okay, i’ll admit it May 29, 2008
Before baby C. was born, I secretly worried I wouldn’t love her as much - or the same - as her three ten-to-sixteen-years-older siblings.
THOSE were my children, my babies. They had been my babies for a long time. And we were a family - a unit. I just had no idea how this interloper baby, whom I wanted to love the exact same way, would fit in.
And then she was born. By c-section, which made it harder to feel like she was mine. Thank goodness the breastfeeding went okay. That helped with the currently much derided “bonding,” which I actually find to be a real, physically meaningful thing.
I had a hard time. Was it wrong to get all gushy over baby C. when I continued to miss and mourn the absence of her sibs 50% of the time - when they are at their Dad’s? Could I love her fully? Would THEY love her fully?
I stressed.
Tonight I watched nearly-10-month-old Baby C drift off to sleep in my arms. While she nursed to sleep, I took phone calls from her 12 year old sister J, staying with a friend before leaving for a horseshow in Nashville where C. and I will meet her early Saturday morning, and from almost-17-year-old-brother H., heading down to the Sundown in the City concert. And I realized that I love them, and I love her - exactly the same. And they love her too.
We are a family.
Imperfect. Complicated. Evolving. And I love this fabulous little youngest girl just as much, and with the same intensity as I love her fabulously complex three older siblings, who also love her.
I find it really interesting that I bonded more easily with my bottlefed daughter than my breastfed son. Please do not pour salt in the wounds of women who messed up breastfeeding by perpetuating the bonding myth. I believe I bonded easier with the daughter because she was a girl and I identified with her. She had the personality traits that I wished I had, evident even as an infant. She was my first. Ironically, she was unexpected. My son was planned, the product of years of trying to get preg. He breastfed. It took awhile to bond. May I admit how shallow I am by also admitting my daughter was adorable from day one and my son looked, um, well, like a little alien, for a few months. My son, however, has a lot of my unpleasant personality traits. And he was foreign because as a boy, there as not that unbelievable identification with my small self do over that I had with the daughter. I have adored watching both grow and love them both equally, but the bond with bottlefed girl was a lot more natural coming as an infant. We are not animals therefore, our bonding cannot be reduced to a biological process only. The bond is there with adopted infants too I have heard. With adopted kids though, the issues come in as they get older but as an infant I have heard you bond just the same.
Everyone’s experience is different.
I bottlefed one baby and have breastfed three. IN MY OWN EXPERIENCE, I find that breastfeeding assists with bonding.
In no way am I suggesting, or have I ever suggested, that women who bottlefeed do not bond with or love their babies.
“And then she was born. By c-section, which made it harder to feel like she was mine.”
I don’t understand or relate to this at all. My first child was by c-section, the 2nd by VBAC, and I didn’t think the method of getting them there made any difference in the joy of seeing them for the first time and the instant realization that they were mine.
While it was much nicer to be able to hold my 2nd child immediately, I didn’t feel any “closer” to him than my first, even though I didn’t hold her until the next morning. What amazed me was how instantly I missed them when they were gone from me, and how much better it was to have them with me in the bed.
do you think perhaps that if one expects something to be so, then it is so? Especially since so much of “bonding” is in the psychological realm, it would seem to me that it would be very vulnerable to the placebo effect. If you believe that c section babies don’t bond as easily then by gosh, if have a csection you WON’T bond as easily. If you don’t believe this and believe that a healthy baby, however it arrives is all that matters, then you will bond just as easily and quickly as you would otherwise. I suspect bonding is very easily influenced by the power of suggestion. Beyond that, I think are the intrinsic factors that connect us more easily to any other person such as personality, gender, projection of our own “stuff” onto the baby, etc.
It’s reassuring to know that other mothers wonder that same thing: “how can I ever love this one as much as the others?”
I had those thoughts with all four. And yet, the heart grows with each birth to make room to love each one as much as the first.