Families TODAY: A tribute to moms, part 1

"The first time was unbelievable," Alden said.

After several hours of labor, a C-section, and over four hours spent waiting in agonizing anticipation to see her, Kirsti was able to hold her first-born daughter, Kadence Rose Alden, for the very first time.

"It was the best feeling I've ever had in my whole life," Alden said. "When the doctors finally brought her in and when I first held her, I was like- wow. Unbelievable."

Weighing six pounds, three ounces, and measuring 20 inches long, Kadence Rose Alden transformed Kirsti's life in a very real and very fundamental way. The transformation to motherhood, said Alden, is, "very tiring, but totally worth it."

Kadence, who on this day is only 57 days old, has by all accounts grown rather quickly, now weighing eight and a half pounds and having grown at least two to three inches. It's something that Alden, who will raise Kadence through infancy into early childhood, adolescence and adulthood will have to get used to as a new mother, watching her child grow up at what will seem like breakneck speed before her very eyes.

May 10 will be another first for Kirsti and her new daughter. It will mark the first time that Kirsti will celebrate Mother's Day not just as a daughter, but as a mother as well. So far, Kirsti said that the significance of the day hasn't hit her quite yet.

"It probably will. Maybe as she gets older it will," Alden said. "But it's definitely a good feeling to know I'm her Mom."

For Alden, being a mother is still very new, overwhelming sometimes, but it's something that she said she wouldn't trade for all the world. And although she is sure to face her share of trials and hardships along the way, the rewards gained from the experience, from raising her daughter, will in time come to outweigh it all.

"She's the best thing that's ever happened to me," Alden said. "I love being her Mom."

Military Mom

Grace Nason never expected that her daughter, Corporal Laura Nason, would one day join the United States Armed Forces, serving not one but two tours of duty in Iraq.

"She was always very independent, very stubborn, and very active," Grace Nason said about her daughter, who after graduating Schuylerville High School in 2005 decided that she wanted to join the United States Marine Corps.

"Two months [after graduation] she went to Parris Island boot camp for 13 weeks. When she picked the Marines we tried to talk her into doing something different, because we knew that if she joined she would definitely be going to Iraq," Nason said. "But she said she didn't mind, that this was what she wanted to do, and that the Marines would be the hardest to get through. She wanted the biggest challenge."

For weeks Laura Nason endured one of the toughest training regiments of her life, including the Marine Corps' final test, the Crucible, where potential marines undergo a rigorous 54-hour field training exercise that simulates as closely as possible conditions on an actual battlefield. But despite the many challenges that faced her, Laura came out on top, and shortly after boot camp had ended she began her first tour of duty at Camp Al Taqaddum in Iraq.

For Grace, having her daughter overseas during a time of war was, understandably, a constant source of fear and worry.

"It was very scary. I had a very hard time watching the news," Nason said. "I would be very nervous anytime I would hear a car pull up. I'd be thinking I don't even want to look out the window; I don't want to see the Marines out there telling me any bad news. It's very, very scary."

Every week, Laura and Grace would try to talk on the phone at least once, and Grace would send her daughter care packages to help make things easier on her. After her first tour, Laura was sent to Iraq for a second tour, together totaling nearly 19 months spent abroad in the Middle East.

Laura is now nearing the end of her four-year term with the Marines, and has returned to Camp Pendleton in San Diego to spend her last four months of service there before she plans to attend college in the city. As for Grace, she couldn't be more proud of her daughter.

"I am so proud," Nason said. "I could not be prouder of what she has accomplished, of what she has done for this country. By serving this country, giving four years of her life not just to benefit herself to be able to go to school, but to do something for us - she's always been a very hard worker, and she'll always succeed at what she's going after. So yes," Nason said, "I am very proud of her."

Working Mom

Six and a half years ago when Gina Michelin was first pregnant with her daughter, she thought she was ready for the changes a new baby would bring to her life.

"I think I was probably overly confident. I was an organizer," Michelin said. "I had clothes hung and organized by size and color, you name it. We had planned a very peaceful birthing experience, a hypnobirth where I took classes and everything."

But even the best laid plans can change in a heartbeat. Six weeks before her expected due date, Michelin was rushed to the hospital where under general anesthesia she was given an emergency C-section. When her daughter was born she was incredibly tiny, very weak, and barely moving.

"We almost lost her," Michelin said.

Thanks to intense and dedicated medical care from the hospital's staff, Michelin and her daughter fully recovered from the traumatic birth, and today her daughter shows no negative side effects from those first frantic moments of life. Still, if nothing else, the experience taught Michelin one of her first and most important lessons about parenting.

"Did I expect her to come six and half weeks early and be in the condition she was in? You know what they say - life is what happens when you're making plans. And that's okay. It just changes everything and it's true, you're never really prepared."

Two and a half years later, Michelin gave birth to her son, and after staying home for five years to raise the pair she returned to the workforce. Being a working mom, Michelin said, is like trying to perform a very tricky balancing act.

"It's like wearing all these different hats. Sometimes you feel like you have a split personality, that you give a different performance with each place that you are," Michelin said. It can be overwhelming, but Michelin said that it's a challenge she welcomes, one that she is constantly adapting to and reassessing.

"Being a mom is my biggest priority. It focuses you on life in a way that you've never been before, in respect that you look at your own past and your own childhood, and you look at the world in a different way. You look at your children knowing that you want so much more for them then you had, even if you had a lot. It gives you great strength, it gives you great humility, and it forces you to do a lot of self examination. I always want to be a better parent," Michelin said.

"They're the most important and most loved things in my life," Michelin added. "I love them more than anything in the world."