As soon as you begin to show, the lies start. They will be well-meaning, all of them. Friends, family, doctors, total strangers—pretty much anyone who spies your pregnant belly will tell you:

Don’t worry, you’ll know what to do when the time comes.

Don’t worry, your maternal instincts will kick right in.

Don’t worry, your body will bounce right back.

Don’t worry, you’re going to be an amazing mother.

Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it looks.

Don’t worry, being a mother is the most rewarding job in the world.

Don’t worry, you will love them more than you ever thought possible.

The last one is true, if dangerously oversimplified.

It is indeed a ferocious love you feel the second you hold your child, hot and wriggling, against your naked chest. You will die to protect that child. You suspect, uncomfortably, that you could also kill. You have never thought of yourself as this person before—wild, animalistic. It will make you feel both powerful and afraid.

This is your first true introduction to motherhood, this study in contradictions.

And then there is the cost of this boundless love that no one warns you about: the worry and sleepless nights. The fear that they will get sick or grow up sad or be forever lonely. And that it will be your fault. Or that someday they might stop returning your calls. After all, just because you love them without condition does not obligate them to love you back.

Oh, and you will get so much of it wrong. Partly because there is no right answer, to any of it. And on that rare occasion when you do knock it out of the park? That will only make you believe that other mothers must be doing it right all the time. You will commit to trying harder.

You will try until your eyes burn and your arms ache. Until your heart crumbles to dust.

You will do whatever it takes. Even when you don’t know what that is. Especially then. And get ready, because this will be your job forever, this fixing of everything, including the things that cannot be fixed.

For as long as you both shall live.