Falling in love

Did I forget what had happened, that moment she appeared?
I might have, for a beat of my heart.
I remember it so clearly, looking down, seeing her, and folding myself almost in half on top of her, reaching for her like I was grasping for my very life
(and I was).
I was leaning over her, and into her, and burying my face in her neck and gathering up arms and legs and slippery belly and trying to get her closer, closer to me.
Could this be real?
There was very suddenly a person on my belly,
a real, true person
Someone with a head, and two eyes and ears, a nose and a mouth.
She had shoulders, and arms and perfect, miniature hands and feet.
Her legs were long, skinny as a baby should be.
She was a person, a new one, someone with a code inside of her to make her a new and lovely and most wonderful addition to this earth
(except that she had already left).
Is everyone this stunned at the human-ness of their firstborn infant?
I was stunned, amazed that I'd done this: grown a person.
And I felt the earth shake below me with the sudden surge of unspeakable love that boiled up inside of me, boiled up and spilled out all over the place.
How could this be real!
Certainly if other people loved their babies this much they would cease to function. They would turn inward and lose all other aspects of their lives. They would forget to eat, and bathe. They would never pay a bill or mow a lawn.
I couldn't believe how big it was.

This all happened, in this tiny second, this beat of my heart, where I forgot. Where all I felt was the sheer exhileration of it all, the joy, the amazement of this new love.

And then I remembered.