When I was pregnant, I had this idea and expectation of maternal love. It happens the first time you see your baby’s face – lightning strikes, and you feel this immediate and overwhelming sense of love for this little person. This endures, helping you navigate sleepless nights and temper tantrums. All the while, you believe your child is the best, the most beautiful, and the smartest child in the history of Creation.

Time for my confession – I’ve never felt this. At least, not in the way I was expecting to.

In the delivery room I barely had time to look at Hannah, with all of the staff and then my own problems with the placenta. In the special care nursery, I was confused and weak and under the constant scrutiny of medical staff. And at home, well, I had this baby to take care of who cried a lot, didn’t sleep, couldn’t look at me, and preferred a bottle to breastfeeding.

It was demoralizing, and I felt rejected. I didn’t like my baby so much, and I felt guilty. Everyone else told me how beautiful and sweet and perfect she was, and it made me feel even worse. Why didn’t I feel that way? I was her mother, I was supposed to love her the most.

At around 3 months, things really improved. Hannah started sleeping longer stretches, I started developing a support network of other moms, and we worked out our breastfeeding issues. But still, there were times that I wanted to pitch my kid out a window. To be honest, there still are times when it seems rather tempting.

Today, I think that I’m a pretty good mom. I’m fairly patient, and I don’t let the regular toddler behaviour get to me, at least not much. I rarely raise my voice, and I don’t hit. I let me kid explore, even though I’m often terrified. I think I’m doing OK. But I still don’t have that feeling that my child is the very best ever. She’s not the smartest 2 1/2 year old that I know, or the best behaved, or the very cutest. I love her a lot, and think she’s pretty great, but I know that she’s just a normal kid, like all the other normal kids.

So, there’s my confession. I didn’t feel it, and I don’t feel it. The overwhelming, all-consuming sense of maternal love that I expected. Some days, I’m really glad to get out of the house and go to work where other adults speak calmly to me, and I can sit at my desk and read email and enjoy a snack at my leisure. Often, I miss the freedom of my life before baby, and long for more of that. Mostly, though, I understand that I made this bargain, I had a baby, and now I will take care of her and love her because I’m the mom, and it’s what moms do.

It’s very bittersweet and conflicted, motherhood. At least for me. It’s a humbling and terrifying journey, and I’m only doing the best I can. I have faith that it will be enough. Secretly, I think, the other moms feel the same way. They’re hoping that everyone makes it through alive, with not too many battle scars. They love their kids, but they are frequently angry and sad and confused, and wondering what the hell they were thinking. And then they just do it, because they have to, and they just hope to God that it will be enough. It has to be enough.