I am setting this to go live at exactly 3:59 AM Mountain Time on February 3rd, 2015, exactly 11 years since my older child was born.
I don’t have the time right this second to articulate what I feel when I look at this photo of her that I took when she was not even two months old: the months and years of physical and occupational therapy that would unfold not soon after, the MRIs and doctor’s reports, the time spent in and out of the hospital. The magnificent way she took a suggestion and taught herself how to read. The brilliant way she can rock a piano concerto in front of very unforgiving judges.
She is my firstborn child, the person who has shaped and informed every last second of the last 11 years of my life and thereby transforming the entirety of it.
Parenthood is really fucking hard, the hardest thing you will ever take on if you choose to do so as a human being. And without hesitation I will tell you that never have I entertained the idea that 11 years without being a mother could possibly be even half as rewarding. There hasn’t ever been a “what if?” Because that would have to begin with “what if I never had ‘she who is my everything’…”