BUT… on those days … like I had this morning… I just say to myself, “Now I know why some species eat their young.”

Jessica, when you were a little girl nearing puberty, did you ever look at older girls and wonder how they could stand to go through all that? Did you think maybe you’d rather be a child forever? I’ve known some girls who felt that way, and although I myself was eager to become a woman, I did sometimes wonder how I would handle all the responsibilities and inconveniences. I would hear older girls or women complaining about bras, menstruation, attention from men, or birth control, and think, “Uh-oh, what if being a woman really is that bad?!” So I did lots and lots of reading about it, so that I felt prepared for every step of the journey. Of course there were still some surprises, but for the most part it really helped me feel like I knew what I was doing.

That was my approach to motherhood, too, and again it helped a lot. Also, it was important to change my prayers from, “Please let me get pregnant right now!!” to, “God, I know you will give us a child at the right time.” When I started to think of pregnancy as something like menstruation that would happen to me when the time came, instead of something I could choose on a whim, it seemed much more natural and easy to accept. That was crucial for managing the nausea and other less-pleasant aspects.

About coping with a sick child: Most babies spit up pretty often when they are little, and although that’s annoying, it’s not “real vomit” especially if they’re breastfed; it’s just milk and not so gross. Similarly, newborns’ poop is not as gross as older people’s. So you have time to get used to cleaning up after your baby when it’s not so bad, and then as your child gets older, even if the smell is making you gag you’re now used to the idea of handling that stuff! My uncle told me this before I became a mom, and I was skeptical, but it really has worked!