Super excited about your balloons this past weekend :) Photo by C
Dear Little Man,
Today is a very special day — today is your birthday! Three years ago around this time I was getting hooked up in the hospital room and you were making your presence very well known every four to five minutes. Now, three years later, I’m sitting in my sunny apartment, drinking coffee, writing you this letter and (thankfully) not in desperate need of an epidural.
This is the first birthday I haven’t physically spent with you. I was there when you turned one, and I was there for part of your last actual birthday, but this year your birthday fell on a Monday — so even though I spent this past weekend with you, it feels a little strange not seeing you on this momentous day. Luckily, J solved that strangeness this morning: when I woke up, she’d sent me a video of you asking for me this morning.
“I want Nay Nay,” you said. “I want Nay-Nay to come to Liam’s house.”
Now I know it’s your birthday, but that video was probably the best birthday present I could have ever gotten.
So, on your third birthday, I want you to know something you will eventually get tired of hearing because I have told you (and will continue to tell you) so often: I love you so very much, I couldn’t be prouder of you or happier to be your mom. The day you were born was the happiest day of my life. Even with the physical pain that preceded your birth or the sadness that followed it when you were placed, that day — July 22, 2010 — was just our day. A day when I only thought of you, no “before” and no “after.” Just you and me and your birth.
When you finally emerged, I remember listening for your cry to know that you were alright and being so relieved when I heard it. When I first held you to my chest, I remember that I counted your fingers and toes to make sure you had ten of each, fascinated by how impossibly small they were. But mostly, I remember seeing you for the first time. I remember when they lifted you up and I finally got to look at you, finally got to see the Little Man I had only felt, only imagined.
It took my breath away.
I was stunned. You were real. You were a person. You existed and I was instantly enamored with you. I have never loved anything so immediately or so fully as I loved you in that moment. It was the kind of moment that writers and poets and literary moguls describe as the moment when time slows down and everything around you just fades away. Everything but that one person that you instantly know you’re in love with. It’s true. I don’t remember what the nurses were saying. I don’t remember what my parents were doing. I don’t remember any of the other noises or sights. I just remember you. I remember seeing you, hearing you and just being…in awe. I was in awe of you — there’s really no other way to describe it. I was in awe but more so, I was in love, and I knew it without really having to know it. It was that instantaneous. It was that pure.
And it’s only grown since then.
I love you more and more with every day, every word, every step, every picture, every video, every visit, every smile, every laugh, every touch, every look. This day three years ago was the most incredible day of my life. Bringing you into this world will forever be the best thing I’ve ever done, followed by placing with with The B’s — the beautiful family that is celebrating you today just as much as I am. They are the family that knows exactly what I mean when I say how completely my love for you overtook me, because the same thing happened to them the first time they saw you. And now, three years later, we’re family. And we play and talk and care and hug and love, tied together at the center that is you. Who knew one little (adorable) blonde boy could create an entire family?
So today we celebrate you. We celebrate your birth. We celebrate that indescribable love we’ve had for you since Day One. And I celebrate that moment at 5:41 PM when I finally got to lay eyes on my beautiful, incredible son. When I finally got to fall in love with the boy instead of just the kicks and the ultrasounds. When I finally got to meet you.
You are my everything, Liam Hudson. Happy Birthday Little Man <3
Seconds after I first laid eyes on you. And so it began… :)
