Bittersweet Baby

No one warned me how bittersweet the last baby would be.

The joy. The finality. The aching knowledge that every first is also a last.

With my first child, every milestone was exciting — a doorway into a new stage. With my last, each one feels like a quiet goodbye.

There’s the last pregnancy. The last birth. The last nappy. The last breastfeed. And all the lasts still to come — first words that won’t be heard again. First steps that signal the end of needing arms.

And then the lasts that sneak up on you. The last time they fit in your arms just so. The last time they call you Mummy with that little lilt. The last time they need you the way they used to.

Each of these moments is a kind of death. A quiet closing.

And yet we are told not to grieve them.

We’re told to be grateful. To enjoy every moment. To focus on the joy of what’s to come. But joy doesn’t cancel out grief. It sits beside it.

There is a grief in motherhood that no one speaks about. The grief of the woman you were. The grief of the mother you’ll never be again. The grief of watching your child grow and knowing there is no going back.

These are a million tiny deaths.

We’re not taught to grieve them. We’re taught to push through. Smile. Be strong. Be thankful.

But if we don’t let ourselves grieve the small things, the tenderings, how will we know how to hold the big ones? These small goodbyes are practice. They are sacred.

So if your heart feels tender at the sight of a onesie you’ll never use again, or a rocking chair that creaks in the quiet, know this:

You’re not silly. You’re not ungrateful. You are loving something so much, it hurts to let it go.

Let yourself grieve. Let yourself feel it all.

Because every tiny death is a sign that something mattered.

And you don’t have to do it alone.