falling in love

With all that has been happening the past 5 months, and the 9 months before that, it takes a lot to slow down and really think about it, especially because it is an always present, always noticeable thing. But there are times when it just explodes in my face and I am totally overcome with it.
I've been falling in love.
It started with that little bean on the ultrasound screen, with that tiny quick flutter of a heartbeat. And then it was the movement within, that little "Here I am. I'm here to stay, and we are always together," that came with feeling a baby move inside. The centering, the turning inward when you know you are becoming a mother. The realization that you are doing something more beautiful, more important, than anything you have ever done before. And then you grow bigger and bigger, more noticeable every day, and you are fulfilling the most basic, natural, biological need that you body knows. Carrying a child, what your body was built for.
And then you wait. And wait. And finally, you for the first time look into your baby's face, and it is like everything you ever knew disappeared. The you before, the life before, nothing before ever existed. This baby all of a sudden fills your entire heart, just completely takes it over, and you feel like it can't possibly fit inside you any more. But each day you spend with that baby, it grows, and grows, and the love you had the day before doubles. And this happens every day.
And here I am, all of a sudden, with a 5 month old baby girl who I love twice as much every day as I did the day before. Infinite.
It is moments when I go in to get her out of her crib, and a slow smile dawns on her sleepy face like it is the best day in the world. And (selfishly) when her father holds her, and the whole time, she watches my every move with a huge smile. Eyes only for me. When she nuzzles her head into my chest and digs her feet into my belly, telling me it's time for sleep. When she lights up and laughs when I clap and say, "yay, tessa!!" How she is forming her own person, her independence, and after months of being a one-way relationship, she's becoming herself to the bone. Unchangeable.
I can't think about her without smiling. I miss her when she sleeps. I don't want to spend a second away from her. I am falling completely, utterly in love with this little girl.