ImpostorMom

I’m not feeling very inspired lately. Don’t know if it’s the family crap or the fact that I have been incredibly busy at work and at home lately. I do have a topic that I’ve been meaning to write about however. One of those tucked away in my mind for a rainy day sort of things.

When I was pregnant I read countless books and chat boards (I had not yet discovered blogs) and did loads of research on all the gear and everything there was to know about being pregnant. I read all these accounts of that moment when your baby enters the world and how you look into that little face and just feel this overwhelming love and connection to this little being that has been living inside you for 9 long months.

To my surprise, this is not how it went for me. Don’t get me wrong I adore my son. I would do anything for that little guy and nothing warms my heart more than seeing him smiling face. That is how it is now, but I did not feel that overwhelming connection and love right away. I don’t think I even really felt it during those first two or three weeks. I certainly loved him and I certainly cared for him around the clock, but I don’t remember feeling such a strong connection to him from the beginning.

Maybe it was the fact that I had a C-section after laboring for 14 hours so I was exhausted and simply wanted it to be over. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t get to hold him or attempt to breastfeed him until 5 hours after his birth. Maybe it was that it all seemed so surreal, that I was someone’s mother. Maybe it was the baby blues or PPD or whatever they call it these days.

My mother stayed with us for two weeks after Boogie’s birth because of my C-section recovery. My recovery actually went very smoothly, I much preferred it over labor actually. I was lucky and very grateful to have her there because I was allowed to rest during the day and she did most of the baby tending aside from feeding every two hours.

The day before she was due to go home my husband and I went out for dinner by ourselves. I remember feeling so disconnected that whole day. I cried a fair amount and I didn’t feel connected to my husband, my baby or even my own mother. I wondered if there was really something wrong with me. My mom took the first family photo before we left that night.

I’m smiling but the look on my face is not necessarily one of happiness but more like bewilderment. What saddens me about this photo is that when I look at it I will forever remember how I felt that day and how I had been feeling since Boogie’s birth. This photo remains the only picture of the three of us. (I really have to get on the family portrait business.)

Obviously whatever funk I was in faded and I bonded with my newborn son. But it took much longer than those first moments after his birth. I would say it took closer to weeks before I felt a true bond with him. Before that he was just this little stranger that demanded so much of me, a little tyrant that had changed my life and not necessarily for the better. I feel a certain amount of guilt for feeling that way and I don’t think I should. Even my own mother doesn’t want to hear such things, as if it means I don’t love him.

I have to wonder if this experience, or at least the guilt, could have been different had I had different expectations from the beginning. I have talked to several other mothers with similar stories and it leads me to believe that the love at first sight version is more rare than the chat boards and pregnancy books would have us believe. It makes me wonder how many of those mothers that talk about that first blissful moment are creating it in their own minds because it is so taboo to have any other experience.