Your Baby is Born. You get to hold this precious little bundle within minutes and it is love at first sight. The horrendous ordeal you have just endured is a forgotten memory, a nothing, as compared to this moment. The next day, while still in the hospital you examine your little darling carefully and note with pleasure how much she looks like her father, dimpled chin and all. Her tiny little hands and feet are perfect and you are ecstatic. She, however, only eats, cries and needs diaper changes.

1.On the third day you bring her home and your love for her grows, it keeping pace with the increasing frustration you feel. The blues’ are so unlike you. For no reason you cry. Your mother consoles you, explaining, as had the nurse who helped you two get ready for your journey home, that depression at this time was normal. You are not losing your mind, only your body is going through a hormonal change, they told you. In a few days, the depression should lessen. It did, but was an on and an off thing for several weeks. Knowing this was not unusual and kept you from giving in to these down times.

2. At Three Months: You now hear a few ahs’ and oo’s from your little baby girl and she smiles at you when she’s not crying angrily for food. You are in control of the situation and you are no longer fearful of being a first time mom. Your husband and her dad says you are an old pro. She lifts her head from side to side and knows when you are around and she smiles and follows your every movement with her eyes. You love the way she holds on to your fingers and how she reaches for her toys.

3. At Six Months: Nothing is holding her back now. Her appetite is not as good as it was but now she opens her mouth and grabs for the spoon. Her weight, almost twenty pounds is around normal and her pediatrician says and not to worry she will let you know when she is hungry. You are thinking of gradually weaning her from the breast so you can go back to work full time. You are reluctant to leave her, but your job won’t wait forever, and her husband is supportive and your mother will be with her. Besides, she is such a big girl now and can roll over by herself and sits up without support.

4. At Nine Months: How she loves to pick up cheerios with her fingers which she smacks into her drooling mouth, and then grins at you. As if to say, ‘look what I can do’. She is teething. Everything not nailed down goes into her mouth. She’s often fretful and we put her teething rings in