It's my birthday!

Well, tomorrow is my birthday.

Birthdays are interesting things, on many levels.

I share mine with John Lennon (10/09/1940). I think that's pretty cool in itself. I am always guaranteed to hear "Imagine" on my birthday - how fantastic is that?!

Also, I don't feel that I am what my age says I should be. I don't feel that *THIS* is what 32 should be. A couple of years ago I stopped telling people I was 25. I wasn't even trying to be tricky, I just felt 25. I'm 32 years old, and while I'm not totally hot, I'm not dog meat by any stretch of the means. I'm in good health, am trying to eat right, am having fun on a daily basis, and I don't feel that I am as responsible as I should be, if that makes any sense. I'm totally over committed in many areas, but that's okay. I do need a new hair do though, it's giving me fits.

Birthdays are now, for me, much more meaningful now that I am a parent. I know that on their birthdays, I replay the entire day, all day long, like I am re-living my labor and delivery. I know that my Mom didn't really get that with me, and I don't know if I like that, not that I can do anything to change it. I know that my birth was for her, something traumatic, and I don't ever recall a time when she told me about it that she didn't cry. That makes me sad, because you shouldn't be sad recalling the birth of your child, especially if it was the baby you wanted and waited for. She cried because she remembers how scary it was for her, and the fear that she had that I may not have survived being born ...

Unfortunately, I am very familiar with that ... when I had Q, I went through something similar. I ended up with general anestesia (my mom had it too), and I was not awake to meet him. That makes me very sad, and it also bothers me that my husband did not get to meet him immediately either. Our son was greeted by strangers, that didn't have a vested interest in him. To them, he was another baby. To us, he was our son, and we were so eager to meet him, both so excited that it was going to be SOON, and then BAM! you end up in surgery.

When my Mom was waking up from her surgery/my birth, she remembers my Dad saying to the Doctor, "You have to tell her, I don't know how to tell her, I don't know if I can." and she said that all she thought was that I had not survived, that the doctors were right, that she couldn't get pregnant, that she shouldn't get pregnant, that it was a danger to both her and I. As it turns out, my Dad was panicing at the thought of telling her that I was in ICU, and had been transferred to another hospital for care.

Fast forward to my daughter, two years after my son. My fast and furious three hour and fifty-nine minute labor, my squirmy wet daughter, I grabbed her on the way out and brought her to me immediately. That is what I wish for all women, if that is what they want, on the birthdays of their children - to hold them and love them minutes after arrival.

Aah ... it's a bouncy sort of night ... a little bit here, a little bit there ...

Thanks, Mom, for being brave enough to do what you and Dad wanted, and follow your heart instead of what the doctors said. Thank you for my birthday.

Thank you to Q and The Bee for reminding me on a daily basis of how great things can be, even if it is exhausting sometimes.