Amalah recently wrote a post about how she first felt when she got (had) each of her kids. The comments are amazing. Here is mine, since it was too long (plus this way I can use pictures).
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My son J's labor was long - 36 hours from when my water broke to when he was born, although the contractions were pretty far apart (20-30 min) at first. I was a trooper. Normally I am pretty self-effacing, but it was HARD and I stuck in there with all my strength and it was STILL Hard. And my son was born, and I was holding him, and he was warm and tiny. HOW warm he was surprised me a little. I kept telling myself "this is mine, he is MY baby, THIS is what I've been waiting for" but it was hard to believe I finally was done being pregnant and this is what it was for. Still, he looked EXACTLY like my brother did as an infant. That made it so clear that he was mine! When people asked "who does he look like", that's what I told them instead of "mostly like me but he has Daddy's long feet." He was the most beautiful newborn, with no cone shaped head, no bruising, nothing, just pretty. I was exhausted and slept that first night, but I remember feeling bonded - that feeling of "of course he's mine" and adoring him - our first day together.
bro
J
My daughter R's birth was SO easy. My husband and I did the deed to start contractions at 10 pm, they started off regular (5-10 min apart), my water broke at 2am, we went to the hospital (5min aka 2 contractions away), and she was OUT at 5:30am. Two contractions' worth of pushing. Poof.
And God forgive me, but I saw her and thought, does that baby belong to me? Her face was really fat. 8 lbs 9 oz where her brother had been 6 lb 4. Her face was square. I thought, she's ugly. When she came out at first, she didn't take a breath and turned blue; although my concern was 100% for her, once it was over and she started crying and was certainly ok, the mottled purple color sure didn't help her looks any.
See what I mean? Precious but not pretty...
Didn't realize her face didn't actually look like this; it was mainly bruising/swelling. I didn't consider that because her labor was so fast compared to J and he came out looking pretty.
Chin X-treme
While we were in the hospital, I couldn't stop thinking about J. I wanted to go home and visit him, then come back to the hospital (oh it was sooooo peaceful in my room).
I felt - feel - so guilty about that. So many people wrote about how they felt their big kids were monstrously huge when they visited, and how the mom just wanted to focus on the newborn. I feel guilty for not feeling like that.
J was a perfect infant. He was happy all the time. He'd cry until you fixed something and then STOP crying. Like, he got his immunizations and he cried while they were poking him but as soon as they stopped, he stopped crying. I don't think *I* would even do that. When he was 4 months old we had a friend over helping us build a fort for the big girls. J cried for 20 minutes straight, and I fretted all around the house trying to calm him, freaking out something terrible was wrong. My friend boggled until I explained he had never cried for so long before in his life - some 5 minutes of crying until I fixed something was the most he'd ever done.
At about 2 weeks, R started showing signs of reflux. She had crying jags. Three hours one night. Five hours another night. My presence wasn't good enough to make her feel better. My frustration neared, balanced, at moments outweighed my stomach-churning pity for this little person whose pain I couldn't ease. We got some medicine. It helped mostly.
I also had forgotten so much about having an infant, in such a short time. Having a toddler to compare her to, she seems to have very little defined personality. When I couldn't even interact with her by talking and getting a smile back, it was really tough.
It took until about 3 months before I could look past the fussiness, the loud brassy voice, the wanting to be held all the time, and she really began to respond to us. Finally, I really began to bond with R. She is sleeping through the nights now, at 4 months. I'm not sleep deprived any more (unless I'm dumb and stay up late). I'm starting to get to know her. I know her well enough to understand what her warning signs are, and fix what she needs so that neither one of us has to have a meltdown. She's beginning to laugh, to grab at our faces. She loves "talking" to us by making raspberries.
By the time I had R, I had heard about/met online probably half a dozen people who have lost children, mainly babies. I spent her first three months paralyzed with fear that she'd stop breathing in the middle of the night with no warning. We slept in the living room so I could hear her better (no dog and husband snoring) and get up without disturbing Col. Sometimes I would doze off with my hand inside her rolling crib, making sure she was still breathing.
Even so, it has only been lately that I've been getting a feel for what I would have lost (or could lose, although I'm not as freaked out about it now that she's bigger and starting to roll over). Two months ago, I think so much of my fear of "the worst" happening was the fear that if it did, I wouldn't be as devastated as I should be, because I hadn't really bonded with her.
I can admit this now because it's getting better, but it's still pretty raw.
I guess more than anything, I hope this post/comment allows someone to realize, if you don't bond right away, that you're not the only one, and it doesn't, doesn't, DOES NOT mean you don't love your kid, and it doesn't mean you won't bond with them.
I don't know what the future holds, if I will have to fight this desperately against "having favorites" for my whole life, or if it will just ease off naturally once R grows old enough to show more personality and interact better. But I do know that I love her dearly, and cherish her sweetly, even if my words don't make it sound that way. And that's enough for me to be ok.
Oh, do I know what you mean.
ReplyDeleteWell, not EXACTLY. When I first saw Grace, and during our hospital stay, it was perfect bliss, and I was completely head over heels.
And then we got home from the hospital, and I had the baby blues, and she ate every 2 hours around the clock, and I was recovering from major surgery, and my precious nurses were no longer there to take the baby when I couldn't stay awake anymore or bring me yet another glass of water or help me breastfeed. I had the memory of that first moment to cling to, to remind myself that yes, I really did love her, even if I didn't like her AT ALL, even if I didn't FEEL like I loved her, but it was still really hard.
She also had reflux--not like R, nothing like R--, but enough that she squalled and screamed every afternoon/evening starting between 2 and 4 and going until 11 or 12. And breastfeeding sucked. She was really good at it to begin with (for a newborn), but sometime around 6 weeks started struggling and screaming and twitching like mad whenever I'd feed her (it got worse toward evening; her last feeding of the night could take 2 hours). And then she was really distractible, to the point where I had to feed her in the dark with subtitles on the TV and a blanket neatly arranged around us so she couldn't see anything. And the fountains of spit-up, 'round the clock.
It was a looong time before things clicked into place. I think she might have been 4, 5, maybe 6 months old before it happened. Before that, we definitely had our good days, and I'd feel a few overwhelming waves of affection for her regularly enough that I was reassured, but still... I think the Magical Bonding Moment is a load of BS. I mean, I know other people have had that; LOTS of people have it. But I don't think it's Standard Good Mom Criteria.
When she was about a month old, and we came to visit, and I was still in the midst of being a little unsure, one of our friends even had the nerve to suggest that I'd never "properly" bond with her because of the drugs from my C-section (his wife is blessed with a body MADE for childbirth--8 kids!--, where the women in my family are made for easy pregnancies and terribly difficult labors). He will never know how deep that comment cut. I know he didn't think about what was implied by the thing he actually said (I can't even recall it now), but the implication was there, and I think he meant it, even if he didn't realize it.
PPD is real. Bad mothers are real. Real signs of that shouldn't be ignored, but The Bonding Moment shouldn't be what decides it. Sometimes good, normal mothers take a while to bond with their babies. It happens.
Holy crap. I talk a lot.
Good lord, fussy for 7 to 10 hours a night? and you're inserting "not as bad as R" in there?
ReplyDeleteWe really only had a handful of occasions that were really, terribly bad (hours of continuous crying), because I had enough of that RIGHT QUICK and got her on some medication. They weren't even on successive days.
Luckily I had enough of you friends that pointed me in the right direction, we got her head elevated in bed, changed diapers BEFORE feeding instead of after, etc, and got her on medication before she was a month old.
At about 3 months she seemed to be outgrowing her meds (not surprising since she has doubled her birth weight/added 50% weight since she got prescribed) and we're still kind of in a holding pattern to see if she'll outgrow the reflux rather than needing her meds increased.
Even so, we no longer have crying episodes - just fussy periods, between maybe 5-7 pm and maybe 10-12, and that has gone down too since we switched to one-full-a-day instead of half-twice-a-day meds.
I guess this is a really really long overdetailed response to explain that I think you're overestimating how bad it has been with her - bad, definitely, but much of the issue around here has been (1) her and us being in misery at first until the meds kicked in, and (2) how she takes my time away from J; J keeps me from attending to her as well as I treated him at this age; work keeps me away from both; all keep me from having any Me time; Col's crazy hours keeping him from helping or spending time with any of us... etc.
As far as my post goes, the ultimate point was having a cranky fussy baby, whether you feel sorry for her or not, is not ideal for that Bonding Feeling. ESPECIALLY on the heels of the perfect easy baby.
Well, her fussing was 99% intermittent whining. Not outright crying. And the occasional Scream o' Pain. But mostly just, "Eh!... Eh!... Eh!..." forEVER. It was wearing. Like constantly-dripping water.
ReplyDeleteI am nervous about this second one taking away from my time with Grace. I feel so sad and guilty, knowing that in a few months it will never be like this again. The first thing I did after the initial jumping for joy over the pregnancy test was creep into G's room and cry because of all the time I'd lose with her. And then the next few days she got way more squishing and cuddling and love than she really wanted. She still does, from time to time, when it hits me fresh.