My babies are having babies. It is surreal to say the least. My oldest is due with a little girl just at the mark of my fiftieth year circling the sun.
She has a baby registry I can view online. When I had her, online didn't exist.
I remember my mother at my baby showers remarking, "Wow. They didn't have that when I was having babies." There was no such thing as disposable diapers when I was a baby. My mom had 3 kids in 3 years. She told me recently that my dad came home from work one day dying to use the bathroom, but the toilets had soaking diapers in them and he had to go outside.
I thought the stuff of my babyhood was antiquated. Obsolete. I wonder if my daughter's think the same. There are things now I never used or even heard of. A nasal aspirator called a "snotsucker," a video monitor where you can see your child from another room, a bottle with a straw thingy in it that keeps the baby from getting gas in her tummy. New inventions abound.
Motherhood remains the same.

How do I break it to them that life from here on is immeasurably altered? How do I tell them they have no idea what they are in for? How do I explain how their hearts are going to expand beyond the limits of their bodies, their minds are going to find rest evasive, their compassion, love and empathy are going to stretch and thin just as the cervix does when birth is imminent. When one births a child one births a myriad of miraculous changes in one's self. The psyche surpasses its adolescence. We come through that night of pain and work, and we are never the same. Love takes on a meaning never before known and undefinable. Postpartum depression should surprise no one. The spiritual transition is profound and exhausting. New mothers need nurturing. They need someone to say, "It's a whirlwind, isn't it? I know. I remember well. You'll be okay. I'm here. I'll help you." But people today think it's no big deal. Have your baby, go home the next day. Go to work 4 to 6 Mondays from now. Life goes on. There was a time when birth and the newness of motherhood and infancy were cherished and protected. It was fragile and it was handled with care. It was given the luxury of time, tenderness and patience. It was nurtured by the best nurturers, the women who'd already traveled the way and knew the path. They taught us the pitfalls, the possible wrong turns and the blessed shortcuts.  Babies and new mothers are as newly sprouted fern fronds in the forest. Unfurling slowly as the sun warms the day. Tender, crushable, evolving. Getting stronger little by little. And like the butterfly emerging from the cocoon, they are not to be rushed, lest they be harmed.