They Never Told Mom

One Mother's Refrain . . .

Nobody ever told me, when I became the mother of a newborn, that I would carry her home from the hospital trembling in terror, wondering how in the world I'd know what to do with her. She seemed like a tiny, helpless victim of my gross ineptitude.

When I diapered Jill, back in the days of cloth diapers and diaper pins, and I once clumsily stuck a pin into her velvety soft body, I wept with shame.

When I bathed her, I was positive she would drown.

And when she cried, I felt pangs of guilt that I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

Nobody ever told me that despite all the sleepless nights, the high anxiety, the deforming fears that I would drop her or starve her or overfeed her, I would fall madly, hopelessly in love with this perfect miniature who somehow survived all my first-baby fumbles.

Nobody ever told me when our second daughter was born that I would feel slightly more confident, but just as overwhelmed. Bringing Amy home from the hospital was a bit less traumatic and more routine -- but it also taught one young and still-novice mother that two babies somehow added up to more than twice as much work and exhaustion and worry. Nobody can explain the math.

Nobody ever told me that somehow, a mother's love multiplies easily, and that there's more than enough to go around.

Then along came a third baby -- and another daughter.

To read the rest of Sally Friedman's revealing, poignant essay from today's Courier-Post, click here.