Sasee Magazine

I have five children. Three of them I acquired the normal way – nine months of heartburn and hemorrhoids, followed by no less than 17 hours of unpleasant sensations in my abdominal area. But looking back, I count those days as some of the best in my life. (Motherhood is funny that way.) My other two children were far less painful to acquire. All I had to do was marry their dad, which was far more pleasant than childbirth, thank goodness! In fact, I often tease my stepchildren that they are my favorites because they didn’t put me through all of that.

My husband, Eric, and I work hard to treat all five of our kids the same, regardless of biology. This is relatively easy to do on a day-to-day basis, but it gets pretty tricky on special occasions. Christmas is especially touchy because some of the kids go to their other parent’s house and receive additional gifts. They bring them back home with them, and then we start to hear complaints that things aren’t fair. While Eric and I understand their gripes, it’s impossible in a family like ours to keep things exactly equal. So we do the only thing we can do. We make sure that each child gets that special something they’d asked for, and we also try to spend about the same amount of money on each child. And whatever happens at their other parent’s house is out of our hands.

Birthdays are easier than Christmas because there are no direct comparisons. Each child is just so excited that it’s their special day that they don’t think about what their siblings received four months ago when it was their birthday. Even still, Eric and I celebrate each one the same way. We have a party the weekend before their big day and, on their actual birthday, they get to choose the dinner menu for that evening. We have a regular cake for the party and then cupcakes to go with their birthday dinner. Everyone is happy with that arrangement, so we’re keeping it.

But there’s one area involving their birthdays that really isn’t fair. On my step children’s birthdays, they get to be the star. We sing to them and give them gifts and do everything we can to make them feel special. Of course, we do the same thing for all of the kids. But there’s just one tiny difference. On my biological children’s birthdays, it’s still all about me.

Let me explain: When one of my kids wakes up on their birthday, I hug them and wish them a happy birthday. Then I glance at the clock and update them as to where I was and what I was doing exactly that many years ago. For example, my oldest biological child, Jordan, will be eleven this month. And on his big day, I will remind him that he won’t truly be eleven until 9:09 pm. And around lunchtime, I will remind him that that’s when he really started hurting me so the doctor put this super long needle into Mommy’s back to make me feel better. And then at bedtime, right before he actually turns eleven for real, I’ll tell him the reason he was born at 9:09 pm. It’s because I overheard the doctor say the “e” word – episiotomy. He told the nurse that if Jordan wasn’t out by 9:15, that was their next step. And I guess that was just the incentive I needed to get the job done.

Now to some people, these stories would be simply TMI – too much information. But I realized that my kids must really enjoy hearing them when I overheard them talking on their baby brother’s first birthday a few weeks ago. The day before his birthday, I heard my daughter say, “Now Nathan, today was actually supposed to be your birthday.” And then she told him how Daddy and I had gone to the hospital, ready to be induced, only to be told that the maternity ward was too crowded, and we had to come back the next day. (Now that was fun!) Nathan was also informed that he was the “hugest baby in the whole place,” and that he “hurt Mommy the most of all her babies.” The kids also made sure that Nathan did not officially turn one until the exact time of his birth, 9:11 pm.

So I thought the kids enjoyed my birthday stories until last year when, on his birthday, Jordan asked me why I always remind him of everything that happened that day. I smiled and said, “Because it’s your birthday. And those are the things that led up to your birth.”

He shrugged. “But the stories you tell me are about things that hurt you, and it makes me feel bad.”

“Oh, Honey, that’s just how it is when you have a baby. You shouldn’t feel bad. You didn’t mean to hurt me.”

“I know.” He thought for a minute and then added, “There’s something else too. It’s my birthday, but all of the stories seem to be about you. Well, at least until the end, when I finally came out.”

“And then what happened?”

He smiled and quoted the words I’d told him countless times before. “You looked into the sweetest little baby face you ever saw, and you forgot about everything you went through.”

I smiled back, feeling teary-eyed. “That’s right. I loved you so much that none of the yucky stuff mattered anymore. Jordan, your birthday is your special day, but it’s special to me too. Because your birthday is the anniversary of the day we met.”

He nodded, and I’m pretty sure his eyes were damp as well. “So you’re going to tell me those stories every year on my birthday?”

“Well, I guess I don’t have to.”

Jordan hugged me and said, “No, it’s OK, you can tell me. I like stories with happy endings.”