Sandy Jorgenson

You’d have a hell of a time if you ever dared to crawl through the recesses of a first-time mother’s brain.

Anybody who has lived through those early days of parenthood (and let’s be totally forthright, here… those seasoned parents, too) knows e

But what can be said for the day upon which I am no longer enough? I dread that day.

Everybody who’s a parent can attest to the fact that the lives they once knew are far behind them.

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Whoever is responsible for coining the term “terrible twos” and leaving the entirety of the threes out of the equation is sitting at the very top of my sh*t list. Because a little warning would’ve been nice.

Sitting now on the cusp of my 35th birthday, I find myself taking stock of my life thus far, shoving my youth under a microscope while I ask myself this one thing: Am I careening full-tilt toward my final days on this earth, or am I only just getting started here?

I know motherhood is hard. Especially new motherhood — those early days are a fog of tears, confusion, and helplessness. But I also know that yearning for something you can’t have, particularly with regard to children, is a feeling far worse. I’ve lived through the pain of childbirth, of a 3rd-degree tear, two related surgeries and a year of recovery, of postpartum depression, of miscarriage and of infertility and my god; I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat if it meant a chance to… Well, to do it all over again.

...[O]ur very responsibility is to equip them with everything they need before we shove them out of the nest and watch their wings spread far and wide... But what, then, is left for us?