I can’t decide if it’s my first or second Mother’s Day. It feels like today should officially be the first because the child, you know, is grown and tangible and extrauterine. Which helps.

But on 8 May last year, I was big. I was with child. I was waiting. And felt every stretched inch a mother in my own right.

The Chinese – the real traditional Chinese – are said to count a person’s age from the time of conception. And depending on which side of the Lunar New Year you’re born, you could find yourself zero days old and yet celebrating your first year in the world. It does your head in, but it’s a concept I like very much because it coincides very happily with what I felt and believed throughout my pregnancy.

That I was already a mother. That it was already three of us, not two. That if Arddun had died before she was born into the world, her life would have been sorely missed and I would have classed myself every bit a mother. One who had lost her living, kicking baby.

And so yes. Today is officially my first Mother’s Day. But it also is my second. Because I was a mother from the very beginning. And once a mother, always a mother I say.

Happy Mother’s Day. xx

Mother's day
Striking a pose after a beautiful lunch at Poacher’s Pantry yesterday afternoon. Thanks, Attentive Husband!