We read lots of books and watch lots of movies and we hear a lot about the bond between a parent and their child. What is this bond? How does it affect us? Why do we bond with our babies? What if we never bond with our baby? Is it okay if you don’t like newborns?
My husband’s grandmother had 8 children. She didn’t like newborns, but she loved her children. My own grandmother didn’t care for newborns too much. They were work. They needed to have everything done for them, but she did love kids. So if they didn’t even like their newborns, how could they possibly have bonded to them?
First of all, what is the bond? It’s this tight wiry set of emotions that defines the baby’s meaning in your life and yours in theirs. For the baby, you are everything. For you, the baby becomes a great deal and for some moms, myself included, you reach a point where just a smile from your baby can make your whole day. That’s part of the bonding process.
Bonding is a process that we go through. It doesn’t just happen, snap, click and you have the moment the bond formed. It’s not a photograph in time. It’s not always love at first sight (believe it or not.) Think about how you felt after the baby was first born – you are both exhausted. You have a wealth of concerns. Is your baby okay? Do they have all of their fingers and toes? Did you count them? Count them again. What about their Apgar? What did they score? Can all of these people go away so we can sleep?
I was one of those women who did not enjoy my pregnancy. There was never a glow to it. I didn’t get some cloud nine feeling because of the new life growing inside of me. Instead, I was uncomfortable all the time. I had a viral infection. I had a dislocated pelvis. I was on bed rest. I ended up with a bad case of poison ivy. By the time I delivered, I was retaining so much water my feet were twice to three times their normal size.
They told me when they induced; she would be out pretty quick. Thirteen and a half hours later, I begged to differ. I remember the moment they laid her on my tummy after she was out. She pooped on me. I laughed myself silly over that. My husband walked around in a daze, because she was tiny and precious and perfect.
By the time I actually got to hold her and people left me alone, I remember looking down at her and seeing this squinkled up face and I said, “Hello there. We’ve just had a pretty retched night. Theoretically it can only get better.”
She of course, said nothing. I remember studying her face, her tiny features. I was imprinting her image in my mind. I could tell you each and every little dimple in her skin. I talked to her, but I was tired. I felt possessive, but I didn’t feel connected. That concerned me a little, but not in the sense that I worried about being a bad mother.
I just expected something else. I expected a wham boom whoosh – BOND moment. There was a really terrific nurse on my floor, I wish I could remember her name; she came by when her shift started about nine hours after my little girl was born. She wanted to know if there was anything she could do for me.
So I asked her about the wham-bam-whoosh moment. She smiled down at me and sat down on the edge of my bed. “Do you feel like it’s real yet?”
“Is what real?”
“That you’re a mom.”
I looked down at the baby and then I looked at her. “No. It still feels kind of surreal, like I’ll wake up and she won’t be here yet.”
“Well, you won’t wake up and find out she’s not real, but you will wake up and realize that yes, you are a mom. Yes, she is real. Yes she is yours. You do not trust it yet. The bond is there, but it takes time and some Moms need to have that time to get the real sense of it because there’s so much that happens to both of you just getting her here.”
“So I’m not a lousy mom because I’m not having that magical whoosh moment.”
The nurse laughed. “No,” she told me. “For every mom it is different – it takes time, it’s a process, not a moment. You will have your moment. It will creep up on you unexpectedly and you will look down one morning and say, ‘oh – oh my.'” She patted my arm and then left me to continue spending time with my little one.
That nurse was very wise – it only took about a week – but one morning, sitting on the bed after feeding her and looking down at her bundled, sleeping form – I felt that unexpected realization and there was the whoosh, the wham-bam slipped past me, but I got the whoosh. This was my baby – look what we did – she was everything.
Perfect.
Bonding is a process that begins when we know we are carrying our child. It begins when we feel their first flutters of motion. It continues throughout their lives as we get to know them and personally, I hope it never stops.