Dear Mother-to-be,

I'm thinking about you this evening, and marveling at how very little you know about this life you are anticipating. Apart from the moods, sickness, aches, pains, tiredness and complications that accompany the 9+ months of waiting-Totally aside from the anxiety, pain and physical alterations that actually bring you to Motherhood-there is Being a Mother. From the moment that title is placed on your head, your life is no longer your own. You will no longer go to bed whenever you want, nor eat, shower, dress, cook, clean, in other words *Do Anything* whenever you want to. You will spend hours on the rocking chair, planning what you will do next, but it may never happen. There will be sickness of every description, and more questions and decisions than you thought possible. As your children get older, the list of things you didn't know will be ever changing as your responsibility looms heavier. All this, Dear Mother-to-be, is only a faint inkling in your mind as you begin this anticipated journey.(to be cont)