No one tells you it’s going to be this hard.
That you’ll feel responsible for their beating heart long after they have left your body.
That the very second they take their first breath will also be the day you’ll begin to forever hold your own.
That their arrival will signal the last time you ever truly put yourself first.
That every thought process will have them in mind regardless of whether it relates to them directly or not.
That every decision forevermore will be carefully calculated as to not affect them detrimentally.
No one tells you your heart will physically ache so profoundly. From sadness, worry, angst but mostly love.
No one tells you how you may struggle through each stage only to be desperately sad once the milestone is accomplished.
That you’ll wish more than anything to return to yesterday. To go back for just one day.
To witness their first smile, revel in their first giggle and be serenaded by their very first coos.
That their cries will in turn cause tears of your own until you fall into a learned rhythm of togetherness.
No one tells you they’ll become your proudest achievements.
Your first priority. Your initial waking and final bedtime thoughts.
The greatest loves of your life.
No one tells you beforehand.
Maybe they do and we just don’t listen?
And that’s OK.
Because it’s worth it.
Because it wouldn’t change a thing.
Because we’re mothers.
