Twelve can be a scary mile stone for any parent. Your little baba is turning into a teenager before your eyes and moving in directions unknown.
Mum-of-four, Adrian Woods, recently captured this feeling of adoration for in an open letter to her son on his twelfth birthday.
And we're in bits.
She starts by telling him the story of his birth, premature with health complications:
"To the Boy that Made Me a Mother" she begins. "I got you, a dark headed son, five pounds, one ounce and five weeks early. My heart would never be the same."
She shares her struggles as a new mother, and with his health complications:
"I shed tears over you, you know.
Jaundice, dehydration, my milk hadn't come in and I didn't know. How was I supposed to know? We stood watch over the tiny incubator and your first Christmas was spent beneath blue light."
She explained how she slept with him in her bed and nursed him:
"I nursed you, you know. Every two hours and throughout the night. Snippets of sleep were hard to come by, but you were my pot of gold.
I slept with you, you know. Tucked between daddy and me, you cosy in that bright yellow fleece sleep sack, and every so often, we would get a nice long stretch of four hours or so."
Woods also recalled how she was doing her dissertation with a newborn:
"I worked for you, you know. My dissertation beckoned me and so, the two of us hopped on a plane when you were just a month old and headed south, so your grandmother could help with your care while I typed and rewrote and typed some more."
But, most importantly, she loved him:
"I loved you, you know. From the very second, I saw the double line on that stick, I fell head over heels and I never have recovered.
I was completed by you, you know. The child that eclipsed my soul and made me wonder how I had lived so long and not known the depth of a mothering heart."
We're too emotional right now.
