To your first mom:

Thank you for carrying him for nine months. Thank you for tending your body well enough that he thrived and flourished. Thank you for birthing him into the world. I don’t know your story, nor would I share it if I did; but I know that you kept him safe for nine months and were with him the first moments he entered the world. I know it was your eyes he saw first and your voice he knew first. And I know that parts of you are in him in ways that I never will be. I know that you held him first and knew him as a son first. And I know that he loved you first, as only a baby can do with the woman who carried him. You will always hold these special, cherished moments in his life. And for these reasons, you will always be tightly woven in our hearts and in our family. And I am thankful.

To your ayis:

I don’t know how you pour out your hearts, day after day, loving these kids who aren’t your own, teaching them to love so that you can then place them in the arms of another mama. You hold so so many firsts in your hearts- first words, first teeth, first steps. I know our story is definitely not everyone’s, but your love for him was so clear. In the pictures you sent, in the cherished videos of you laughing and being silly with him, in the baby book we have full of pictures of you cooing as he rolled over, feeding him his bottle, holding his hands while he took his first steps, teaching him to color. You fed him, changed him, brushed his teeth; you mothered him. And the love you filled him with is evident in who he is: his fierce loyalty, his reckless confidence, his mischievous playfulness, his big love. He loves us because you loved him. And I’m so thankful that you did.

As his mama, I’m woven together with these other women. The woman who carried and birthed him and knew him first. The women who nurtured him, held him, and taught him how to love. And now me. The mama who knows him as beloved son. I grieve deeply the firsts I missed at the same time I mourn the firsts that these other women will now miss. I rejoice at the gift of loving him while thanking the women who showed him his first love. I call him son while thinking of the woman who no longer does. And I carry all of these women in my heart knowing I probably won’t meet them again. These women who each made him a part of who he is, who each held him, who each let him go, are forever a part of his life and our family. And I’m deeply grateful to share Mother’s Day with all the women who mama’ed my son.