How Do I Love Thee?

6 November - If little bun is still in my belly, he'd have been exactly 40 weeks old today. Today is also the actual estimated delivery date that I had circled in my mind's calendar and had been counting down to and striving towards during the first 6 months of my pregnancy. I have also been tracking the progress of the pregnancy on this app called iPregnancy on my iPhone right from the start.

Late last night, as I was alone nursing my squirming, bundled up baby who will very soon turn 3 weeks old, I looked at him in wonderment. How did Mark and I create this perfectly formed little being? How did a failure with a horrid obstetric track record like me manage to hang on long enough this time to bring him into this world? What did I/we do right this time that we didn't do for my previous pregnancies? How amazing is it that the 2 microscopic cells from Mark and I grow and evolve to become a mini human? How is it that I can be filled with so much love and adoration for someone I have only 'met' for barely 3 weeks and am willing to lay my life down for?

How Do I Love Thee?

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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning