Baby Love Affair

Italia is 5 months old today!!!!! Where has the time gone?  How did I ever live without her?

I’ve been told by countless women that you don’t know love until you have a child of your own. I always thought this was somewhat false as I believed that as much as everyone does/should love their kids, isn’t their husband the one they should love more than anything?  I came to find my own truth in their words during the birth of Italia.

During our birthing I’ve never felt more love for anyone than I did for Brenan.  He was my rock that made the experience one of love and joy.  I long for my next birth every time I think about my last.  How can I describe the feeling of sitting in your bathtub wrapped in the arms of your husband, who has surely tired himself out holding you up so that you might bring a baby into the world together, as you both gaze into the eyes of your daughter for the first time?  There are no words.  I imprinted on everyone in that room that day.  I will forever love each woman that attended and supported me during my birth.  For all the back and knee presses, for rubbing my hands when they cramped up, for moaning with me so that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to find my birth song, for all these things I will be eternally indebted to them.  But my love for them, that came merely because they were in the same room with me when Tali was born.

Having a baby amplifies your love for everyone and everything.  I thought I loved Brenan before February 13^th, but I was wrong.  I didn’t know what love was.  Now, I can’t get enough of him.  I want to spend every waking moment cuddled in his arms, simply enjoying his company.  I miss him when he’s only in the other room.  Corny, I know.  But after experiencing something so amazing with him by my side, whispering words of encouragement and affirmation, how could I feel otherwise?  And when I see him holding our sweet little girl, there’s so much love gushing through me that I feel as though my heart will burst from the sheer volume of it.

My love for Italia is just as great, but different.  When I look at Tali I have to fight the urge to bite her.  I literally want to eat her.  I’m constantly nibbling her ears and cheeks, sucking on her toes, licking her head.  Perhaps it’s because she used to live in me that I feel the need to consume her once again.  Whatever it is, after 5 months I still can’t get enough of her!  And just when I think I can’t love her anymore, it’s time for her to eat and I’m flooded with oxytocin once again and suddenly her cheeks are ten times more adorable then they were a minute before.  Then she pauses in her nursing to smile up at me and I know she’s getting the love hormone too and once again I have to fight back the urge to eat her.

Love is such an amazing thing.  It makes the little things in life into precious miracles every day: the kiss that still brings butterflies after almost two years of marriage, the little hand that clutches yours even in sleep, the wonderful life that surrounds me.  I’m so very grateful for my little family, and I can’t wait for the joy that will continue to come as it grows.

This is Italia and Brenan when she was just 4 days old. 
Have you ever seen a baby so young with so vibrant a facial expression?