My baby turned one. My wish was to spend Zachary’s birthday at the beach. I wanted to try so hard to celebrate my baby and find some peace. That may sound strange, but birth trauma is a complicated thing. OF COURSE, I love my baby. OF COURSE, I’m thankful he is healthy. OF COURSE, I’m grateful that we both survived. And I’m sure many out there don’t understand. And those of us that it’s happened to, would never want you to be able to understand, because you’d have to live it. Birthdays are hard. There’s the pressure to be happy and thankful about the hardest, most traumatic, day in your life. The day everything changed, the day your brain rewired because you thought you and your baby were going to die. Who wants to celebrate that? Who wants to relive the pain? Not it. So the days around his birthday, I protected, so I could cry and be angry, feel sadness for the people who let me down, and just basically feel all the feelings. Because I wanted to be able to see him and be in the moment on his actual birthday. I can’t say moments of “at this time of day last year…” didn’t creep in, but my therapist is amazing and gave me tools to stay in the moment. And you know, I did ok. I’m still here. And I’m giving myself the grace for that to be enough.

I enjoyed him on his birthday and I’m pretty proud of doing so well. Look at us! This has been the hardest year of my life and I’m here, smiling. I love you to the moon and back, Z! 😍