The calm before the storm

Yesterday Ari and I visited a friend of ours who is due to give birth to her first child in seven weeks.
Her excited optimism took me back to the final weeks before Ari's birth, when all I could think about was meeting our little person.
She also told me of people's negativity toward her about having children and I remember feeling the same frustration. No one ever seemed to have anything positive to say about it.
Now that I have a child, I can finally understand why people they say these things. It isn't to make you feel bad. I'm sure that it's a vain attempt to warn you of the vast chasm you're about to jump into, the line you'll cross and never return.
Just as you can never explain the euphoric feeling of seeing your child for the first time, you can't convey what it feels like to relinquish the little freedoms you now take for granted, the bone-weary tiredness that comes with night feeding or the drudgery that is being at home with a baby all day, every day.
How can you warn a person that life will never be the same again?
You can't. Because they'd never believe you...