I turn 25 today at 12:38 pm. How do I know that? Because I asked my mom.

My whole life I’ve thought that my birthday was about me – my family bought me gifts and made me cake and sent me cards, I got balloons and free desserts at restaurants and a million Facebook comments wishing me a happy day and another great year. January 30 brought about general celebration of me by people I know and strangers alike. But I’ve come to realize that my birthday shouldn’t be about me at all – it should be about my mom, who did all the work on this day 25 years ago to bring me into the world.

It took my own pregnancy and the birth of my daughter to realize that we’ve been doing this birthday celebration thing all wrong! As I carried around an 8 pound baby in my stomach, preparing my mind and body to have a natural birth, I would joke to my husband about how we should celebrate me on the baby’s birthday, because I was the one who did all the work! And work I did on my birth-day. Dove was born on the day I hit 42 weeks gestation and I was in a race against the clock to be able to have the natural birth I wanted and not have to have labor induced at a hospital. I began having regular contractions at 10am and was worn out by 5pm and thought the pain was getting to a point where I should be dilated to at least 4 cm – but nope, I was only at 2 cm by 6pm with an induction at the hospital scheduled for the next morning. So I began forcing my tired body to do squats and lunges to try to speed labor up. I continued having contractions for a few more hours every 2-3 minutes and would sleep for a minute or two between them if I could. I was so exhausted but I was tapping into a source of strength deep inside me that I never knew that I had. Once I hit transition, contractions got really intense and I realized that I was the only one who could get this baby out no matter how long or how painful the labor was I couldn’t sub out or take a break. So I bowed my head and called on God and dealt with it. And after 2.5 hours of pushing, I gave birth to my baby girl having gotten through the toughest pain of my life on my own, completely naturally with no medication. And I thought I WAS THE QUEEN.

My mom doesn’t remember all the details of my birth, but she does remember that it was hard work and that she had to push past a lot of pain to bring me into the world that January afternoon. And just like the day Dove was born, the day I was born changed her forever. I realized on my birth-day that I can get through much harder things than I ever imagined and be victorious. I became not only a new mom, but a new woman on my birth-day. It changed my whole outlook on life, I know that whatever comes my way, with God’s help, if it comes down to it and it’s all on me, that I can do it! And that deserves to be celebrated. Only motherhood could have shown me that I should have been celebrating my mom all these years on her birth-day.

So whatever your birth looked like whether it was a c-section, an epidural, a back-of-the-car or a natural birth – share the celebration with your mama, ask her about the day you were born and thank her for all the hard work she put in to get you out into the world and then to selflessly celebrate you for all these years on her special day!