In 1979, they placed my daughter in my arms. I waited for the surge of emotion that everyone promised would come, that overwhelming wave of maternal love that would transform me into the mother I was supposed to be. Instead, I felt nothing but the weight of her small body and the heavier weight of my own failure.The emptiness where maternal instinct should have been echoed through every feed, every diaper change, every sleepless night. I went through the motions, doing what was expected, what was needed, but always feeling like an impostor in the sacred realm of motherhood. Each time other mothers spoke of their instant connections with their newborns, shame would coil tighter around my heart.Then came 1981, and everything changed.The day they induced my son’s birth, something extraordinary happened — something that would both illuminate and haunt me for the rest of my life. The moment they placed him in my arms, I felt it. That overwhelming, all-consuming love that had eluded me two years earlier crashed over me like a tidal wave. Every instinct I’d been told about, every maternal feeling I’d doubted even existed, suddenly roared to life within me.For the first time, I understood what I’d been missing, what my daughter had been missing. The guilt was…