This photograph, taken when my middle child was ten hours old, will forever be one of my favorites. It was 5 am and I had just laid her down in her hospital bassinet for the first time. I went to readjust her blankets and realized that I needed to grab my camera. Those tiny legs, the first intentional prick with her very first band aid. Being somewhat of an old timer at motherhood, I knew a precious moment when I saw it and I knew that in a week's time, those legs would already be growing.
The hours leading up to this photograph were pure bliss. I knew this little girl before I actually met her. I knew from Day One that this would be a calm, happy child. Call it mother's intuition, but I just knew. Thinking about her brought peace rather than the usual mother-to-be cocktail of fear-apprehension more-fear nerves. Planned C-sections really do follow a formula. Yank baby, show pink screeching child to mom, clean up and weigh still screeching child, swaddle it then let dad hold it for mom before whisking it off for its first bubble bath. Fast forward an hour or so and you're settled into your own room waiting for your baby to join you.
When my little one was wheeled in she was sound asleep. The nurse gave her to me and as I looked down at her little sleeping face I realized that I felt as if we'd met a long time ago. A moment of instant connection and permanent bonding that I'll never forget. She slept the entire night cradled in my left arm, swaddled beneath her blanket. I couldn't put her down and I didn't waste even a minute of that first night on sleep. Already being a mother I knew just how fast small babies grow and change. Blink and they grow a few inches.
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