Laboring in Love

Love at first sight. That’s how a lot of people describe meeting their baby for the first time. It’s what I always expected. The thought of meeting my baby and feeling that breathtaking love is what kept me going through some of the less-than-wonderful moments of my first pregnancy.

After a grueling and exhausting labor, they laid Nate directly onto my chest. My husband and the nurses were excitedly celebrating his arrival, asking me if I wanted to try to nurse. I barely remember mumbling something apparently in the negative and they whisked him away to go clean him up. The room felt like it was spinning and I felt so confused and tired and oddly sad and I just wanted to go to bed. I tried to get a grip and sit up to meet this baby that had consumed my every thought for 9 months. As they placed him in my arms, I kept waiting for that feeling of love and elation to wash over me. But all I felt was tired, and I just wanted this tiny wrinkly stranger to go away for a while so I could go to sleep. Everyone gushed over him and I feebly tried to join in, but I just felt so detached and so so tired. I felt like I had been pregnant, gone to the hospital, and now I wasn’t pregnant and someone handed me this strange baby. The baby in my belly seemed long distant from his crying, wrinkly stranger in my arms. The days in the hospital were a blur of trying to nurse and a nonstop flow of people in scrubs coming in to poke and prod my baby and me. I wanted to go home, and I kind of wanted to leave the baby at the hospital and pretend none of this ever happened.

We got home, and the sleeplessness and overwhelmed feeling continued. The promised motherly intuition never came, and I felt completely paralyzed with fear on making decisions to take care of my baby. Fueled by grit and google, I tried to figure out how to care for this little person.  Even if I didn’t feel all that bonded to him, I felt a sense of duty from being his mother, and I was determined to do this right. After all, it wasn’t his fault that he got a dud of a mom. He deserved someone to take care of him and someone to love him. And I wanted to be that someone. Oh, how I wanted it. I would post a picture of him and people would comment about how cute he is and how much they loved him- If they loved him so much, why didn’t I? I would look into his curious little eyes and say “I love you” to my tiny baby, but I felt like I was pretending. It felt so forced. I so badly wanted to mean it. It felt more like, “I want to love you. I know I SHOULD love you. I’m trying to love you.” Where I expected a roaring flame of all-consuming love for my baby, I found instead a tiny bed of coals. Tiny coals that made me want to take care of him and protect him, even if I had no idea how and didn’t particularly enjoy it.

With an unwavering sense of duty to this tiny person I brought into the world, I tended to this little babe. I struggled through nursing because I wanted to give it my all, I spent countless hours rocking and soothing a baby who didn’t want to sleep. I knew I was capable of taking care of him, but it felt like such a chore. Every task felt enormous and I was drowning. I felt like if someone knocked on my door and said “Hi! I promise to love and care for your baby; can I have him?” I would have shrugged and said, “Sure! He’s all yours.” But as no one was making the offer, I continued to take care of the many needs of this tiny little person, all day and all night.

What I didn’t realize was that every diaper change, every middle of the night feeding, every minute spent rocking and cuddling was stoking the fire. Those little coals were burning and tenderly caring for my baby was slowly adding kindling to my little fire. It took my breath away to realize that where once a few coals burned, a huge fire was roaring inside of me, and I knew I loved my baby more than I had ever loved anything in my life. I would without hesitation give up my time, my money, and my life for him. And I would do it not because I have to, but because I want him to be happy and healthy more than I’ve ever wanted anything. It didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen because I sat around and waited to love him. It happened because I just kept working at it. I kept telling him I love him even when it felt forced, I kept kissing his little cheeks, and I kept going to him in the middle of the night even though I wanted to put in ear plugs and pretend I was anywhere else.

Falling in love is an interesting phrase. It makes it sound effortless- like you trip and suddenly find yourself in love.  And for some, that seems to be the case. A baby is placed in their arms and they are instantly in love. But for me, I find the phrase laboring in love to be much more apt. I quite literally labored for the love that now fills my entire heart and soul. I had to work for it, but it doesn’t make that love any less genuine or any less blissful. For any new mom out there struggling through the newborn haze of sleeplessness and endless feedings, looking at her baby and wondering if it is ever going to be worth it, I want to hug you through the computer screen and tell you YES. Keep kissing those cheeks and wiping that bum. Keep tending those little coals. Pretty soon you’re going to be feeling the warmth of a burning fire of love for that baby, and nothing has ever felt better.

I spent 9 months pregnant with my second baby completely terrified that I would again find myself feeling like I am trapped in a babysitting job that will never end. I braced myself for the postpartum depression and anxiety to crash down on me again and set safe guards in place to help me cope.

Imagine my surprise when they placed my brand new Max in my arms and I found myself instantly head over heels in love. And I’ve stayed that way ever since. He turns one tomorrow, and his first year was filled with sleepless nights, weight gain drama, fussy evenings, and so much love. I am the same person, and he’s not the easiest baby in the world. I didn’t do anything “wrong” with my first baby that caused me experience such crippling postpartum depression. And I didn’t do anything “right” with Max to avoid it. You are not your postpartum experience. You were made to be this baby’s mama. If you fall straight in love with your new baby, savor every moment of that heart bursting love. And if that love doesn’t come; if it all feels too hard for too long, you are not alone. You are not broken. Talk to friends, talk to me, talk to a professional. There is help and there is medication and there is love to be felt. Don’t wait another minute to get help feeling it.