I hadn’t held many babies before my own was born. But I have held them since. Bigger babies, toddlers, smaller babies, near-newborn babies long after mine was more than six pounds. And I’ve held my own, of course. For countless hours at night, across streets while she squirmed to get down, propped up to see the world before her own neck could, through airports, while she’s cried over some unknown heartbreak, in celebration after she took her first steps, every morning while she’s still quiet, and on and on.

And in all this time, no baby has felt the same as mine. I would be willing to bet a mother could close her eyes and would always know exactly when it was her baby placed in her arms. There is a specific weight and a distinctive feel that can’t be replicated.

Same with the cry. I have been aisles away in a grocery store, searching for obscure olives or something while Andrew manned the cart. And I’ve heard babies cry and known instantly whether that baby was mine or not.

I wonder if the new baby will be a boy or a girl. I wonder what it will look like. Of course. But mostly, I wonder what it will feel and sound like. How my arms will have been made to hold two distinctive people. How this baby will cry and I will know a thousand truths I could never explain. How this baby will feel different and fit different, but be my own to know.