I feel like I have learned the eternal secret that only mothers know. How it is possible to look into someone's eyes and feel a love so strong, a connection so deep, that it transfixes every other thought, emotion, and feeling you have. I love my family, I love my husband, but this? This is bewitching. I never knew love until I knew a mother's love.

This is incredible, and also HARD. When you love someone with every vessel in your body, it open you up to so much vulnerability. His cries hurt my very soul. I've never done this before, and there is so much fear of failure.

But those eyes looking up at me? (They're his daddy's eyes.) And that tiny hand on my chest? It's the universe's natural high.

Anderson Jack, 5 days old