wanted to warn her that carrying a child was easier than labor, and labor easier than raising it. Loving a child was the most bittersweet joy, maybe the most difficult thing in the world. I wanted to tell her, she could do her best and her child might see it as all wrong. She would know soon enough, this terrible chain of love, from mother to child, how the love was not always returned in the same measure, how it can hurt as deeply as it could be sublime. But I did not want to sound discouraging, because I loved her and I did not want to disappoint her.
