In the first three weeks, I would wake up (though to say wake up you would think I had been sleeping, when, in fact, I probably had just put my head to the pillow) and my eyes felt like sandpaper. My body ached, and I just felt dirty, no matter how many showers I took, no matter how many strokes I took to my hair with a lovely bamboo paddle brush. My skin was dry and my hair fell out. My face erupted in a landscape of red hot pimples. I had a constant headache, low-grade fever, sore throat.

But I never minded because my son was my saving grace. He was the beginning of what I considered then my actual life.  It became clear to me that there are certain things in life that you just can’t understand until they happen to you. Motherhood was like that.

But the…