When babies are new and tiny and soft, they curl perfectly into a certain place on your chest. If you’ve ever held a newborn, you know what I mean. Here’s what I wrote about my third baby shortly after he was born:

[W]hen I hold him against me, his warm, fuzzy head nestles into my neck and his legs curl under his bottom, remembering their formation inside me. Bundled on the slope of my chest, he seems to fit into me even more perfectly than before.

That baby is now almost 17—a tall, hairy teenager. It doesn’t matter, though: that place on my chest still longs for him, and for all three of my children. Once a baby has nestled there, that spot is never the same, never without a hunger for connection with that child.