My daughter Ella turned 7 yesterday. How on earth did that happen?  There is truth that the older one gets, the faster time goes by.  There she was at her birthday party on Saturday in a pink dress, her yellow, just-cut, short hair, beaming in the sunlight, the biggest smile on her face, struggling to carry a giant rainbow of balloons that were trying their hardest to lift her off the ground. 

She looks exactly the same as she did the day she was born- only bigger and with more hair.  She was born the day after Winter Storm Ella- a huge snow storm that rocked the East Coast on March 6, 2003. She was born on her Great Grandmother Emily’s 90th birthday.

After what seemed like an eternity of hard labor, she was born into a hot tub in a hot room surrounded by the love of midwives and family.  My older daughter Lillian was there holding a flashlight into the tub as her head emerged.

Ella’s birthday brings up so much. Wonderful love-filled memories braided with pain. I remember wistfully and with great tenderness my children as babies and toddlers.  And I feel enormous hurt, grief and shame for the ways in which I still feel that I was not the mother to them that they deserved and needed as babies and toddlers.  I remember holding them and loving them, reading to them and napping with them. And I remember yelling, tears, anger and disconnection.  I am filled with love this time of year, yet Ella’s birthday and the birthday of my older daughter also bring up feelings of sorrow, grief and loss. The loss of my marriage and grief over the baby I never had.  But, every year with Ella’s birthday comes Spring- a time for reflection, and the birth of new life and new hope. And the opportunity to continue to heal, grow and be gentle with myself.   

Melanie DeSilva is the Executive Director of MotherWoman. She is the mother of two beautiful daughters and is engaged to a beautiful, gentle and funny massage therapist.