It took me a little longer to feel connected.

This is hard to admit, because motherhood comes with so many things we're apparently not supposed to say out loud.

But I'm writing it because maybe another mother has felt this too, and thought she was the only one.

With my second little girl, it took me longer to feel connected to her.

With Wilhelmina, my Willa bean, I felt it instantly. That overwhelming, animal kind of love. Like I had always known her. Like the second she arrived, something inside me clicked into place.

I gave up my big job to stay home with her. I changed my whole life just to be around her more.

With Leonora, it was different.

I loved her. Of course I loved her. I would have done anything for her.

But the closeness took longer.

Maybe it was because life was already so full. There was another little girl who still needed me. There was a business that had grown from something I made in my kitchen into employees, orders, retailers, deadlines, and a lab that needed me constantly.

I couldn't really take a break.

I was answering POs from the labor ward and back at work on day eight, wearing my diaper and hers, after a very quick and painful birth. I still remember the pain this time.

Maybe it was because Leonora barely slept for the first seven months. I was so tired that some days I felt like I was just surviving her. I feel awful even writing that down. But I want to be honest here.

I am so glad to be on the other side of it.

The days were feeding her. Rocking her. Working. Bringing her home at 4:30 and trying to be present for Wilhelmina. Trying to be a good founder on no sleep with a baby beside me all day. Trying to lead people. Trying to keep the whole thing moving.

I breastfed Wilhelmina for two years. Literally to the point where she could say, "I want steak, and now boob." We might have gone a little too long on that front.

With Leonora, I brought her into the lab with me for six months. I wore her while I worked. I fed her between batches, meetings, and all the tiny emergencies that somehow make up a day.

But I could only make it to seven months nursing her.

And I feel guilty about that.

So much of my identity as a mother, with Wilhelmina, was tied to nursing her. It calmed both of us. It was this constant thread between us, so much so that Matthew really wanted me to stop so he could bond with her more.

I know I gave Leonora so much of myself too. But motherhood has a way of making you measure yourself against the version of you who existed before.

And sometimes I wonder whether I was as selfless the second time. The mother I was the first time had more time. She wasn't running a growing company, at least not in the beginning. She could make one baby the center of her entire universe. But maybe the truth is that the second time is just different.

The baby is different.

And so am I.

Leonora is nine, almost ten months old now, and lately I can feel us finding each other.

She is so fiery. She knows exactly what she wants and has absolutely no interest in pretending otherwise. She is funny and stubborn and determined. She watches everything. She has this smile that completely kills me, like she knows something the rest of us don't.

She is nothing like her sister.

Wilhelmina was happy to be held forever. She hardly cried. We had to wake her up at night to nurse.

Leonora was a real baby. The kind my friends used to tell me about, while we sat there thinking, "Well, Willa isn't like that. You must not be doing this parenting thing right."

How naive we were.

Leonora would scream like a baby Orc from Lord of the Rings.

This time, our bond became what it is in a completely different way. More slowly. Through exhaustion and guilt and long nights. Through carrying her around the lab. Through learning her instead of instantly recognizing her.

But it is here. It is growing all the time.

It has also been amazing to watch my husband with her. She is his mini me looks wise, with my fiery personality. She is completely obsessed with her big sister, and seeing that bond is next level for me. It makes all the thoughts I've had about how hard this has been feel worth it.

When she reaches for me, when she lights up and gives me that smile, I can't believe I ever worried that we wouldn't find our way to each other.

It scares me to admit I had those thoughts. They really rocked me for a while.

Sometimes I look at her and feel like she has been here before. Like she already knows where she is going, because maybe she has been places before. There is something in her eyes. A certainty. She has been loud since the beginning, ready to take on the world and keep up with her sister.

Maybe connection doesn't always arrive in one enormous wave.

Sometimes it builds quietly, unlike her.

Sometimes it takes nine or ten months to really get to know someone.

Love can be instant, but sometimes love also builds itself slowly, as you begin to understand the person your baby is becoming.

I'm trying to forgive myself for the ways I have mothered her differently.

I'm trying to stop treating different as less. She did not get the mother Wilhelmina got. She got a busier version. A more tired version. A version divided between two children and a business I love. But maybe she was never supposed to get the same mother.

She also got a stronger version. A more experienced version. A mother who knows that the hard seasons pass. A mother who built something while carrying her. A mother who kept showing up, even when she didn't feel like herself.

The second time is different.

So is the baby.

And so am I.

With love and gratitude,
Harri