The happiest days of her life was one of the worst days of mine..

There was a moment years back when my son’s mother told me that she had a big celebration when they changed his birth certificate to reflect her name, not mine. I could feel her joy while, at the same time, I felt this sinking feeling in my gut.

The realization that one of the happiest days of her life was one of the worst days of mine brought me to my knees.

It wasn’t the first time I’d felt like that, and it won’t be the last. Many of her greatest joys are and will be my greatest losses. That’s not good or bad—it just is. It is the path I chose that was best for my son. It’s just the reality of being a birthmother.

It led me to a thought outside of myself: in the adoption world, this juxtaposition between such different realities around the same situation isn’t rare. It is normal. Placing my son for adoption, even though I knew it was right for him in the moment, was one of my lowest moments. I was in crisis. It’s every mother’s nightmare, to hand over her baby. Even if it’s the best solution you have at the time, it’s still an ache.

When you’re on your knees in that place of weakness, though—that place of pain—some other mother is on her knees for a different reason—whether it’s a room or an ocean away—praying, hoping to meet you there at this crossroads.

Even when it’s for the best, your loss is someone else’s happy ending. You’re on either side of a rope, tugging, though you’re not at war. You’re on the same team: your child’s team.

This feeling of living in a parallel universe is not just a one-time feeling, at least for me. I’m reminded of it every holiday, every celebration, and sometimes random times on random days. My worst, her best. My worst, her best. This reality can land hard. It can feel like you’re drowning, desperately bobbing in a sea of your own decisions, and you don’t know when you’re going to come up for air again.

If you’re a birthmother, your experience may be totally different—and that’s okay. If you’re an adoptive mother, perhaps those celebrations are tinged with pangs of pain, too.

I don’t know. I don’t have answers. One thing I do know for sure, though, is that a mother is a mother, whichever side of that reality you fall on.