The First Time I Met Strength

I was twenty-four. Unmarried. Still growing into my skin. Her father was already drifting - more shadow than anchor. I didn’t know anything about motherhood. I barely knew how to care for myself. But life doesn’t wait for you to be ready. Some souls arrive anyway. Chosen. Meant. Even if they slip through the cracks of control.

I was on birth control when I got pregnant. That’s the part people love to raise their eyebrows at. But I never saw her as a mistake. She was a miracle disguised as a detour. A rerouting of everything I thought I wanted into something I didn’t yet know I needed.

I gave birth to Sarah alone, in many ways. My mother wasn’t there. I had no guide. No blueprint. But I remember the quiet power that filled the room. I remember talking to her between contractions, as if we had always known each other, as if she was reminding me that I was not alone in this. That we were in it together.

My water didn’t break on its own. They had to induce me. That’s when the real pain began. But even then, I joked with the nurses, cracked a few smiles between the clenching. I had always had a high tolerance for pain—but this wasn’t the kind that broke me. It was the kind that revealed me.

They said it would take hours. That first-time mothers always stall. But she came first. Before the others. So quickly the doctor didn’t even make it in time. Just me. The nurse. And a flood of light.

She entered the world on her own terms. Strong. Whole. A reflection of everything I never knew I had inside me.

I don’t remember the pain.

I remember the awe.

The stillness after her first cry.

The way the world hushed when I held her.

She was perfect.

And she still is.

That day didn’t just make me a mother. It showed me the first glimpse of who I truly am. Not the broken girl trying to earn love. Not the good daughter, or the wife, or the achiever. Just me. Bare. Shaking. Alive. And ready.

She was the first to ever love me without condition. And from the very beginning, I loved her the same. Fiercely. Softly. Without needing her to be anything but hers.

Sixteen years later, I still feel that cord between us, stronger than blood, deeper than language. A knowing. A return. She was not planned. But she was never a mistake.

She was the first time I met strength.

And the first time I truly knew love. ------- My dearest Sarah,

You didn’t come when life was perfect, you came when I was still trying to remember who I was. And somehow, in loving you, I found her again. You’ve been my greatest mirror, my fiercest teacher, and my softest home. Every step we’ve taken, we’ve taken together, from that very first breath. You were my beginning, and you still are. Thank you for choosing me.