From Deadlines to Diaper Changes: Confessions of a Former Mommy Snob

Sometimes your smug confidence in an easy delivery after being reassured by a dozen girlfriends that labor is a piece of cake once the epidural kicks in crashes like your unborn child's heart rate with every contraction, and you are prepped for an unexpected emergency c-section, despite missing that segment of child birth class. Sometimes you look at your husband and your new baby and marvel that you once took a bath whenever you wanted. Free time becomes a novelty. A trip to the grocery with your new baby requires the type of strategic planning you once saved for presentations. Will you need a bottle, a pacifier, one diaper or five? Your briefcase begins collecting a sheer film of dust, while your diaper bag is permanently attached to your shoulder. Extra curricular business networking functions fall by the wayside but you become intimately familiar with the tattered-edged children's books at the pediatrician's waiting area.

Babies rarely arrive on their due date and they start sleeping through the night when they are ready, not when you are desperate for a few hours of uninterrupted slumber not punctuated by their hungry cries. Sometimes you can't decipher or quiet their cries despite pacing and bouncing with them for what seems like a thousand miles in your living room and all the childcare books on your nightstand may profess to provide you with what to expect, but you feel you are fumbling around in the dark without a flashlight. Parenting is a wake-up call that cannot be turned off, even when one is sleep deprived and bordering on tears.

All selfish notions are put on the back burner. Welcome to parenting. There is no turning back. The rewards are great, but those first few months are tentative and sometimes a little scary. But it does get easier. The times that you "get it" overshadow the times you are frustrated. You click with your baby. Motherhood suddenly feels comfortable. You hum along and suddenly you are in the motherhood groove, breastfeeding your baby, talking on the phone, and making dinner at the same time. It feels good. A few years before I even became a mother, I recall telling another co-worker who was discussing her son's daycare that whenever