Out of my heart and into the universe...

I have a very limited understanding of the human heart (B at GCSE to be specific). I know it picks up blood with delicious oxygen in it and sends it out around my body. I know it has valves to stop the cheeky blood cells going the wrong way around the one-way-system, even if they accidently miss the turn off and have to go all the way round again. I also know it gets stronger the more I use it which is very handy. But aside from that I’m no heart surgeon or expert in cardiology at all. But over the last year or so I have learnt probably the most beautiful lesson about my heart.

I have learnt that no matter how full of love you think your heart is, there is always room for more!

Since being with George there have been times when I think my heart will burst because I love him so much. (Somewhere along the way I have transferred from the biological heart to the metaphorical one, I hope you’re still with me!) On our wedding day I could feel it physically in my chest, love brimming out, wrapping us up with its big juicy love-arms.

Sometimes this overwhelming feeling of love takes me by surprise.

All he was doing was fixing the washing line but
I got overwhelmed with love for him!

I’ll walk in to the house and see him doing something perfectly ordinary like making a sandwich or looking at a leaf and I will feel I might cry because my love for him is brimming right there behind my eyes, trying to spill out as hot love tears.

But then last August two things happened that made me think love isn’t measured in capacity at all…

The first thing that happened was we extended our family by bringing home our new puppy, Mooka. That first afternoon we watched him sleeping on his brand new bed, his brand new teddy tucked up beside him, his little furry chest rising and falling as he dreamed about whatever puppies dream about and I felt a new seed of love springing up inside me.

Since then, Mooka has grown into a teenager. He has gone through the ‘Weeing-on-the-floor-minutes-after-you-bring-him-in-from-a-toilet-break’ phase, the ‘Biting-everyone-who-tries-to-stroke-or-cuddle-him’ phase, the ‘Destroying-clothes-toys-and-doorframes’ teething phase and is now beginning to enter his teenage rebellious years (escaping from the house, running down the street laughing at us as we chase him in our slippers, running away when we call ‘Time Out’ and hiding under the chair, wriggling away from anyone who tries to drag him out)… But my love for him as a furry family member has grown as he has grown and my clever heart has made enough room for all the love I have for George and now the love I have for Mooka.

At exactly the same time (almost to the day) as bringing Mooka into our family we discovered that Mooka wasn’t the only teeny member of the Jezeph household that we needed to prepare for, as it turned out we were growing a little human inside my tum!

As is always the case, major life events are never anything like the movies portray them. There was no running into each others’ arms and crying as we waved around a stick all covered in wee… I came into the room and asked George if there was one or two lines on the pregnancy test… He looked, squinted and said he wasn’t sure. I shrugged and said, “Hmm…OK” and waited until the next day. We both peered at the stick and George said “I think that’s two lines…?” And that’s how we discovered that we were to have a mini Jezeph, due to be born in approximately 5-9 weeks!

I’ve heard that the moment your baby is birthed and you hold them in your arms you feel an overwhelming sense of love and protection, and a real sense that you have become a mother.  But the thing is, I became a mother that first day we peered at the questionable two lines. I felt another teeny seed of love being planted and a fierce sense of protection over this teeny jellybean we hadn’t even seen yet.

As the weeks have passed and each milestone was reached; hearing its little heart beating, seeing its teeny face at the first scan, then again at the second scan, (and again at the third, fourth, fifth scan if your bump is teeny like mine!) as well as feeling it move as it learns how to make sense of its surroundings, the love I have for this little human has grown and grown. I have realised that love cannot possibly be stored in my heart as my heart is only the size of my fist.

My love is like the universe – and one of the little things I know about the universe (Again, B in Physics at GCSE) is that it is ever-expanding. It cannot be measured and it is limitless…infinite.

We might have more children in the future, and there is space in infinity for the love I will have for them. Or I may only ever have George, Mooka and Baby, but that’s OK too because that’s almost too much love to deal with as it is!

Having this baby hasn’t completed us, but added to us. And what a wonderful thought, that the love we already contain for our friends, family and pets is complete in itself, with room for more should we need it, expanding just like the universe.

I like the thought of that… so sorry Biology, but Physics wins this one.