Mother's Memory

Sandy K wrote a thoughtful reply to my post about mother's memory (Jo's Theory of Mother's Memory) . Here it is in it's entirety:

I hated almost every day of being pregnant. No medical complications
at all (although the massively swollen, itchy legs, ankles and feet
were fairly awful), even wore my already snug wedding rings right to the
end, but I hated being gigantic and unwieldy (after a lifetime of effortless
thinness), detested not being able to breathe and eat without discomfort,
disliked all the attention from everyone from slight acquaintances to
complete strangers (being pregnant is like having a spotlight on you
everywhere you go - no anonymity possible), and constantly told everyone I
could not imagine why anyone would ever have more than one child. Then 7
days after Lily was born, I'm sitting there telling Ken that we will be
doing this again!

So why? The one thing I think I remember accurately and really miss is the
feeling of the baby moving, once she was far enough along to make herself
known. Lily was a swimmer, and I would lie here at night feeling her slither
and thump around, watching my belly ripple, and that was just the most
amazing experience. So that's the only rational thing. The rest of it comes
from the whole "wow, this is the most meaningful, scary and exciting thing I
have ever done in my life and I just can't really believe how wildly
absorbing every little thing this tiny scrap does is". As Lily grows and I
watch her just soak up everything around her, that feeling of surprise and
amazement doesn't abate, and it makes me want to do it all over again.
Finally, there's the pragmatic bit: At each stage with Lily, we have had no
idea what we were doing, no-one really to advise us (very few of our close
friends in Austin have children, and those who do have kids in college!) and
have had to learn on the fly. But once we master something, she's already
left us in the dust. So I just don't want all these barely used skills to go
to waste!