Birthday.....

As I type, it hurts to write. But it's the good kind. I'm caught up in a swirl of raw emotion of the fact that at this very moment, seven years ago, I was in the final stretch of labor and didn't think I could do it. Didn't want to make another push, for fear. Fear of pain, and maybe even a little fear of what was to come.

All I wanted was to hold him and feel his delicate skin touch mine, and through all the beeping and blood-pressure checking, crying, smiling and shaking, hand holding and stalling... it came time for the greatest gift life has to give, the crescendo that is new life. The final push.

With cheeks stained from tears, I'm transported to that place in time where he made me a mother. And for all the times I dreamt of holding my own little one in my arms, for all the baby names I whispered just to see which ones felt right flowing through my lips... little did I know the effect his seven little years would have.

The immeasurable, invaluable joy his presence brought in our home. That just loving him, knowing him, watching him, breathing him would teach me the heart-bursting, fear-quenching, soul-satisfying kind of love.

It's a birthday. The beautiful celebration of his birth.I try and attach words to the beauty, the heaven that is wrapped up in loving a little one and yet, it's something that words cannot attach to, because it really is so much more. And yet, I try.

Loving him this much, stomach clenching, tears spilling... means living up to everything I hope him to be someday. I couldn't be more honored to have the challenge of teaching him everything there is to know about this big, beautiful, wonderful life.

And yes, maybe that's where it can get a little scary, but watching him soak up life with ferocious and yet precious intensity... every fear, every doubt goes away somehow.

Seven years may not seem like a very long time, but it's changed our family forever, for the good.

Happy Birthday, Ayden.

Oh, you are loved.

Today we celebrate you!