I met the cutest family this week.  They brought me a perfect little girl for newborn portraits and the sweetest big brother you ever did meet.  I wonder if Theresa ever wondered, as I did while pregnant with my second, if there was any more room in her heart to love another baby as much as she loved her son.  Of course you tell yourself that it most certainly will happen.  Mothers all over the world find a way to love their subsequent children just as much as their first.  But still you wonder.  Your brain and your heart can’t even imagine it to be so.

And then you know.  You hear that first cry and right then and there your heart explodes.  For the next few weeks you walk around like a zombie.  Partially because of the lack of sleep and partially because you are on overload.  You are overwhelmed by the new perfect person you hold in your arms.  By the miracle of her existence.  By her neediness.  It is almost like someone snuck a drug into your morning beverage to make ever sense in your body be on high alert.  Because it isn’t just your heart that is on overload.  Every cell in your body tingles with unadulterated sheer euphoria that she is here and she is yours.