The Best Birthday Present

I remember so vividly, the week of my birthday in 2004. I was turning 38.
I was 7 weeks pregnant with Aidan, at the doctors office and unbelievably anxious to see his heartbeat on the ultrasound. I yearned to know if this pregnancy was real, and if my little one was going to make it.
I stared intently at the ultrasound screen, waiting nervously for Dr. Dourron to find that familiar black blob and show me what I so desperately wanted to see.
He said “there it is. There’s the heartbeat….now that we see it, your chance of miscarriage goes down to less than 5 percent.”
I began to sob.
My mother started to cry.
Dr. Dourron, in the kindest, sweetest voice said
“you know Betsy, after all you have been through, you deserve this.”
He then hugged me, and I cried some more.

I think about this moment every time I celebrate my birthday.
Yesterday, my 42nd birthday was no different.
I received yet another sweet memory making moment.

Aidan woke up, and I informed him that it was mommy’s birthday.
He told me that he wanted to bake a cake (we had no cake mix),
and put candles on it (we had those!).
I improvised with bread slices smeared with peanut butter to hold the candles.
He put 8 of them on top, and began singing the happy birthday song as I lit them.
I quickly got the camera.

Later I opened my “present:”
A toy of Aidan’s, placed in one of his toy boxes,
with a bow on the top.
Our birthday party was complete after we hit an imaginary piñata
and ate the imaginary candy that fell to the floor.
As I thanked him for such a wonderful birthday,
I thought about how my upcoming birthdays are getting even better than the one in 2004.
A sweet little party, thought up in my son’s 3 ½ year old mind,
for his mommy on her birthday.
I thought that day seeing his heartbeat that it could never get better.
How wrong I was.