Dear New Mom,

I’ve been there. I know how difficult this must be. You feel like you’ve been thrust into this new world where sleep is a luxury, and showering (if you’ll ever have the time at all) is a privilege.

You operate on two hours of shut eye and have no time, to catch your breath or sit down to figure out what’s happening at all.  Days happen like a dizzying blur.

It seems just yesterday when all you ever cared about was which outfit to wear or what movie to watch. But your life is so different now.

You have in your lap a human being you will be responsible for, for the rest of your life. I know it’s too much to take in right now. You haven’t even had the chance to think about parenting and the future.

You remember the days when a paper cut would make you cry, now that pain is a far cry from the throbing ache on your back from rocking your baby back and fort all day, the sharp sting you feel on your chapped breasts when your baby needs to suckle, and the stabbing pain you feel from all the stitches.

I know, too, that somedays you just want to survive. Somedays get so tough that all you want to do is to keep this little human alive for one day and hope that tomorrow will be better.

Somedays you cry, because you are tired beyond belief, because you are overwhelmed, because you are sleepless, hungry, and frustrated.

We’ve all been there. We have all at one point in this journey felt so tired we thought we were going to die from exhaustion. When we thought we weren’t really ready, to be a parent, when we wanted to scream for help.

Please know that you will survive this day, and many other days like this. These first few weeks is a tough initiation, a not-so sweet welcome into motherhood we all have to go through.

I can’t say things are going to get better but I can assure you, you are going to get tougher.

You are going to get stronger and wiser.

Like all of us you will struggle some more but hearing your child say I love you Mama in a few years will make everything worthwhile.  I promise.