“until you have a baby, you don't even realize how much you were missing one”

“That's the strange thing about being a mother: until you have a baby, you don't even realize how much you were missing one”

“It took me a lifetime to realizethings don't get lost if they don't have value- you don't miss what you don't care about.”

“If his voice hasn't been the melody of my life, it's been the bass line, so subtle you don't notice it until it's missing.”

“Annie turned away, her eyes glittering. 'Here's what no one tells you,' she said. 'When you deliver a fetus, you get a death certificate, but not a birth certificate. And afterward, your milk comes in, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.' She looked up at me. 'You can't win. Either you have the baby and wear your pain on the outside, or you don't have the baby, and you keep that ache in you forever. I know I didn't do the wrong thing. But I don't feel like I did the right thing, either.”

“I didn't think i could possibly love another baby as much as I loved the one I'd already had," I continue. "But the strangest thing happened when I held you for the first time. It was like my heart suddenly unfolded. Like there was this secret space I didn't even know existed, and there was room for both of you." I stare at her. "Once my feelings were stretched like that, there was no going back. Without you, it just would have felt empty.”

“If you don't know there's an alternative, you can't miss it”