As I reflected on this day and this post it occurred to me I’ve been a lot of different people on Mother’s Day in the past. I’ve been the little girl celebrating her own mommy with homemade cards full of pictures of smiling suns and flowers. I’ve been the young women who had sheer excitement about one day becoming a mom while celebrating her own mom. I’ve also been the young married woman anxious about when we’d be given the blessing of becoming parents. I’ve been the angry, disappointed and incredibly sad mom who grieved the loss of babies on Mother’s Day. I’ve been the elated, over the moon I have three newborns at one time mom. I’ve been the tired, but deeply grateful mom on Mother’s Day.

There is never a Mother’s Day that goes by that I don’t feel a whirlwind of emotions as a result of having been each of these things described above.

First, and most importantly I’m deeply grateful. I’m deeply grateful for our own human beings that GOD gave us the incredible and beautiful and sometimes daunting task of raising. Being Finley, Ellen, Cooper, Fiona and Fletcher’s mom is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given. I’m so blessed to get to do this with a man, my husband, who is also my best friend.

I’m also deeply grateful that I have been given the most amazing example of what motherhood should look like in my own mom. She is my hero and the person I most admire on this Earth.

I am so grateful that my husband was raised by parents and on this day, especially a mom, who taught him the most important of values and obviously did an incredible job…because people don’t turn out like Bryan without a good example.

I’m wildly grateful for my tribe of other moms in my own family, especially my own sister. For their help, advice and talk me off the cliff moments of motherhood I’m so grateful for!

I am also grateful for those I work with that have gone through the motherhood phase I’m in that I can rely on for advice.

Finally for those I call my closest friends, I feel deep gratitude. Having them to bounce ideas and worries off of is incredibly important and makes this mom gig a whole lot easier.

I’m intensely grateful for my “mom” gig as a teacher and coach. While I’m not naive enough to think I’m that important I’m blessed to be even a small part of many young men and women’s development. I learn from them each and every day too. It’s pretty special for me either way.

Even amidst all of this profound and real gratitude I also feel intense loss and sadness on this day. Not just for my own losses but for those I know that have experienced that same pain or are currently experiencing it. It’s one of those pains that unless you’ve lived it, you can’t truly know it. Because I know that pain, I have so many others on my heart that are going through miscarriage and infertility and it weighs on me.

So on this Mother’s Day…I have to say happy day to all the Moms out there. There are many different stages of being a mom. I’ve been in quite a few of them, though have yet to dip into being a mom of teens (which I hear is pretty scary) or being a grandmother (which I hear is pretty amazing).

To all my mom friends and family out there I see you. You are crushing it at this mom thing and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to watch you all do your thing. To my friends who are in the waiting and hoping phase, you have my heart and I am praying for you. Also, I’m here if you want to talk about it. Finally, to all I know who have lost a child, all my love and prayers go out to you. While I know this day is supposed to be about celebrating moms, I realize for those of us that have lost a baby, this day can be very sad and incredibly hard. You have my heart and my prayers as well.

Below are pictures of my very first Mother’s Day just days after the triplets were born and the birth day of our other two sweet miracle babies.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•