When Dominique Snedeker left her Air Force career destined instead for marriage and family, she had no idea that transitioning from a professional to stay-at-home mom would be so difficult. A life-long dream, raising babies all day, every-day, was a challenge, but admitting this felt like she'd let herself, her children, her grandmothers, the world-her own ideals down. To process this disillusionment, she turned to writing. Those midnight and stolen-moment typing's birthed this collection of poetry, an ode perhaps, to motherhood.

Motherhood: The Crucible of Love explores the post-partum journey of self-rediscovery, the existential crisis every parent faces when suddenly life is no longer theirs. But parenting arouses instinctual love, a love that overwhelms, a love powerful enough to refine. Walk through this catharsis of honesty to find yourself remade in the furnace, in the heat, in the crucible we call love.

Becoming a mother-the breaking

Becoming the woman-a remaking

Standing at the mirror

Hair askew and tank stretched and spotted

With who knows what

I see nothing but blurry lines

And eyes I do not know.

The shock startles me and I wonder:

Where is the mother in the woman?

Where is the woman in the mother?

The question surprises me and I

Bump my head as I stare

Into unknown eyes, exploring

A woman I've forgotten

Or traded

For those sleepers flopped

Like puppies in bed.

The woman before the breaking

Must have been me.

I can't remember now

What solitude and papercuts

Feel like. But the paci on the sink

Warms my heart-

Little Eyes and fingers and toes

Flood my body with warmth

And a gummy smile with

One, two, what eight? little teeth

Makes my chest tight.

The mother is here.

And somewhere,

So is the woman.