A decade ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

...a woman gave birth to a screaming, yowling baby boy with a head full of black hair and a healthy set of lungs. That baby cried and shook his fists at the world until someone wrapped him tightly in a warm blanket, fed him a donut, and turned on the T.V. And then, all was right in his world.

OK, just to clarify, that woman was not me, but that baby, based on the kid I know now, could have been Mark. It's how I imagine his first days, exactly 10 years ago today, Mark mad as a hornet until comforted with his favorite things (just kidding about the donut).

I may not have been with him those first few days, or even those first few years, but I was with him this morning. I nudged him awake, sang happy birthday (the version that says he looks like a monkey, and smells like one, too) and gave him the biggest birthday hug ever. I told him I loved him, and then I silently thanked another mother, the one that brought him into this world, and later, into my life.

Wherever she is, I know she's thinking of him today. Of that cute little boy she had, with the roundest chubby cheeks, and the longest eyelashes you've ever seen. No matter what was to come during the next few years, I know that she loved and cherished him that day. (I know that she still loves and cherishes him -- who wouldn't?)

It's funny, this split custody I share with that woman and a man I've never even met. They birthed and raised him for his first few years, and now relish memories I'll never know -- his first tooth, his first words, his first steps. And then he came to me, angry and unsure, proclaiming he already had parents and that I would never replace them. I agreed with him, and promised I would never try to. How do you replace the people who made you? I can't, not any more than I can replace the memories he had with them, the history he had before me.

And so I do what other parents sharing custody do -- I focus on what I have now, not what I missed out on then. I relish the time I have with him now, and hope the time he spent with his other parents didn't damage him too much. And I hope they do the same -- cherish their memories of him, and trust that I am doing the best I can to raise him into a man they can be proud of.

I pray for them, and hope their lives have progressed -- not that they got over losing a son, or moved on, but that they are in a better place than they were four years ago today, the last time they saw him. Because it's weird to share something so life-changing (a son!), so intimate, so grand, as a child, and to now celebrate the day of his birth so completely separately.

Maybe I'm over thinking it all, or getting too emotional -- it is my son's birthday, after all. Most mothers spend the day re-living that first day together with their babes snuggled close to their heart. I don't have the luxury of remembering Mark like that, but somewhere out there is another mom who does. I hope she treasures it, and him, as much as I do today.

It may be Mark's birthday, but I'm the one who received the best gift of all -- my son. Happy birthday, kiddo.