This is the third parking lot I’ve cried in today.

I had a to-do list for after I dropped Lucy off at daycare for the first time this morning.

It included:

◦ Sitting in the daycare parking lot and crying

◦ Sitting in the Balzac mall parking lot and crying

◦ Sitting in the Walmart parking lot and crying

I’ve ticked all three off the list so far, as well as added:

◦ Watch Moms of newborns snuggle their babies at the mall and start to cry all over again.

Sadie was not like this.

Let me correct my words- I was not like this when dropping Sadie off at dayhome for her first time.

I was nervous and excited and eager for my first day of work; she was adorable and eager for her first day at dayhome.

I dropped her off, got back in my car and sailed down the highway, blasting my pump-me-up tunes to get me ready for work.

I looked back at the empty car seat in my Corolla and thought ‘Yes!! No baby in the backseat! Woohoo!!’

Dropping off Lucy this morning was different.

She was adorable and happy as usual; her daycare providers are Amazingly welcoming and wonderful.

She gets to go to the same Crossfield Montessori that Sadie does. The girls will both be in the same little school and that makes my heart happy.

But this time when I looked back into my empty backseat, it hurt.

This time when I handed my baby over to the care of others, it hurt.

This time was different, because Lucy is my Last baby.

I will never host a growing baby in my body again.

I will never strain to push and breathe a life out of me again.

I will never again get to experience that indescribable feeling of pure joy and bliss upon getting to meet and hold my little baby on my chest for the first time.

I will never again get that glorious year of bonding maternity time with my new baby in our home.

I will never again get to experience this moment where I reflect back on a year of my baby’s life and then hand them into someone else’s arms.

I will never have a baby again.

That thought has struck me over and over again today. And each time it does, my eyes well up.

I will Never have a baby again.

And it comes out of left field and slays me, because I never even Wanted children. I wasn’t one of those women who knew that this moment might come- a moment where I cried in a parking lot because I missed the weight of a chubby baby on my hip.

I never even wanted them, and now I have two, and I’m grieving that I’ll never have another. Shows what I thought I knew about my capacity to love a child.

I Know that there are So many more wonderful memories and moments to come in the future with my growing little girls.

I Know that I am So fortunate to have my two little girls, and to have had the experience of becoming their mother in the first place.

I know that I am 100% committed to never having another child again after what I went through after Lucy. I know that two children is the perfect number for Ryan and I, and that our family is done expanding.

I know that all is as it should be, and that Lucy is likely snoring up a storm in her crib at the daycare right now, happy as a clam.

I can know all of these things, and Still be sad.

Lucy is now in full-time care; I am getting ready to rejoin the work world, and I am never having another baby.

In time, that sentence will hurt less.

But for today- my heart hurts.