The Importance of a First Birthday

I've been a little sentimental this week over Bella's birthday.  I get upset easily and feel almost stressed as I think about Saturday.  I like to blame the party, but the fact of the matter is that the first birthday is a big deal, plain and simple.

So what is so important about a first birthday?  Why is it so important to have a celebration?

As a mom, the first year is exceptionally hard.  It is amazing and wonderful too, but the challenges you face in your first year of motherhood are unlike anything else you will experience in your life.  There's the sleep deprivation of course.  The continuous fears about how you are going to protect this perfect little being.  The worries about whether or not you are "doing it right".  The hours of a crying baby that you just don't know what is wrong, or maybe you do but there's nothing you can do about it.  The reality that someone else's needs come before your own- all the time.  The shift from being an autonomous being to being constantly connected (physically, mentally or emotionally) to another being.  The pressures added to your relationships (spouse, friends, family).  The growing pains of creating space for the largest love you have experienced to date.

This is my inadequate attempt at putting the first year of motherhood into words.  It is truly indescribable in so many ways.  So back to the birthday.

The first birthday is a celebration of survival.  It is the acknowledgement that you have loved, protected and supported a new life while figuring out major changes in your own.  It is a sign that your tiny baby, who couldn't even hold its own head up one short year ago, is now becoming its own person, perhaps walking and talking even.

Certainly the first birthday is a celebration of this wonderful little person.  Without question I want to celebrate my sweet little girl.  The truth though, is that the first birthday is a celebration with me.  Of me perhaps even a little.  I can say, "I did it.  I made it through the first year."

This is particularly poignant for me for a number of reasons.  The first, clearly, is the fact that I've been battling cancer for the last five months.  I've managed to continue to mother my baby (perhaps less than I would have liked, but its all relative these days), in the face of a life threatening illness.  Prior to my current battle, I fought harder than I've ever fought for anything, to provide breastmilk for my baby.  Isabella may never understand or appreciate how hard I fought for that, but it is a trophy in my heart that I carry with me.  All of this in addition to the "normal" challenges that new parenthood offers.

So this Saturday, I celebrate.  I celebrate my sweet daughter who is strong and smart and funny and beautiful and kind.  I celebrate my husband for being an amazing father to our daughter, loving and laughing and playing, while still being breadwinner, husband, friend, son, boss, employee, and self.  Finally, I celebrate myself.  For all of the reasons listed above and many more.

For those of you who will be here to celebrate with me, I look forward to it.  It may be a little bittersweet as my baby grows up, but it is something worth celebrating.