The contractions started at 2am. Mum timed them on her phone while Dad fumbled with the hospital bag we'd packed and repacked a hundred times. The drive to the hospital was quiet — the kind of quiet that holds its breath.
At 6:48am, on the 14th of March, you came into the world. The midwife placed you on Mum's chest and you opened your eyes — dark, searching, ancient somehow — and looked straight at us.
We had no idea love could happen that fast. That completely. That irreversibly.
The First Hour
You weighed 3.4 kilograms and you were 51 centimetres long. Your fingers were impossibly small. Your cry was the most reassuring sound we'd ever heard. Grandma rang eight times. We didn't answer because we couldn't stop staring at you.
We sat in that hospital room for hours, passing you back and forth, too afraid to put you down, already completely rearranged by you.