....the real changes that parenthood brings. Of course you think you've got them all down before the baby comes. You've gone over them numerous times in your head. You've maybe even verbally hashed and re-hashed them over with you spouse, trying desperately to make sure he understands just what you two will be giving up so you don't have to listen to him complain about it later. And yet, somehow, despite everything you truly, ignorantly, perhaps even blissfully, have no stinkin' clue.

In the sheer mind numbing intensity of the early weeks (or as I like to call them: boot camp) you do begin to rapidly experience a few of the changes you foresaw. Yes, there is very little sleep. Yes, there is a lot of emotion. Yes, it's now a good day when you have time to shower AND pee without a several hour intermission. But those are only little changes. The seem like the destructive explosion of some bomb, that blew your life apart, in the moment, true. Yet in the grand scheme of things they are little. For you see, they are temporary. Your child eventually sleeps. The crying for no real reason fades. You have the time to go about your bathroom obligations at a normal humane pace (though you might have a spectator.)

The real changes, the ones you never saw coming (perhaps because you were so focused on the temporary ones) are profound and life altering. They are how you, as a person, now view life.

Once upon a time the world wide panic over some new strain of flu wouldn't really have bothered me. Now I hear the part about it being a particular threat to the very young and my heart is gripped with fear. Once upon a time I thought being in pain or being sick myself was pretty terrible. Now I know it doesn't hold a candle to watching your child in pain or sick. Once upon a time to look into the face of any child rightly seemed like looking at a stranger. Now no matter the age or the race I can't help but see my own daughter. Once upon a time I felt like a whole person. Now I know I'm not. And I never will be again.

Those are the real changes. Those are the reasons my seasoned mother-in-law would look at me with a knowing smile and indulgent tilt of her head every time I talked at length about some temporary little hiccup of an inconvenience and not say anything. Because she knew. (Nine times over.) And she knew eventually I would too.

Don't get me wrong, I did miss sleep and am so grateful to have it back. My husband and I do mourn the loss of spontaneous weekend getaways. And we both often wonder what we really did with all our free time before our daughter came along. (Actually forget before she came along! Who remembers that far back? I want to know what we did with all our free time before she was walking.) But now we understand. We may fantasize about going back to our former life every now and then but we never could. Because we aren't those people anymore. And even if we could be, if it meant life without our daughter.......we wouldn't want it.