There’s something about tonight that feels suspended in time.

Twenty-five years ago, on a night just like this one, I was waiting for you. I didn’t know your face yet. I didn’t know your laugh, your voice, or the way you would change everything about me. All I knew was that my world was about to shift in a way I couldn’t fully understand.

I remember the quiet moments most. The stillness between the anticipation. The way time felt slow and fast all at once. I wondered who you would be. I wondered if I would be enough for you. I wondered how something so small could already feel so big in my heart.

Now here we are... twenty-five years later. It’s hard to put into words what it means to watch your child grow into their own person. To see pieces of yourself and pieces of something entirely their own reflected back at you. To realize that the tiny life you once held so carefully has built a life of their own, with their own dreams, struggles, victories, and lessons.

If I could go back and sit beside the version of me from that night, I think I’d tell her this:

You’re about to meet one of the greatest loves of your life. You will get things wrong sometimes, and that’s okay. There will be days that test you in ways you never imagined. There will also be moments so full of joy, they will take your breath away. I’d tell her that love will grow in ways she didn’t know were possible. That it won’t always be easy, but it will always be worth it.

Tonight, I find myself in that same quiet space againbut it feels different now. There’s no uncertainty about who you are. Instead, there’s gratitude. Deep, overwhelming gratitude for every year, every memory, every version of you I’ve been lucky enough to know. You made me a mother.

You taught me patience, strength, and a kind of love that reshaped my world and even now, twenty-five years later, I am still learning from you.

On the eve of your birth, all those years ago, I was waiting to meet you.Tonight, I’m simply thankful that I did.