Mother's Day

A day capitalised by Hallmark for mothers everywhere. But what makes someone a mother? Where does motherhood begin?

Does it begin on an idle tuesday afternoon, when you are scraping  mashed green beans off a much loved little face? 

Or perhaps in the dead of a wednesday morning, on a quiet NHS ward, watching the baby you just ejected out of your womb as it sleeps noisily? 

Maybe motherhood crept up on you while you were hanging over a toilet bowl, just 8 weeks in and feeling like death warmed up. 

It may have slapped you in the face when you got your first big win, exhausted and depressed, tired and dirty, but looking down at the surprise first smile from the new person in your life.

If you have ever woken up in the middle of the night and thought about your child, forget what anyone says, you're a mother too. If that child is beside you snoring, in the next room, in another house or physically buried four feet under the ground and spiritually perhaps in another plane of existence.

If you have waited with crazed nervous energy, convinced this could be your month and you will finally get the confirmation that you have a little multiplying ball of cells, pregnant with anticipation...you're a mother too. 

If you have ever had that BFP, whether expected or a surprise, whether much awaited or somewhat regretted, you're a mother too. 

If you are still waiting for that elusive extra line, after months or even years of trying and set yourself up for the crushing blow when it doesn't happen, forget what the stick says, you're a mother too. 

If you have had the pleasure of going into a scan and seeing an extra being wriggling and squirming and seemedly waving back at you, you might have just become a mother too. It doesn't matter that the next time you saw your baby, there was nothing but stillness. 

If you have been delivered crushing news and felt the raw, hot grief that threatens to stop the world spinning for a moment, you know in your heart that what you feel makes you a mother too. 

If you have ever had to make a heartbreaking decision, whether it is to not bring your much loved child into the world for any reason- practical, health related, emotional or otherwise...forget what the detractors say, you have made a sacrifice and you are a mother too. 

If you have been waiting hopefully and excitedly for your new arrival only for the reality to cruelly crash down with a new arrival that doesn't breathe or whose heart stops beating, don't hesitate about it for a moment, you're still a mother too.

If you are lucky enough to give birth to a living, breathing little person and feel that overwhelming rush of love only to find a few days or weeks or months or years later, that your little person is no longer breathing or living...you are still a mother too. 

If you have a quiet home filled with just memories- perhaps a footprint or an old blanket or a picture or two, don't let anyone dissuade you from knowing that you are a mother too. 

If you visit a cemetary instead of nursery, a bereavement group intead of soft play, nothing changes that you are still a mother too. 

If you have been blessed with other special children but still sometimes get a catch in your throat or a tear in your eye for the ones that you don't get to cuddle every day, you will always be their mother still. 

Forget what your instincts tell you, ignore what seems politically correct or appropriate...

This day is for you if in your heart you are a mother too. 

Happy Mother's Day.