The boy who lived

For so many—myself included—Mother’s Day is complicated. The day I became a mother was … complicated.

After hours of labor and an emergency C-section, I almost lost my son.

He wasn’t breathing when the doctor delivered him. I kept waiting to hear his cries, but all I heard was silence. Then nurses calling for backup. Then the medical team, trying to revive him.

I sobbed heavy tears, afraid I’d never meet my son.

Then he joined in, softly at first but gradually stronger. Relief, joy, awe — the sweet, sweet sound of my baby crying.

10 hours later – Cradling my son in my arms for the first time in the NICU took my breath away. Looking at his wrinkly, pink face and tiny hands, I nearly forgot I was sitting in a wheelchair, body aching from labor and surgery. Heart aching from the trauma, I held him close and thanked God for him.

This is motherhood: a forgetting of self, an outpouring of love, tremendous sacrifice punctuated by bursts of happiness. It is magical and terrifying. It is bittersweet.

Today I’m grateful for my mother and mother-in-law, for mom friends and family, for others who mother. I’m thinking of friends who grieve and suffer on this day. And I’m giving thanks for the boy who lived and made me a mother.