i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

I listened to my baby's heartbeat for twenty straight minutes today.
Because of the high risk of stillbirth in babies born to diabetic women, my doctor has ordered a bi-weekly, no-stress test. This means that I am hooked up to fetal monitors for almost half an hour while a machine records the heartbeat and movements of my baby.

The nurse placed the heart monitor on my belly in a random spot, and there it was. Almost embarrassingly loud. The whrr-whrr-whrr of a small heartbeat. It quickened with every kick. It slowed when I took deep breaths. I marveled at how attached this tiny person is to me, how my movements and emotions can guide his pulse. And yet he is also independent; I never commanded his heart to start beating. He did that all on his own.

My sister once pointed out that the most amazing point of her pregnancy came when she realized she carried not merely her own, but another heart inside her body. She had, in a sense, TWO hearts. While this realization made my brother feel queasy, I found it enlightening. I remember my first doctor's appointment well. I anxiously awaited that heartbeat, couldn't contain how dumbfounded I was to see its bright flash on the ultrasound screen and to hear its infinitesimal purr. It's a part of me that I can't control. It belongs to him but it is kept alive by me.
Mine but not me. Him but not his.

I love to hear it. It is the beautiful sound of reassurance.
I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
...

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

--e.e. Cummings