Dear New Mom,

You’re not going to be ready. Your whole life you’ve been ahead of the game, planned your life out carefully. But you can’t plan for this. You can’t plan for preeclampsia. For a disease that could kill you if the baby doesn’t come, but the baby’s still not supposed to be here for five more weeks. Your crib hasn’t even arrived yet. You have work you thought you were going to get done. “Things” you were supposed to do still.

You won’t think rationally. You tell the doctors you’d rather risk yourself and let the baby incubate longer. They’ll calm you down by making you think there’s a chance you could go home and be on bed rest if everything goes well. What they don’t tell you is that the baby’s not going to grow anymore.  The preeclampsia hasn’t just weakened your organs, it has stolen your child’s nutrition. You will not leave the hospital pregnant.

The pitocin drip will start to induce labor.  You’ll be given magnesium sulfate for the preeclampsia. It will make your tongue feel thick and you won’t be able to talk or think right. You’ll have to keep reminding yourself that you are a successful career woman and it’s the medicine making you feel this way. You did not just drop into a mental rabbit hole.

And then will come the only humorous moment in this whole episode — the epidural.  While it’s no longer the scariest part of the delivery, you listen intently when the doctor tells you not to move because he’s inserting a giant needle into your spine. You do as you’re told. You hold perfectly still. Even when you get sick.

And puke all over your husband.  Even he will laugh though, because what else can you do? You’ll feel marginally bad about ruining his new shoes though.

With everything in place and more monitors running than are used to launch a space shuttle, you will labor through the night.  Fortunately, you’re totally out of it and the epidural blocks the pain.  You will never feel a single contraction.  Which is why it won’t come as a surprise to you when you wake up in the morning and are told it’s not working. Your cervix will not dilate.  You will have to deliver by cesarean.

Five weeks before your due date, you’ll be wheeled into an operating room to have your tiny baby forcibly removed from your stomach.  Like I told you in the beginning, you’re not going to be ready.

You won’t be ready for the tilting operating table that dumps you backward so the new epidural will run up your spine faster.  You won’t be ready to see your less than five pound baby be born. Or your husband nearly pass out when he accidentally catches a glimpse of your splayed open stomach.

And at the end of several days — the exact number of which you’ll eventually forget because the medicine makes things a blur — you won’t be ready to leave your baby behind in the NICU.  You won’t be ready to walk around Target, shopping for baby supplies, knowing your child is still in the hospital.

But you know what? You’ll get through it.  Because that baby will be “small but scrappy.”  She’s a fighter and you’ll be bringing her home before you know it.  Of course, you won’t be ready for any of that either.

You won’t be ready to wake up when the alarm goes off at 3 in morning. But she’s a preemie and she MUST eat every three hours, come hell or high water.

You won’t be ready to become obsessive about baby poo.  Has she gone today?  Is it enough? Too much? The right color. Should we give her some more Karo syrup in her formula? No one warned you about that.

And you won’t be ready for how much you love that baby girl. Because you’re a new mom and you won’t know how much love your heart can hold until you hold that child in your arms.

So expect the unexpected and have the good sense to let things happen and know you’re in good hands. You won’t be able to change how your baby is born, but you can control how you react to it.

Jessie is a wife, mother of two and an appellate attorney.  Her young adult mythology novel, DESTINED, debuted Nov. 17th. You can find her on her personal blog or website. She’s also on twitter, facebook, and goodreads.

You’ve had three babies, so you must know everything about pregnancy and childbirth, right?

Wrong.

Rewind…

Two young sons, ages four and one, wait with their grandparents, while your husband rushes you to the hospital to deliver your third son. Baby number three is born on that crisp November day. And to your utter astonishment, you deliver a happy, healthy baby girl, not another boy.

Elation drips over you, melting like warm butterscotch, oozing in and out your pours. There is nothing you wouldn’t agree to in that moment of Heaven, even a procedure, ending the possibility of future pregnancies. With two beautiful sons and now a baby girl, it would be selfish to ask for more, wouldn’t it?

Fast forward…

Life moves onward, but you don’t.

Can’t.

Something is missing. A piece of you—that piece which God put there connecting you to the miracle of creation and which one of your close friends doesn’t have. You’ve seen her tears over her infertility. You took your gift for granted and simply threw it away.

Guilt replaces what should be a joyous time. Regret. You can’t sleep, torn. But you have all you can handle, raising three children under the age of five. You seek solutions through friends and the passing of time. There is no comfort. So you do the only thing you can think of to find peace.

After months of testing for both you and your hubby, and countless ways to raise money, you undergo a Tubal Ligation Reversal. Not so much to have another child, but to be open to the possibility, the natural cause of events. The procedure is far more risky than most people think.

You survive. Eight weeks to recover. It’s hard and long. Most people who know you think you’re insane for doing this. But you have your peace. And another surprise. Two short weeks later, you become pregnant with baby number four.

Only there are problems: Placenta Previa, Pre-eclampsia, and bleeding. Too much of it. The doctor says ‘miscarriage.’ OMGosh!! Miscarried???

The word won’t enter your brain. Or your heart. You’ve had three healthy pregnancies. You did this. You had the surgery. How could this happen?

You go to the office for an ultrasound. You lay back on the table. The gel is cold against your belly, still bloated with the appearance of life. The doctor rolls the scope over your skin. Your eyes glaze over. You stop breathing. Mournful tears trickle from the covers of your eyes.

The doctor stares at the monitor. His eyes widen, lips separating. You want to slam your palms against your ears, not ready to hear the truth.

“All be damned. The baby is right here,” the doctor says as he turns the monitor towards you.

There, in all glory, is your tadpole-looking blob on the ultrasound. Your baby. You didn’t miscarry. The doctor shows you a strange tear inside your placenta, which apparently healed on its own. Unexplainable, the doctor thinks out loud.

The following months are excruciating. Bed rest. Bloating. Cramps and constant fear the bleeding will start again.

On an eerie night of an eclipse, your water will break. Over two weeks early. You’ll be passing blood. You’ll be terrified. You will crawl back into bed, telling your hubby you’re not going.

You won’t breathe, your only thought: I can’t lose this baby.

The labor will be quick and strong. Your mother will be there, telling you you’re doing a good job. But you’ll know something is wrong.  She won’t listen, neither does the nurse. Until your contractions stop.

The baby will be posterior, face up and stuck and struggling. On hands and knees, you’ll move to free the baby from your pelvis. You’ll be exhausted but determined. It will work, only the baby will be coming. Right now. Something will still feel wrong.

Your hubby will hold your hands as you bare down to push. Your mother will wipe your forehead with a cool towel. The nurse will step out of the way as the doctor arrives. A moment later your new bundle of joy will be lying prostrate in the doctor’s palm.

He won’t move. Or breathe. His coloring will be gray.

The doctor will be still. You’ll beg to know why your baby is not crying. The look on your mother’s face will be horrifying. The grip from your hubby’s embrace will disappear.

“We have a true knot baby,” the doctor will say, his face downcast.

You’ll have no idea what this means, other than your baby is not making any noise. “What?” you’ll hear yourself ask, but it doesn’t sound you.

The cord will be cut. The baby still won’t move. Mumbling will rumple the doctor’s lips, as he gently rubs the baby’s newly-born chest. You’ll scream. Your mother will weep. The doctor will grow frantic. Then, another surprise.

The baby’s chest will warm to a soft pink color, deepening and shooting to his limbs. He will fill with a vibrant glow. And finally, cries.

The doctor will stare at you. “Your baby tied a knot in his umbilical cord, cutting off the oxygen and sustenance you supplied. True knot babies are usually stillborn. I believe we just witnessed a miracle.”

Your emotions will un the gamut from joyous to fear to awe. But the one thing you will be certain of, you have one heck of a little fighter in your life, now.

You will wrap your miracle in your arms. You will be changed forever.

Dear New Mom,

You thought your firstborn would be it, that she would never know a biological sibling when you try for nearly three years to conceive. You’ll stop watching TV, stop leaving the house, stop living, fear of seeing a mother and baby walk by to rip the soul from your chest. You’ll curse God, beg God. You’ll wonder if there’s a God at all.

Then, you’ll get pregnant.

Celebrate, tell everyone you know, make a list of names and dig out your daughter’s old baby things because they need cleaned. You can’t have a new baby in old, dirty things. Thank God, your life is complete.

Then, you lose this baby.

You’ll go numb, build walls of steel so no one can really know you. Lock yourself in the bathroom nearly every night to silently scream, cry, purge, stare at yourself in the mirror and whisper words of hate into your worn eyes. No one will understand why you can’t get over it, why you can’t move on. “It’ll happen when it’s supposed to happen,” they’ll tell you. You’ll grit your teeth, smile and walk away saying, “they’re wrong.” You’ll remember the post-partum depression after your firstborn when you’d spend hours, in the dark, on the cold bathroom tiles. You’ll think you’re losing your mind like you did then. You’ll want to cut, rip the skin open to let the blood flow—let the pain flow—like you did before.

But, for whatever reason, you won’t.

Keep trying to have that baby. Out of sheer stubbornness. Prove the doctor’s wrong, prove your body wrong. For another two years, try to make that baby. You will succeed.

Then, in the early morning still of a chilly New Year’s Day, you’ll lose this baby, too.

But this time, you’re already broken. You can’t be re-broken just as you can’t put together the jagged pieces of the small mirror you smashed against your hand. Accept this baby will never happen and move on with your life. It hurts. A lot. You have no one to talk to. Curl up in a ball and never emerge from the sheets again.

But you have a daughter who needs you and she’s amazing. Get lost in her and you’ll see that a few weeks later, you’ll be pregnant again. Hold your breath through the first appointment where they’ll call it a “threatened abortion.”

You WILL hear a heart beat and you CAN breathe again.

Hold onto to the sound of that tiny, perfect, heart. Bury it inside your ears when the fear of another loss crosses your mind. You’re tired but exhilarated. Every visit you’re scared, but every visit, your baby  is still thriving. A fighter, like his momma.

Towards the end, when there isn’t enough fluid supporting his beautiful head, you’ll be in and out of the hospital, forced to bed rest and finally, induced. The labor is terrifying—the worst pain you’ve ever felt. You beg for them to kill you, instead.

When it’s time to push, don’t.

Every push kills your son. His head just lies there, stuck, and the force of every contraction doesn’t help him through. It stops his breathing. Remember the two babies lost, how long you waited for this, how much you love this boy already and when the doctor tells you to wait, LISTEN.

When he’s ready, the umbilical cord snaps off the placenta and your precious boy isn’t breathing. They work on him a solid half and hour. You don’t see him, you wait while they sew you up and ponder over the massacre that is the birthing room. They tell you if the cord had snapped in utero, you’d both be dead.

You thank God, if he’s there, that it didn’t.

And despite everything, you hold your son on his birthday … on your daughter’s birthday … because they’re one in the same. You finally get to see a dream come true.

And he’s beautiful.

~Candace Ganger

Candace Ganger is a YA author, blogger at The Misadventures in Candyland and freelance writer who used to sing, married a drummer, and loves everything New Medicine and The Used. She’s a stay-at-home mother of two, an assistant editor for Physorg.com, a Spelling Judge for Lionbridge and [occasionally] gets to breathe. Not often, though.

Dear New Mom,

Labor is harder than you can imagine and you’re wishing for it all to go away.

The paralyzing pain can’t be worth it.

You’ll think horrible things and swear off children forever.

Nothing is worth all this pain.

During each contraction, you’ll breathe, say the Lord’s prayer and breathe again. Your mother will ask you repeatedly if you need a massage while your husband silently plays the PSP.

You want them all to go away. You want it all to be over.

You’re not dilating, even though your water broke yesterday. The nurse has stopped checking you because they’re afraid you might get an infection. At 8:00am your doctor’s orders will be for another round of cervidil because the first didn’t work. You’re barely a centimeter and a half.

Twelve hours later, you’re still waiting and having terrible contractions.

Will it ever stop? Yes, it does.

When the time comes for you to get an epidural, you don’t have a chance to rest, even though the nurse said you would.

The baby’s ready and it’s time to push and the pain is finally under control.

An hour later, the baby is out and you are exhausted. You try nursing, but don’t succeed. Your husband has tears in his eyes while he holds your son and all you can think about is sleep. This is supposed to be the happiest moment of your life and you feel lost.

At 3:00am you’re tucked in your room, your husband has gone home and the baby is in the nursery. Finally, the first moment’s rest in two days.

Three hours later a nurse is back in the room with your baby. You sit up and try to nurse. You succeed.  With your son, safely tucked under your breast, you realize one thing.

It’s worth it.

- Eliza

Eliza is a wife, writer, full-time worker, mother, gamer and lover of all things covered in chocolate, especially dark.