Mommy Friends.

My mom told me a long, long time ago just how important it was to have mommy friends. See, I'm the only one from my close group of girl friends with a baby, or even with a baby on the nearby agenda. They've all been wonderful, really, letting me vent about spit-up and bedtime routines. My friend Morgan let me cry for, like, an hour on the phone one of the first nights home from the hospital, just because I was so overwhelmed with my new life. She also asked me about 2,000 questions about the brutal, honest truth of labor.

"I'm so happy you did it first, Sarah," she said to me. "Now we can know what to expect."

Like weeks of post-labor bleeding and pushing so hard you vomit and the fact that the nurses come SQUASH down on your belly--once the epidural is turned off--every thirty minutes for four hours after the baby's born. The things they don't tell you.

Anyway. As great as my friends have been, there's something about talking to other women who have been there that is sort of necessary when you're a mommy. That's why so many of us flock to BabyCenter and why we post countless comments on our friends' baby pictures on Facebook. There's strength in numbers.

Jason's sister, Erin, who's also one of my oldest friends, introduced me to Jaclyn, her best friend, a long time ago. Jaclyn gave birth to Ella three months before I had Adelyn, giving me ample time to inundate her with text messages and e-mails asking questions like "Did it hurt?"

A week after we'd been home, Jaclyn and her husband Joel brought us homemade chicken pot pie. I felt terrible, after that night, because we hadn't done that for them after Ella was born. The thing is, you don't realize how freaking incredible a homemade--not by you--dinner is with a newborn around until you've been there. Jaclyn and I haven't gotten to hang out as much as we'd planned post-babies, mostly because she works a full-time job and babies pretty much take over your schedule. But Jaclyn is incredibly close to Jason's family already. I have a feeling she'll grow up with Ella as a pseudo-cousin.

A few weeks before I delivered a friend of my family's introduced me to Candice, who was due about a month after me. So, that, plus the fact that we both live in Middle Tennessee, already means we have a lot in common. Add the fact that she's Jewish--one of only a handful around here--and I feel like we're sort of mommy-soulmates. Her daughter Kennedy is three weeks younger than Adelyn. We've been trying to get together at least once a week. Candice and I spend hours talking about everything from bottles to Bumpos to sleep habits--every so often we'll throw in something non-baby related--and Kennedy and Adelyn pretty much remain oblivious to each other's existence.

(One time a few weeks ago, Jason and I were sitting with Jaclyn and Joel when Adelyn started crying. Ella, who's the calmest baby, like, ever--starting mimicking Adelyn's whines. It was adorable. Kennedy and Adelyn, on the other hand, are still in the stage where the world only exists within a one-foot radius of their faces.)

I know these friendships will become infinitely more valuable as our children grow up. There's only so many times you can talk baby with your husband/boyfriend/partner before you need another voice, another opinion, to rest on.

Kennedy and Adelyn.

Ella, who is--I can't believe it!--already almost six months. It seems like yesterday I was getting a call from Erin at one in the morning telling me that Jaclyn was in the hospital.