Mother's Day

Oh, Mother's Day. You are such a strange holiday to me now. You symbolize so much to me, you are the marker of many different things in my life, all rolled up into one Spring day.

For many years, for most of my life really, Mother's Day was about my mom. About doing something nice for her, like making her a card when I was young, or cooking her dinner in my teenage years, to just a few years back sending her a plant she still has (go green thumb Mom!). It was about honoring and thanking her, a giving holiday.

Then I tried to become a mom. And Mother's Day became the hated holiday, the painful, gloating holiday that rubbed in my face all the things I desperately wanted but could not easily have. It became a jealous, envious, sad holiday.

Last year on Mother's Day I had my first beta (side rant here - WTF is any IVF clinic in their right mind having people doing first betas on Mother's Day?? I mean really, don't they know how loaded this day already is for IFers? Such a bad idea...). Luckily, thankfully, happily for me, I found out for sure I had a chance, my best chance yet, of becoming a mom. That Mother's Day became about hope, about lights at the end of long, dark tunnels.

And today? Today is my first official Mother's Day as a mom myself. I feel like I've won a big prize, I've won the medal after years of loss. Mother's Day now is a reflective holiday, one that makes me look back and really acknowledge the battle of becoming a mom. It's a happy day, sure, but more so, it is a day of reflection. Looking back on my life, at my mom, at my struggles to become a mom, at my friends who are still struggling, and most importantly at my daughter.

The circle of life, all rolled up into one Spring day.