It’s hard to know how to start the story. It feels like a lifetime ago that it all began. Kai, my firstborn, is a child of nature. Kai means ocean in Hawaiian, earth in Scandinavian languages, willow tree in Navajo, fire in Scottish, sun in Wayuu, Universe in Persian, cycle and forgiveness in Japanese and loveable in Swahili.

Kai was conceived in an ashram in the foothills of the Himalyas, in a simple Zen chalet by the sparkling river and looking up to the snow-capped mountains. We were in the middle of an intensive 3-week meditation retreat, following a cathartic process of a week’s laughter, a week’s crying and a week’s silence. Kai’s story is full of crying.

I will never forget how I felt when I first held him. But the wonder was short-lived; he wasn’t breathing properly and was taken away for oxygen – and two hours later, into ICU for 5 days. We were told he had congenital pneumonia.

Hormones all over the place, the next days were a blur of expressing milk and visiting Kai’s bedside. I cried when the nurse first told me I could hold him; but I held him awkwardly, scared of all the wires attached to his tiny body. The first time I fed him – in the middle of a brightly-lit ward, full of blinking computer screens and the smell of disinfectant – I felt a deep home-coming. Something inside me somehow already knew this feeling. My heart ached.

Finally, we took him home and little by little, I settled into being a mother, feeling my way, and making more mistakes than I care to remember, as we navigated the first few months together. Yet as Kai got older, he seemed increasingly frustrated. He slept fitfully – if at all – and started waking frequently at night. Sometimes, he couldn’t feed – he would scream at the breast and I would hold him, bringing him to the breast again and again until he would finally latch. One night, he screamed for two hours; we took him outside and walked the labyrinth round and round until he finally calmed.

I remember attending a retreat when he was four months old; he woke 8 times one night and I was utterly exhausted. I remembered the exhaustion of labour, and how I had called on the Universe to support me when I had no strength left. I remembered I could still call on something bigger than myself for support during those days.

Eventually, I realised Kai’s crying was his attempt to heal. As I learned simply to hold him, he was able to release through tears. I felt the intensity of his pain, his fear, and his anger. Sometimes I felt a physical pain in my heart as his crying peaked; as I started crying too, the pain diminished and then both our tears slowed. I found myself reassuring him “you’re safe now” and trying to infuse his tiny body with healing love. As I held him day after day, I had a sense we were healing each other.

The lesson was as simple as it was profound. I didn’t have to make everything ok. I didn’t have to keep him permanently happy to demonstrate what a perfect mum I was. (I didn’t even have to be a perfect mum!) All I needed to do was provide a container – allow him to be “the storm in my calm” as somebody put it. I needed to provide a mirror to reflect back his feelings, however uncomfortable; and support to know that whatever he was feeling, he was strong enough to handle it and move through it.

And so we grew together: Kai into a beautiful, energetic toddler; and me into a mother. Many times, we laughed, played and cried together. Separation anxiety hit hard. He learned to walk. Got his teeth. Started talking. Many times, I got things wrong. Many times, he persisted in showing me I was off track.

He is still deeply sensitive and wary of strangers, taking a long time to size people up before he trusts them. I often wonder just how profoundly his basic trust in humanity was shattered in those first few hours. It’s hard still to imagine the fear and confusion at being separated; the physical pain from having blood sampled, stomach pumped and drips inserted; or the loneliness of being left alone in a ventilator, his first experience of this world and this life.

But he is also vibrant and joyful and incredibly compassionate and empathic. And our bond is incredibly special because of the intensity of our traumatic beginning. He was the one who cracked open my heart allowing a new depth of compassion, and he was the one who taught me how to be a mother. He is my firstborn, my first teacher – and my inspiration for writing.