She Says is not a parenting manual of do’s and don’ts or a formula to follow. Rather, it is twenty-two conversations with real mothers. If we listen, we’ll glean wisdom from each of their lives and the journeys they’ve travelled. She Says comes from those who aren’t normally given a stage to share their wisdom. It is loving advice and personal stories, written by women just like us who have much to give to first-time mums.

Who else can fully understand the intense emotion of bringing another life into the world? My daughter was but a few moments born, unclean and relatively unresponsive, and yet I was consumed with unconditional love for her. To call it ‘three-day-blues’ seems shallow and chemical, when what I felt was an intense ache of being branded on my heart with this new person—who will never be absent from my thoughts.

I, like most mothers, have surged through times of elation, exhaustion and exasperation. It helps to know I’m not the only one doing this; women everywhere, and through every time, have nurtured children with all that is in them.

© Amanda Spurling