🌼 A gentle reflection on the journey that brought him here.
A small note before I start — if you’re in the middle of your own fertility journey right now, I see you. I wrote this as honestly and carefully as I could, and I hope it feels like a warm place to land, not a hard one. 🤍
You turned one in April.
And I still don’t fully know how to put this first year into words.
I think I needed a little time after your birthday to really sit with what this year meant.
I keep trying to find the right words for what this first year has meant.
But every time I try, the words feel too small.
Because you are here.
You are real.
You are growing and laughing and reaching for me.
And I still look at you sometimes and think…
I get to be your mama.
What a gift that is.
Where You Came From
If you’re new here, this little boy came to us through IVF after a long journey of hoping and waiting.
I won’t go into every part of that story today — I shared the full journey in The IVF Journey That Led Me to You — but what I will say is this:
Getting here wasn’t simple.
And I don’t take it for granted for a single day that he is here.
We actually have a photo of him as a tiny embryo, taken at the clinic before everything changed for us.
I cried when I saw it.
And now that same little embryo toots, looks up, makes full eye contact, flashes the biggest smile, and giggles like he is the funniest person alive.
He knows exactly what he did.
And he is very proud of it every single time. 😂
This Boy Came in Ready
He was born on Easter morning during a thunderstorm — dramatic entrance fully intended, apparently.
And he has been in a hurry ever since.
Crawling at four months. Sitting up shortly after. Walking by six and a half months like he had somewhere important to be.
He already knows what he wants, and he will tell you.
Mama.
Dada.
Baba.
Night night.
He is learning and growing so fast that some days I just stop and watch him and think…
How are we already here?
He is headstrong and curious and so, so funny.
And every day, I feel like I’m getting to know him a little more.
Our Family Growing
His big brother is 15 now — learning to drive, making plans for his own life, and becoming someone I am genuinely so proud of.
His big sister is 10 — and she has made it her personal mission to get this baby to giggle.
Not just to help me out.
Because she is obsessed with that laugh.
Honestly, same. 😂
Watching the three of them together is one of my favorite things in the world.
They were already my heart.
And then he came along and added a new light to a family that already held so much love.
The First Year Was Real
I also want to be honest that his first year wasn’t without hard days.
Postpartum was heavy for me.
The depression.
The anxiety.
The back injury I’m still healing from.
Some days were really hard in ways I wasn’t expecting.
But even on those hard days, he was still the light.
That’s what my kids are to me.
My sun rays.
Even on the hardest days, they pull me through.
Happy Birthday, Sweet Boy
From a tiny photo in a clinic…
to this.
To the toots and the giggles.
To the running and the “mama mama mama” at 6 a.m.
To all of it.
You are my sun ray. 🌅
Happy first birthday.
Mama loves you so much.
With love,
Rachel (RaiRai 💛)
You might also want to read:
→ The IVF Journey That Led Me to You
→ My Natural Water Birth Story
→ Postpartum Isn’t What I Expected After 3 Births
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