@stillbecomingmama: they cover so much ground in those prenatal classes. they walk you through the stages and the breathing and the what to expect in the first few days and they send you home with pamphlets and phone numbers and a list of warning signs to watch for. and not one person in any of it pulled me aside and said by the way, the loneliness is going to catch you at 2am and it is going to be unlike any loneliness you have felt before. not the loneliness of being new somewhere or growing apart from someone or spending a friday night alone. something with no previous comparison point. something that lives specifically in the hours between midnight and dawn when the love you feel is at its most enormous and most terrifying and there is nobody awake to help you hold it. i think they leave it out because it is hard to explain without sounding ungrateful. because how do you put in a pamphlet that you will love this baby beyond anything you thought was possible and you will also feel more alone than you ever have and those two things will exist in the exact same moment at 2am and there will be nothing to do about it except sit there and feel both. nobody warned me. and then the lights on the map warned me in reverse, after the fact, by showing me that every single one of them already knew. #postpartum #newmom #postpartumsupport #momlife #momtok
