Looking Back: A Birthday Reflection

Eight years ago, I wrote a blog post on Maya’s first birthday called A Birth-day Story: Reflections of Joy and Grief. At the time, I was in the thick of new motherhood and still very much in the aftermath of a traumatic birth. I remember writing that post through a lot of tears, trying to make sense of all the complicated feelings I had—gratitude for my daughter’s life, deep sadness over how her birth unfolded, and a whole lot of guilt.

Reading that post now, I feel a lot of compassion for the version of me who wrote it. She was really trying to hold it all—to be present with her grief, to make space for joy, and to do it “right,” even though nothing about that experience felt easy or clear.

Looking back, I can see how far I’ve come. Not just in healing from the birth, but in how I relate to myself, to motherhood, and to life in general. I’m more relaxed now. Less attached to doing things perfectly. More able to sit with the unknown and accept that there’s so much I can’t control—especially when it comes to my kids.

I also have more clarity about how that birth shaped my relationship with Maya. There’s something that’s been between us since the beginning—a kind of energetic imprint, a dynamic—and it is not an easy one. I can name it now without as much shame or confusion. And I believe that one day, we’ll talk about it together. I trust that there will be space for both of our experiences, and that some healing will come from that. I even believe there are gifts in it. That what was hard will, in time, be what makes us stronger, more connected, and more real with each other.

Something else I’ve come to understand is that I can’t protect my kids from pain, no matter how much I want to. They each have their own journey, their own healing path, and my job isn’t to fix it or make it smooth. My job is to walk with them, to support them, and to love them through it.

Birthdays still bring up a lot for me—not just joy and celebration, but grief and reflection too. And I’ve learned to let that be okay. It doesn’t need to be cleaned up or explained away. It just is. That’s the truth of motherhood, at least for me. It’s messy and layered and always evolving. And I’m grateful to still be learning, still growing, and still showing up.