled to get him out because he was really wedged in there and not quite ready to leave the womb. When she finally pulled him out at exactly 12:33 p.m. he didn't start breathing and they worked quickly to get oxygen in him and start his tiny lungs."

Kelley stood by the doctors until Joshua Jr. had taken "his first breath."

"He was so tiny and new, so fragile and tender," Heigl wrote of her son. "As I lay him down to sleep that first night in his very appropriate 'welcome to the world' sleep sack I thought the moment would last forever."

Today, Joshua Jr. is 26 pounds of "rolling, tumbling, grasping, giggling, shouting, curious, jolly energy!"

Heigl continued, "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 and Kelley married in December 2007. They also have two adopted daughters.

Photo credit: Instagram/ Katherine Heigl

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