We congratulate the birthday girl/boy/wo/man but never the woman who gave birth (and we know Labour Day is not about that either).
As my child’s birthday approaches, I think of the last days of pregnancy, of friends visiting us in hospital and making us laugh till we cried, of labour, of the hours after our baby took her first breath of the world (we try not to dwell on the next six months of sleep deprivation).
And I think of how lucky we were, how fortunate we have been, of all the joy she brings us. And to those around her.
