When I was pregnant, multiple people informed me I was going to fall in love with my baby. What they didn’t explain to me was that I was going to fall in love. Someone probably told them the same thing at some point and eventually had the same epiphany I had, then repeated it to me. You also hear people say that you’ll never know love like this. Blah blah blah. You won’t.
I knew I’d love my baby. I even knew it would be the kind of love where you can’t stretch your arms long enough to open up the insides of your elbows for relief from the emotion. What I wasn’t prepared for was goosebumps and butterflies. Adrenaline. That you actually fall in love. The same way you fall in love with a lover. I didn’t know it was possible to have that sense of your heart physically opening to accommodate this love without the coupling/sexual component. The excitement of having a whole day with that person, not having to share them with anyone else. A decadent love where you feel like you’re pulling a fast one getting that time together. The love where the world whizzes past but you are caught in the most spectacular love warp. Where you can lie in bed for hours. Just sitting and staring at them. You drink in every detail of face, hands, ears, the way the hair falls. You enjoy an intimacy no one else experiences. With a lover, it’s probing, desire filled, the want to share everything you love with them. Sights, tastes, songs, sounds. With your baby, nurturing, nursing, the curiosity of who will you be? How do I keep you safe?
And just as I thought the other times I fell in love, I will love you like this forever, my baby Caid. But you are not even 6 months old, so only time will tell, but I believe this is the one that proves true. I tell you, if you have a baby, you will fall in love.