This time last year, I went to bed about 9pm on a Wednesday just like any other night. Save for the fact I was VERY pregnant – 38 ½ weeks.

Around 1am, I woke up to the sound of a pop and the sensation of a gush – my water broke.

Twenty hours later, I went from wife-and-woman-only to: mama.
When it was over, I cried, but only because it was the most grueling two hours [of active labor] of my life and we both survived.

I never wanted to go through labor and delivery. In my naivete, I always told people if I ever had a baby, I would schedule a c-section to avoid it. In fact, I never really even wanted to be pregnant. I begrudged the whole process most of the nine months.

Children were a theory, of something, sometime, in the future. And mostly, I planned on adopting them. My son, Samson, was a total surprise.

But now I understand why women do this physically-illogical thing over and over to themselves. Which was always the most baffling part to me.

Those nine months of my life, and the 20 hours of labor, are such small slivers of time in the grand scheme of the 37 years of my life so far.

While yes, the first three months I was only nauseous, and last three months I was ONLY tired and uncomfortable. And while I can vividly remember how utterly depleted my tiny body was after pushing “just one more push” for 45 straight minutes…
… all of that pales in comparison to the fact that I’ve now had a whole year with this tiny human I call my own son.

Don’t get me wrong, at first, it was totally awkward and strange.
I remember sitting in the NICU, looking down at this stranger-baby against my chest and feeling disconnected. All I sensed was a mere protective obligation for this small creature now solely in my (and my husband’s) care.

It took almost three months at home with him before I felt any sort of attachment or bond. Not until he started becoming something other than a blob that only demanded more than I wanted to give, at all hours of the day.

But now, every day, I get to know him better. Every day, more of “him” emerges. And every day, I fall more and more helplessly in love with who he is.

I am wholly, entirely smitten.

The sound of his voice, his laugh, the smell of his skin, the sweetness of this touch, the look in his eyes when he looks at me – when I can tell he is just as enamored with me.

I fall recklessly, head-over-heels, irrevocably in love.

When I started to understand, I described loving him with pieces of me I didn’t know existed. It was so weird finding this new capacity in my heart, when I thought it was already so full. I couldn’t imagine it containing anything more, but it was overflowing to the point it felt like it would literally burst!

I have heard all of these sentiments from other mamas before me. So much so that it’s almost trite. But it doesn’t make all of it any less true.

Being a mother is the most exhausting thing I’ve ever experienced. Just making it through a single day, he takes every ounce of energy and bandwidth and love I have to give. Then, the minute I put him in his crib and walk out of his room, I miss him. I want to go wake him up so I can spend more time with him.

This love is reckless because I already know he’s not mine forever. He never was. He’s merely on loan to me. Entrusted to me to steward and shepherd, for a time. And then let go. To turn him back over to God and the world as he ventures out on his own. To walk out his own path and purpose. To find another woman to love, if he chooses to.

I am already praying over her. Whoever that little girl may be. Who may one day come and steal my little boy’s heart. Who will join him and walk alongside him in all that God has for him to do on this earth. I pray she will love him well.

But for now, he’s my little love alone.

My whole life has flipped upside down in the last 12 months, and I am still trying to wrap my head around it all. I can’t believe a year has already passed since I met him. And one thing I know is that the time I do have with him will never feel like long enough.

So yesterday, I savored the last day of his 11th month, and today I am basking in the first day of his 12th. And I will fall more in love.