I gave birth to my first child on September, 17th 2013.
I remember some of my very first moments with my new baby girl with crystal clear clarity. The feel. The smell. The emotion. It was profound in the truest sense of the word.
I remember the way that love felt because it was unlike any love I had ever felt before.
It was instant, intense and immense.
I had not expected it to be such a physical response.
When you fall in love as an adult, the process is gradual, starting with the spark of attraction, growing over time into enjoyment, adoration and appreciation until eventually you arrive at full blown love.
You know intellectually that you love your significant other. Your emotions testify to the fact that you are in love with them. But it is a love born out of experiences shared over time that makes you want to nurture and grow even more and more of that love.
So, I was somewhat shocked by how instantaneously my soul was flooded with this immense deluge of love for this little person with whom I had no history or knowledge of outside of her time in my womb and my hopes and dreams for her future.
It is the closest thing I can imagine to real magic.
The way I felt towards my daughter was an actual, physical feeling.
It felt like a sob got caught in my throat; like an atomic bomb got dropped from the top of my throat to the bottom of my gut and exploded with an immense, heavy, holy, filling joy and satisfaction that I had never experienced before.
I was so happy with who she was; who she is.
I was delighting in her.
I was so glad she was mine and awestruck by the perfection of how I saw her.
I thought, for a moment, could this be how God sees me? Could this be how God feels towards me as His daughter? It was too precious of an idea for words. I let that truth soak in deep throughout every inch of my spirit, soul and body and tried my best to transfer all the love and satisfaction and delighting in someone I possibly could through every inch of my skin and heart that was physically and emotionally connecting to my brand new baby.
She was perfect; healthy. And we were in love.
Little did I know, that this pregnancy and my proceeding foray into motherhood had “turned on,” or, turned up an autoimmune disease that up until that point had been simmering low and slow enough for me to think that the symptoms were just my “normal.” My symptoms would soon become pronounced enough that I could no longer ignore them. Something was wrong. Unfortunately, it would still be several years and many, many doctors later before I finally got an accurate diagnosis.
