To Gwen

I knew you when you were but a faint line telling me you were there. I saw you when you were nothing but a beating heart, galloping, galloping away with my heart. I was scared to love you. I was afraid that I would lose you. I was afraid that I would lose this life that I love because you were coming into it. I saw you again, when you were more than a heartbeat, a small, palm-sized human deep inside of me, slowly growing outwards. I was still scared, but seeing your wiggly self tamed the fear a little. Seeing you was what healed me, so I tried to see you as often as I could. Each time, you were a little bigger, a little more real, a little closer to being in my arms and not just a little too far out of my reach to do anything to save you if you needed saved. I felt you. I felt you in my core, beneath my heart.

Sometimes I felt like you were keeping my heart going, beating, beating with yours. Mine slow and steady to your fast soundtrack of life. Those kicks and turns surprised me sometimes. You were so strong, and even after weeks and months of knowing you were there, your movements sometimes shocked me, reminding me of the realness of you. I could almost forget you were there, you were such a part of me, then your foot would nudge me out of my revery. And I was reminded, you are with me, but you are not me.

And then that one morning, in the earliest hours of the day, together our bodies worked to bring you earthside, into my arms. Even as I labored, I feared for your safety. The monitor thumping away, sometimes it would pause for a fraction of a second, and my heart would pause with it. Only once I heard the reassuring thump that I knew was your heart, only then would my heart beat again. Then, in one breathless moment, you went from someone I could only imagine to my heart, my love, my everything, lying on my chest, gazing into my eyes. I gazed into your eyes too. I didn't know I could love you so fiercely.

It's been ten months since that moment, and each time I look at you, my breath catches in my throat. From the moment I saw you as a line, you begged me to love you, and I do. Oh, I do. I love you.