Instant love???

[petster]

Hi All

Not quite sure if this is the right place to post this thread - but here goes...

This is quite a confronting question I'm going to ask, but I hope you ladies out there can be honest with your replies...

When your baby was born, did you immediately fall in love with them? Was it an instant all encompassing love you felt for your child?

I shall explain my reasons for asking this question... I didn't feel an instant love for my daughter when she was born... I had an emergency caesarean that was so far off the natural birth I was hoping for... I don't know if that explains it... What I do know is that I had expected to fall instantly in love - that's what all the books tell you happens! I had a romantic notion of how it would be - and it just didn't happen like that! I felt such GUILT that I didn't love my child. I didn't feel anything really, except an obligation to look after this child that was now my responsibility... Thankfully the feeling of love for my daughter has developed - it really only took a few days - and now I feel like I have so much love for her I could shout about it from the rooftops!!

I suppose I'm just wondering if anyone else out there felt the same, and curious if it has anything to do with the birth - that is whether it was traumatic or not...

Thanks in advance for your honesty...

Cheers!

[ThomasMum]

On the day I gave Thomas birth eventho I had him through elective c/s. I was glad that he's healthy boy (first grand and great grandson in my husband's family)He’s got the most beautiful big brown eyes and perfect dimple cheeks like his dad, and the moment he grabbed with his tiny fist and hold on to my fingers I was immediately falling in love with him!

Esp now, Josh and I both crazy about Thomas. In our website there's no longer a place for anything else but Thomas's world. Our blog would starts with the word Thomas this Thomas that...

Gtg must give Thomas his fave bath now! :D

[Chickadee]

Hmmm. Tough question. I felt proud, stunned and protective of Chloe from the first moment. I suppose love counts in there too but it wasn't like an overpowering WOW! After the first week in hospital, once we were home, I mostly remember feeling overwhelmed.

Little things do make a difference as bub grows and my feelings grew alot when she started to interact. Her smile still gets me every time.

[alicesmum]

hi miranda
i will be totally honest and say that i felt exactly the same as you and i DID have the natural drug-free birth I was hoping for. Which was absolutely the best thing ever, but it hurt so much and was so long that I felt nothing but sheer exhaustion and self-pity afterwards. They handed me this baby girl and all I could thing was "Oh my god!!". It was very surreal and like you, I had had such hugely built-up romantic expectations about what I would feel.

It's funny you should ask if it had anything to do with your birth. I wondered if I had had an epidural (and hence, not felt so stuffed from all that pain!) that maybe I would have feel something more for her.

I really just felt EXACTLY the same as you: that now I am 100% responsible for this inconceivably vulnerable creature and how overwhelming that emotion was. It really took weeks, not days, for those really strong maternal-type feelings to kick in. But boy, do they ever, hey!!?? :p

I am so glad you typed your post. It has made me feel better about my lack of immediate infatuation with my baby!!! I don't htink it really matters. Seems to me that after a very short time, the lioness in us all kicks in!!

BTW - out of curiousity, did you get some baby-blues and on what days? how long did it last??

rachel

[petster]

Thanks for the replies so far guys...

Rachel, thanks so much! I nearly cried when I read your post!! Yay!! I am not a freak!!!

Eleni was born on Friday night, and Monday for me was a horror day for the baby blues... I didn't cry lots - just mainly "Oh my god what do I do with this baby", and guilt over the lack of "instant love". And jealousy because my husband was so smitten!! I don't think it lasted too long for me... Maybe just another day or so...

Cheers!

[alicesmum]

hi miranda
how interesting. i got the BBs about 28 hours after alice was born (we came home after 24 hours, so I think that's why it hit me early) and i think what hit me the most was the stark contrast between what I had anticipated i would fee and what I really did feel. i felt so helpless with this crying 1-day old and everytime I looked at her, her beautiful eyes freaked me out and I had a bit of an existential crisis I think!!! It was like my awareness of the whole birth-life-death cycle had completely collapsed into that moment as I stared into her eyes. Her utter vulnerability and new-ness sent my emotions soring and I cried and felt so strange. I remember saying to my husband once something way too deep and very weird like "who is this person? nobody knows her. she doesn't even have any friends!! (LOL!!!)

Hormones hey?!! :p

[mumofethan]

i think that rachel might be right with the pain factor...

i instantly fell in love with my son when he was born, but i had had epidural all through my labour and delievery so i didnt have to think about any pain, all my attention was on my special little boy.

:D

Michelle

[xkwzit]

Hi Miranda and Rachel

Well I did have an epi with both births and I would say that both times the birth process was quite calm and relatively pain free. However, it still took me a while to fall in love with my girls. From the beginning I was v protective and pretty stunned, but love came gradually. I think that I was operating on a really basic level during those first few weeks (when new babies are really needy) that I didn't really have time to think too much, I was too busy doing or sleeping. But I didn't feel guilty about it, because I wasn't really expecting instantaneous love.

Hope this helps ...

[jamb]

Good thread!

I too took awhile to truly fall in love with my little bub. I had a horrible and very long labour and also wonder if I had been given the epidural when i asked (or should i say begging for for 6 hours) would that have made a difference. I was utterly exhausted. Whaty also impacted on me was that I had thought i would have a natural birth and be allowed to stay with my hubby in the birth centre. When things went wrong I lost that privilege and had to stay alone- this totally freaked me out and I just cried and cried because i wanted my hubby there.

I was so proud of myself and of my baby, in awe, the love came when I got a handle on being a mother- you know when you finally think okay i got this under control. the love now is unexplainable- lioness is a great description!!!

[Elfin]

Wow we all feel the same. I can remember having the same feelings and being ashamed and have never told anyone. But like every relationship, love needs a bit of time to grow. Now I love my kids so much it is indescribable. I felt very protective from the word go, overwhelmed, pleased, tired, drained, emotional, stressed. Think that about covers it :p

These feeling must be really normal for new parents, it is just one of those things that aren't discussed.

[onabreak]

Hi Petster

I fell instantly in love with my daughter. She was born 10 weeks early. I had a natural birth with no pain relief. She was rushed away immediately she was born. I did not get to see her for 5 hours. They had to make sure she was ok and breathing fine before I could see her. She was put in a humidicrib in intensive care. The first time I saw her I loved her so much. She was this little helpless baby with wires and tubes everywhere over her body. All I could think of was is she going to be ok and is she going to survive. I was so overwhelmed with fright and love at the same time. The hardest part was going home every night and leave her there to get stronger. She stayed in hospital for the longest 8 weeks of my life. She is now 7 months old and is doing so well. She is the apple of everyones eye. I think she will always be so special to me and my family.

[draught]

I expected a rush of instant and overwhelming love and felt guilty when it didn't happen. Had a long labour and epidural with DD1 and a short intense labour with DD2 - the epidural kicked in within seconds of her arrival - so don't know if any of that was the reason or not. Kaz Cooke in "Up the Duff" talks about this exact thing and it was a relief to read it and realise that I was okay to have the gradual build up of feelings that I had - which I believe grows every day still. I have to admit that with both girls mainly what I felt was relief that it was all over and relief that they were okay.

[Rainbowbrite]

Hi,

I honestly didn't fall in love with my bub immediately after her birth. I only had gas through the labour for relief, and labour only lasted 10.5 hrs. I was just in shock. Had her on the wednesday morning, baby blues hit Friday. It wasn't till I left hospital on the Sunday that i felt better in myself and the love for my baby girl MJ hit me like a brick on around a week after the birth. I thought the blues might have been as intense because i suffered depression previously. Honestly once i got home and had some privacy - had constant visitors from the moment we got to the room till the day we left - i felt so much better. I'm so glad that we told people NO visitors in the first week that we were home.

I felt so bad that i didn't think she was the most beautiful thing i'd ever seen but i think i was honestly in shock. Now I can't stop looking at and kissing my beautiful little baby girl :p

[petster]

Hi

Thank you all for your replies... I really appreciate the honesty... And I'm glad to know I wasn't alone in the way I felt...

Cheers!

[angcaltam]

Hi,
With my first boy I did feel instant love for him, I had the natural birth that I wanted and I was only in labour for just under 8 hours, I didn't even get a graze. But then with my second boy it was totally different, I really wanted a natural birth again but hoping to do it without the gas this time, well for the first 24 hours that was ok but after that I needed something, I was in labout for about 2 days before they decided that there was something stopping him from coming out, plus he was starting to show signs of distress, they rushed me down to have an emergency c-section, after Caleb was born I didn't feel instantly in love with him, I felt like I had failed in a way and I think that had a lot to do with it, plus he was so big, I didn't feel like I had a new born and everyone kept letting me know that he looked like a 3 month old, he was 11 pound 2 1/2 ounces. I think my BBs hit about day 3 and they hit bad, I think that was because I was to embarrassed to tell anyone how I was really feeling. But my love for him did grow, once I got to go home I was right.
Well, I feel a lot better now for sharing that, thank you for starting this thread.

[red crayon]

this is a really interesting thread. I have to say I didn't feel instant love. What I did feel was an incredible sense of protectiveness and responsibility. it spun me out to look at my helpless little boy and realise that I was responsible for his wellbeing from now on. Now I feel a love that I've never felt for anyone else. It's a fierce overwhelming love that sometimes takes my breath away.

yes i got the baby blues on about day 3 post birth. spencer was small and had dropped a fair bit of weight, and was bruised from being forcepped out. he then developed jaundice. on day 3 i was informed that he'd have to go under lights for the jaundice. i was changing his nappy and i stopped to look at his tiny, thin body and i just collapsed into tears. i think i was feeling scared of not being able to keep my little man healthy.

[jaq]

Question: how would you compare the love you felt at one hour with the love at one week and the love at one year?

My experience was awe first, infatuation next, and THEN deep, enduring love. (I had two very different deliveries, one straightforward, one emergency caesar, and the emotions were the same regardless).

After three days or so of handling those gorgeous little packages, I moved from awe to infatuation. And then when they start to gurgle and smile, and later on, babble and perform and make it very clear that Mummy is the centre of the world - that's bonding.

I'm interested in evolutionary psychology and I suspect there are a number of stages a baby goes through specifically to wind that bond tighter and tighter over time. I'm sure it can't be a coincidence that 10-12 month old bubs are the CUTEST things on the planet. I suspect that there must have been a spike in infant mortality about then and whatever it was that coded for extreme gorgeousness got bred into the gene pool at that stage.

One last comment - its interesting how that expectation of instant love seems to be what makes people unhappy in those early days. I had no expectations, and was never disappointed. Why hit ourselves over the head with what we SHOULD feel rather than accept that parenthood is a hard job and you need to grow into it like anything else.

Jaq
************
Annika (12/07/2005)
Sofia (29/03/2007)

[PrincessJasmine]

I blame that Johnston and Johnston baby ad! :D

It wasn't like that at all for me. I strongly believe that the emergency c-section I had affected my bonding with DD, it also gave me the baby blues. To be completely honest, I still don't think I've completely bonded with DD. She daddy's little girl and is so independant, sometimes I feel like I'm not needed. Other times I feel like I just want to run away. I love my daughter, but I don't feel an overwhelming mothering instinct. Maybe its just not in my nature. I'm wondering if it will be different for me this time, I really hope so.

Red Crayon- you made a really good point there. Its completely normal for babies to loose some of their birthweight and to be a little jaundiced. I found the hospital midwifes put so much pressure on me to feed routinely every 3 hours, and were overly concerned about her weight loss. I'm trusting my instincts more this time. Both DP and I struggled those first few weeks, I think men can get a bit of the baby blues as well.

[SweetSerenity]

No instant love here either.

I had an awful and long labour and I definitely didn't feel that connection with my son straight away.

I suffered baby blues severly and was then diagnosed with PND.

Now though, 3 years on, I love him more than anything else.

But I definitely didn't have the instant love for him that I too thought I would have.

Nat

[raisingboys&babygirl]

I was in exactly the same situation as you. I ended up with an emergency c/section and was shown a baby over a sheet and told he was mine. I expected the "clouds to part (well not quite :laughing:) but I just looked at a little stranger screaming in front of me and yes I thought he was cute etc but no instant love did not happen. I found after a few days of cuddles and bonding that love developed and I was amazed at how much I could love this little boy.

I have asked a few very close girlfriends of mine the same question as I felt quite bad about it and they all said the same thing - it took a few days to bond and "fall in love" with their baby. AND they also told me it had nothing to do with a vaginal birth etc. as I wondered the same thing.

I am attending baby classes at the moment as this is my partners first baby and the midwife warned all of us mums to be that usually you don't feel that "love at first sight" connection with your baby that you see on t.v.

Hope this helps as I developed PND as a result of feeling like a failure for not birthing vaginally and for not "feeling the immediate love" I thought I should.

[Jaileth]

No, I didn't. It actually took me about 4 months to fall in love with ds.

His birth wasn't traumatic - was all natural, although I did have to have a drip (which I didn't like and refused for 3 hours becuase I hate needles so much), but it wasn't that bad.

Feeding seemed to be a huge problem until we swapped over at 3 1/2 months to just formula feeds. It was actually while I was giving him a bottle that I went 'OMG, I love you, you're perfect.'

I think most of it was due to sleep deprivation (as in no longer than 40 mintues at a time for 3 months) and the stress that dh wouldn't be there for me. I couldn't leave him to care for ds, cause he :barf: at poopy diapers, so I had to change most of them.

As difficult and challenging as he can be, I love him dearly. He goes to daycare two days a week now, and I'm always in a hurry to pick him up. :p

[sunnyflower]

No i didn't .

I had an emergency c section and felt very frightened.

When i first saw him my first thought was "is that it".

Then i had to recovery for three hours where i had a major bleed.

When i was in there i didn't feel anything for the baby jsut wanted my mum.

When i got back to the ward they gave me my baby and i said "he's beautiful "as i thought thats what i was expected to say.

That night though the nurse was helping me to breastfeed and i remember thinking yes this feels right,he feels like mine.

6 years on ,i love him so much it hurts.If anything happened to my son i would rather be dead then live without him.

[mum_I'm_hungry]

I definitely didn't with my first and I had a drug free birth (unless you count a can of Coke). I could use all kinds of excuses (had a pph, birth was very fast -- 3 hours from first contraction, blah, blah, blah), but I still don't think I would have felt that instant connection. I was so shocked when they passed me a baby. Honestly, I don't know what I was expecting -- a monkey, perhaps? And then there was the shock of breastfeeding ('now, as in, right now?' I thought when they suggested it) and so on. I think it took me months to really love my daughter properly. The whole baby thing was a definite shock to the system for me. But with my second... there was a definite instant connection.

It's definitely not just you! :yes:

[tyler's mum]

I had a very bad labour and had PND it took me along time to be able to look at tyler with out feeling hate. I never want her to know thats how i felt but it was'nt untill she was about 7months old. Then one day i just looked at her and my heart melted. I could never picture my life with out her she is my world and i could never love anyone as much as i do her.

I just wish i had that feeling from the very start

[Eleroo]

I fell in love with my babies before they were born, when they were born my love for them grew stronger

[mischief79]

Before I gave birth (or had the rabbit pulled out of the hat...!! - C/S) I was told not to expect love at first sight and that it will take time to bond. Not for me! As soon as they lifted her over the curtain my heart skipped and I stared into her eyes. I couldn't even cry. I was so in love with her from that first moment, and it just gets stronger each time I look at her

[84zsazsa]

:wave:Hi Miranda,

Well i can't speak for myself as i'm carrying my first as we speak but a close friend of mine and my Aunty have both been very honest with me on this subject. My girlfriend Rae suffered from Irratible Bowel during her 3rd pregnancy (she was extremely sick to the point of nearly losing her sanity and being commited) and after her first being born with spina bifida i remember her first words when stephy came out being "get her away from me"!! It was hard to watch and alot of nights she cried to me about her frustration of not loving her new baby. My Aunty on the other hand was very independant and didn't have her first til 34. Amy wasn't planned and i think if the accident hadn't of happened my Aunt would still be without kids. She on many occasions has admitted to me that until her first was about 3 she didn't love her and my friend Rae was the same. This fact was never made known to the kids but was something to this day they still carry guilt about. So to wrap it up.......from what i've seen, no matter the exact reason traumatic births i think can cause that feeling. In time it corrects its self and as long as the kids are unaware, feel no shame. Hope that helps alittle.

:DCheers, Danni

[rubyrags]

Two close girlfriends told me that they didnt bond with their babies and didnt really like them for several months - one was six months. So that is what I was expecting to feel. I thought about it and realised that it would take time to get to know her and both my girlfriends are similiar to me so I really thought that I would not bond with my baby until some time down the track and I felt that this would be normal.

I heard her cry and immediately felt all sorts of strong connection feelings towards her and LOVE. They put her on my chest and she stopped crying straight away and we looked at each other and oh my gosh my feelings felt so physical if that is a way to describe it. I was looking at her in awe. I went to recovery and she went to the ward with DH and I missed her, I thought about what she would be doing and I wanted to be there to see her. I remember feeling surprised at how I felt. I love her and want to protect her.

so I was expecting not to bond with her and the complete opposite happened.