Christina Applegate gave birth to daughter Sadie Grace last month, an experience she says has "changed her life." The actress shows off her baby girl on the cover of PEOPLE this week.
"I felt my heart literally open up for the first time and like wrap itself around her. It was profound," Applegate, 39, said, adding she's "more in love with her every minute of the day."
After a tumultuous few years battling -- and beating -- breast cancer, the actress now understands there's so much in life to be thankful for.
"I've had to talk about that word [cancer] more than I've ever had to talk about a word in my life," she said. "After a while you're like, 'There's got to be something else to me.'"
And now she has Sadie.
"Yeah, now I'm Mom," Applegate told the magazine. "She's healed me in so many ways. She's just made my life so much better. She's opened my whole soul."
The actress and fiance Martyn LeNoble are settling into parenthood in their LA home and loving every minute of it -- even the diaper changes.
"I want to be the ultimate burper and diaper-changer, I want to be the ultimate at all of it," she said.
With new motherhood comes self-doubt, but they are getting the hang of things.
"Sometimes I stand there going, 'I'm not doing any of this right!' And then I get this big man belch out of her and I go, 'Ah, we accomplished this together.