sneak peek.

Part 2.

There's something that happens to a woman after hours and hours of labor.  When she finally gets to hold the sweet little being in her arms that she's been talking to and dreaming about for 9 months.  I've felt it.  Experienced it. Getting to see it happen first hand was a gift and completely awe inspiring.  No matter how many times a woman has given birth it changes her every time.

Feeling the soft skin of her newborn that's never been touched by human hands that is all at once familiar and scary and foreign and wonderful.  The feeling of sweet relief that you can hold in your arms this baby that seeems hardly real and the overwhelming feeling that this is going to be really hard.

The smell of her tiny baby's head, the strength of those minute fingers as they curl around her fingers sending a message; saying they're never going to let go, and all the while this mom doesn't ever want that perfect little grasp to let go but in that same moment realizing that at some point they will...

...and when they do this woman will not be the same person she is today.

She will be changed.  

Changed by this bundle laying against her skin who has, for the last 9 months, breathed her air, lived in her womb, known the beat of her heart.

This woman will see new worlds, be introduced to things she had forgotten, feel emotions she didn't know she had, become someone she wouldn't have with out this new little one.

She holds her little girl close and feels her heart beat next to her own.  Big black eyes open, look up into her mother's eyes and when they see each other they know that they belong to each other.

see part 1 here

beautiful. LOVE.