After talking to several moms in the past few weeks about feelings regarding that immediate intense love you're supposed to feel towards your newborn, I thought maybe we should discuss it here.
Because let's be honest, not everyone has the overwhelming love feeling as soon as the baby pops out.
Sometimes it isn't even when you're leaving the hospital.
Or the first night at home.
We do however, have an idea in our heads of what it should look and feel like. The problem comes when our expectations aren't met.
But we're told that we should be so in love, and sobbing in photos as we clutch our newborn to our chests. We should take photos and look happy, even in front of the house when you get home even. (We didn't take a photo, there wasn't anyone here to take it and I was probably not in the postpartum state to be taking one.)
We're told the worst part of coming home is the lack of sleep.
We even see new mom's posting all over social media about how much they just love their little darling, leaving us wondering if something is wrong with how we feel.
After thinking it was just me for so long, I'm here to tell you it's not just you either.
Love grows.
I love my husband more now, after 7 years, way more than I did initially. Lord help us all if I only love him as much as I first did, we wouldn't have made it this far.
That baby I birthed a little over a year ago, I love him more today as well.
When he was first born I wasn't all gushy-eyed over him. I didn't cry. I didn't have this "Oh my gosh I'm so overwhelmed with love" moment.
The only thing I felt after being in labor all day was can I now have a good guzzle of water and a granola bar.
I'm here to tell you that (before the postpartum woes set in) while I was being sewn back together I was stripped down to my birthday suit with a naked baby on my chest (who was nuzzling around trying to nurse by the way) while I ate a granola bar and downed water.
I wasn't sobbing.
I just kept asking when I could have a sandwich.
Then, after I was told I had to get my tail out of bed and walk or the catheter was coming back, did I focus on walking.
Once the hormones started doing weird things to me I just wanted to cry. I was a hot mess going home, and I cried in bed that entire evening.
Then come week one we were inundated with visitors and I couldn't get myself together at all without space alone, so I continued to sink.
It wasn't until week two when love was an emotion I could feel again.
Then around 6 months I looked at that baby and thought "I don't think I could love anyone more."
It's been the same ever since, a new day equals more love.
Those first 72-ish hours in the hospital though, it was all survival. I didn't come home posting photos all happy and such because I wasn't happy. In fact the second I was able to lay on the couch and sleep, someone came over.
So new mama's don't think you're terrible when you don't feel gushy in love that very first second or the first week. It's normal. It's okay to feel awful when you're healing from the trauma of birth.
You'll love your baby more as the postpartum mental fuzziness fades.
And you'll love him even more every day after that.
