"I went 0 for 3 on easy babies. There was a lot of colic and crying and ear infections and food allergies and little-to-no sleep," the blogger mom wrote on Facebook. "My tubes are tied, just in case you're wondering how much I loved it."

Harrell admits that during these draining nights, she felt like a failure and questioned what was wrong with her as a mom. "THREE hard babies? That seems illogical. Surely, the common denominator is their flipping ill-equipped mother. That would make more sense," she wrote. "So the crying would go from a solo to a duet, me and the baby swaying in dramatic harmony, alternating heaves as we wondered who would be able to [rein] it in first."

Mom and baby
Jordan Harrell/Facebook

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But before completely losing it, she would remember a story that her mom told her about when her brother was a baby. Clingy and colicky babies must run in the family, because her mom's first experience with a newborn was just as difficult. So it wasn't surprising one day when baby Justin started flipping out on Harrell's mom during a Sunday morning church service.

Harrell's mom took him to the back of the church to calm down in the nursery. She sat next to a mom who was rocking a baby around Justin's age as he calmly slept on her chest.

"He sat nuzzled peacefully against her, not a peep out of him, even as Justin screamed at the top of his lungs," Harrell wrote. "'What's your secret? How is he so easygoing?' my mother half-joked, half pleaded. 'Well, he's actually not mine. I'm his foster mom, and it's not so much that he's easygoing. He just spent the first few months of his life crying non-stop with no response. Nobody ever came. The crying didn't work for him. So he stopped. And now, he never cries.'"

Mom and kids
Jordan Harrell/Facebook

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The stranger went on to explain why Justin's tears are a good thing and why this desperate mom should cherish them. "'It means he trusts you, trusts that you'll come,'" the woman said.

So on those sleepless nights, whenever Harrell is about to end up in tears herself, she blocks out the guilt by playing this mantra in her mind on repeat. "His crying is a good thing. He's crying because he knows I'll answer," she wrote. "So to the mamas of hard babies, be thankful for the crying. Go scoop them up and hold them close. They're not crying because you're a bad mom. They're crying because you're such a good one."

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