Beatings

A week or two back, Alecia went to her OB-GYN for a check-up, and heard our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. She came home gushing about the experience, the intensity and emotion it brought and how her pregnancy suddenly seemed more real than it had previously. “Just wait til you hear it, Ray,” she said, wide-eyed. “That twipt-twipt sound!” I listened with envy, as it would be a month until the Amazing Ultrasound OB-GYN Visit where we’d see the child in utero via Utrasound technology. Would I come away with the same reaction when I heard that pulse, when I saw that grainy black-and-white real-time image?

Then, last night, Alecia pressed my palm against her stomach, and I felt that heartbeat. Felt it. Not fast, not insistent, but most assuredly present and alive and amazing and real is a way that buying my first-ever baby onesie last week wasn’t quite.

This is really happening, isn’t it?