I t wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was waiting for an overwhelming rush of love, but when I looked at my newborn baby what I felt was utter despair. No matter how much I smiled at her, crooned at her, fed, patted, caressed and changed her, I was absolutely numb. I had yearned for her. Growing up in Italy, I was surrounded by images of perfect motherhood. Every rural crossroad has its tiny shrine to the Madonna and Child. I was certain by the end of my teens that I wanted to have at least one baby. I knew almost nothing about real babies, of course. I didn’t have the kind of large nest of siblings and extended relations that many other people seemed to have in the 1960s; just one sister. My parents, both of whom had survived grim childhoods, tried for a third child but the unborn baby died, and my poor mother nearly did, too. From then on, human reproduction was associated only with tragedy. We lived in Rome, where my father worked for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.…