I used to be the girl who never even knew what 7 a.m. looked like.

I wake-up every morning and stare into the eyes of infinite possibility at 7 a.m. sharp. I used to be the girl who never even knew what 7 a.m. looked like. I knew 5 a.m., only because that was the time at which I was often heading home many nights of the week.

I was 19. I was taking classes full-time (and mostly half-assed) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

I was such a straight-lace in high school that I decided it was time to have a little more fun in college. I met a guy, older than myself, and within a year we were engaged. Coincidentally, within a month of that, it happened.

Sometimes life seems so cliché. It was so ninth grade health class. OK, I missed my period. Now what? All right. Let’s take a pregnancy test, or two, or five, or OK, let’s be realistic, 14.

Funny how all it takes is one little pink line. Of all the tests I took that month, only one came back positive. Humph, I thought, didn’t seem very positive to me.

Being pregnant is a strange state. They always say nine months, but any woman who’s ever had children knows it’s really more like 10 — it’s a scam really.

You can’t drink when you are pregnant, obviously, but you can sure make up for that with food. Being pregnant is like having an all-you-can-eat unconditional fat-cow ticket — you can eat all you want and no one will ever dare say a word otherwise. I must have eaten two pounds of lasagna in one sitting one time.

So what does being pregnant feel like? Not an easy question, but it kind of feels like having a little alien living in your stomach that moves around and likes to practice kickboxing on your internal organs.

The culmination of all those months came down to the moment I became a mother. My fiance was there and suddenly, there were three of us breathing the air in the room.

Then came, shortly thereafter, the moment I realized I had to learn how to change a diaper. And shortly after that came the realization that I had no idea what I was doing altogether. I felt like I was thrown into a foreign country and had to learn to speak an entirely new language all at once. Mommyhood is just one of those learn-by-doing things.

My son, I figured, was new to this whole family thing too, so I thought we could all just learn it together.

I was so caught off-guard by the whole thing, but who is ever prepared to have their whole life turned upside down in one moment? I wake up now every morning at 7 a.m. sharp and stare into my son’s eyes. He is always ready to start the day with so much wonder and excitement.

Who knew all these years I was missing the beauty of 7 a.m.?

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