Here I very candidly talk about my reality of getting to know Tiny Human I am as open as I can be to tell a honest story that is in contrast to what I had known and believed before I went through it myself. Now is not the time to hold anything back, here I am putting it out there to tell a story that I think is not uncommon, just not commonly spoken about.
For all my life I have been lead to believe that when you first see your baby as parents you fall deeply in love with your newborn. I have since heard other mothers tell me frequently how much they love their brand new children or that it was love at first sight. When this happens, I smile nicely and wait for someone else to speak and change the subject. Love did not come instantly for me and Tiny Human, I didn't even like the little guy. What was wrong with me?
Perhaps my position started even before the little guy was born. During pregnancy I didn't feel what I felt I was "supposed" to. I didn't talk to my belly or look down at it lovingly. I didn't feel a sense of connection apart from the physical. Firstly, this kid caused me intense anxiety and physical illness in the first trimester. Then it messed with my hips and made walking and moving difficult some days. In the last trimester I was fat and tired and hot and tired.
I kept reminding myself this was what I wanted and that it would all be worth it when I had my own Tiny Human. But the truth was I knew attaching to my baby was going to be a battle and none of my feelings (or lack of) came as a surprise.
During pregnancy, I had been referred to the perinatal mental health worker as I had checked a box in admission that said I had been exposed to abuse or neglect as a child. She often reassured me that attachment and feeling connected to your unborn child is not a given and that some mother's don't feel that. This made me feel a little better at the time but did not take away that I actually wanted to love and the lovely feelings to be present. I wanted what the other mums had.
When they pulled this (not so) Tiny Human from my belly, I felt something different. Perhaps it was relief he was okay, perhaps it was calm after my heart rate returned to normal, maybe it was happiness. Whatever it was, it didn't last. Quickly any positive feeling was squashed out of the way by fear and anxiety and an overwhelming questioning of why I had done this and how I was going to get through it.
As the days continued I was sore and stressed and solely focused on feeding Tiny Human. The feeding didn't come easy and I took this as another sign that something was wrong with me, that I just wasn't cut out for this mum thing. (I know, I know, breastfeeding is hard. I thank my friends for sharing this reality with me when they went through the struggle, it helped me to appreciate the difficulty). Unfortunately knowing these things happen to other mums, doesn't make me feel any better about myself.
So, I was frustrated with Tiny Human. I wanted him to sleep better and feed better. He didn't agree. He was a tiny little parasite (the slightly cute kind) who needed me constantly. I started doubting everything. Why did I have a baby? Could I do it all? One night I woke Chris up to cry to him how we had made a mistake taking on the girls. My hormones were a mess and wanted to run away from my family - I didn't want all this responsibility.
I can be candid with my feelings with the mental health team and Chris. We had all been prepared for my attachment to the baby being difficult. That didn't make it feel any better though. I felt like a failure, a sick person, a terrible mother, a mess. What I felt was all negative. Logically I could cut myself some slack, I knew myself, I knew this wasn't at all abnormal - we had expected it remember! But logic and emotion did not clash, they would not compromise. I could not escape the feeling of having made a mistake.
I was referred to the perinatal psychiatrist and then a psychologist. They looked at me with such concern and thankfully it just made me feel supported (this in itself was a foreign experience). It helped to feel like there was this wrap around of people ready to help me. In the early days I was also introduced to the Breastfeeding Support Clinic at the Early Childhood Centre. Three weeks in a row Chris, the baby and I talked to a lactation specialist about breastfeeding and everything else that was going on. I had another source of support.
Those that know me, know I never ask for support. In fact when people say things like "call me if you need anything," they surely follow it up with "I know you won't." It felt good to not have to ask and to have it handed to me. Then it felt wrong to accept it. More negativity ran rampant through my body and mind. There are people that need these services more than me. Why was I being so weak? I was supposed to be able to handle anything life threw at me. Then the thoughts shifted... I am a client, I used to work with people like me! What a loser!
Again, logically I could explain this was a good idea and it would help me, but my emotions ran through my veins and controlled my thoughts no matter how much told them to calm down. Now, I can look back on these days and know that I was in need of the help, I accepted it, acted on it and was made stronger for having been exposed to it.
Back to the little guy. So, for the first few months of his life I never referred to Kingsley by name. I would call him "the baby". Not my baby. Nothing affectionate. Nothing that connected him to me. I didn't view him as mine. He was not someone, he was a something. A thing I needed to feed, change and rock rigorously to sleep. The psychologist that saw me knew this. One day, maybe when he was about 7 weeks old, she caught me call him by name. She pointed it out to me because I had not noticed. It felt weird. It was about this time that I tried to sing a song to me that referred to him as "my baby boy". Rather than serenading my little baby, I started to cry. I could not get the words out, I could not link the baby to me.
Perhaps being a foster parent played a role in this understanding of what it was like to have my child. I had had children in my life for a few years which were not mine. They came and went and they were never mine. Although they are not going anywhere and I love them and treat them as if they are, Leah and Little Tara are not mine. Why would my body suddenly know the difference between this new child and all the others I had cared for.
My experience started to change when he started to smile at me. He transformed from a thing to a being. Suddenly he was a Tiny Human. And this Tiny Human was no longer just here to be fed and rocked and changed by me, he enjoyed me... perhaps I started to believe he liked me. A few weeks later I realized, I liked him. I told Chris and I told the psychologist. I felt proud. I was now being a real mum, I actually liked my baby. It felt like an achievement. Still I rarely referred to him by name and didn't use phrases like "my baby", but I liked the kid, that was a good start. He was 9 weeks old.
Like is a distant friend to love; sometimes like doesn't develop into love. Plenty of adult relationships are built on like and turn into love... plenty of them end because love never comes. Would love come to Tiny Human and I?
With this new found experience of liking my baby, I had more new feelings. I was more protective of him. As the girls became more interested in him and his funny smile, I felt I needed to watch them and keep him safe. Of course I was doing this before, but it seemed to come from a different place. I was no longer protecting an innocent, vulnerable baby, I was protecting this little dude that I was okay with having around. I also started to feel jealous when he shared his smiles with other people; even when it was just his dad or sisters. My liking him was correlated to him liking me and somehow when he liked other people it threatened his like of me. As I type this I hear the craziness in my words, but that didn't matter to me.
For New Years Eve my parents had offered to take care of all three kids. I beefed it up to two nights away. Unlike other mums I hear of who struggle to leave their new babies in the beginning, I was looking forward to it. I was excited for someone else to care for him and the girls for TWO NIGHTS. A few days before it was actually going to happen I was met with a weird feeling of nerves. Was I okay with this I questioned for a moment... of course I was!
The day came to leave the house, we packed the car. Said goodbye to the girls and my parents and I went into the room where a sleeping Kingsley was, I kissed him on the leg trying not to wake him and out of nowhere I said "I love you". It was unexpected and I almost didn't hear myself. Oh cool, I thought, I finally love the baby. He was two and half months old; 11 weeks.
As I finally finish this post I started when Kinglsey was 9 weeks old, he is now just about 4 months. I read the transition and am glad I was able to open and honest with myself about it. I recognise what sounded crazy and what was my reality and that even though these two descriptions are mine, I am okay with that. I appreciate that it was my honesty about the issue that made it somewhat easier and made it possible for me to move forward.
I also believe that the people I allowed to have around me made a huge different in me being about to feel okay at the end of this. Thank you.
Lastly, I want to say that if anything in my story sounds familiar, let it out. Talk about the real world. And if it sounds very foreign, that is okay too. We all have our own experiences in everything else in life, why should loving our babies be any different?
