So last week I read this book called “Babyville” by Jane Green. I’ve been reading a lot of her stuff lately. I tend to pick up a book at the library and then plow through that author’s entire collection. Green’s books are fluffy chick lit type books – perfect for my mommy brain right now!

Anyway…this particular book is fiction, but as I was reading it, I felt like shouting “YES!” in many places. It starts with an infertile woman and her inability to get pregnant. I was weeping along with her as she went through the pain of infertility, and I wondered if the author had experienced infertility herself; she wrote with a great deal of honesty. But, of course, being fiction, there’s a predictable (but unreal) ending.

That’s the first section of the book.

The second section deals with a woman who gets pregnant during a one night stand. I can’t much relate, but it was entertaining.

The third section, though…oh, my. It’s about a woman who has recently had a baby and quit her (very fulfilling, albeit annoying) job to stay home. And how she wants to do everything herself. And how she wants to be the perfect mother. And how she is exhausted. And how her once perfect husband is now on her very last nerve. And how she meets another woman who tells her it took her one year to get back to feeling like herself.

One.

Year.

Now…granted…I have never been pregnant. My body has not been physically changed by becoming a mother. But I am now almost seven months into being a mom, and I wonder…when will I feel like Rachel again? Now that Little Man is sleeping through the night (4-5 times a week, anyway) I see glimpses of myself here and there. I look at myself in the mirror and actually recognize the person staring back at me. But there are days….

Days when a shower is really the only thing I want and can’t have…

Days when the littlest thing sets me off crying (like television shows that previously didn’t affect me)…

Days when I snap at my husband for the stupidest thing because I am so tired…

Days when all I do is sing “The Wheels on the Bus” instead of teaching 150 kiddos…

Days when I can’t get the house clean because I’m chasing around a mobile scootching child…

Days when I want to move away to protect my son from the realities of racism…

Days when I look in the mirror and wonder who that starting-to-wrinkle, exhausted-eyed, graying hair woman is…what happened to that smooth-skinned, bright-eyed 23 year old who had boundless energy?

I had no idea that becoming a mother would change my life in these little ways. I knew my schedule would never be my own. I knew I’d be responsible for another human being. I knew my house would change.

But I didn’t know the fears I would develop. I didn’t know I’d want only the very best for my child. I didn’t know my husband would be such a great father and the attraction that holds for me. I didn’t know time would fly by so stinkin’ fast and suddenly my little baby is sitting himself up in his crib. I didn’t know…

I didn’t know how much I would change…

So that book? Babyville? I would recommend it…realizing, of course, it’s ficition.

Or is it?