Lub dub. Lub dub. Wowza!

Today my wife and I heard our unborn baby's heartbeat for the first time. And the effect was simultaneously that of a rousing aria, the burst of cheers following the crack of ball on bat, a bear hug and a high-five from everyone you've ever known. Celebration, excitement, reassurance and a supreme sense of accomplishment are all rolled into a single second when you hear "lub dub" three and four echoing loud and clear from the sonogram machine (Why three and four? Because you don't recognize or believe beats one and two). And with this flood of fantastic emotions comes the tidal wave that is the gravity of the situation...that your wife is pregnant and that there's a life...as in a tiny human being...growing inside her. You're smart enough to understand the biology (you think, but science never really was your strength), you listen to her describe what she's been feeling daily for the past two and a half months and you'd been briefed such that you expected (hoped, really) to hear the heartbeat but until you heard it, saw your wife's face light up with the biggest smile you've ever seen and felt "condensation" well up in the corners of your eyes, it wasn't really, truly real to you. And now it is and it's a moment, a sound, a feeling that you can't get out of your head (and you don't want to!). It's playing on continuous loop and it feels AMAZING!