I really dislike any social norms that involve second-guessing someone else's emotional state. People's ways of expressing emotion are so different from each other.
I don't remember any crazed flow of emotion on first seeing either of my kids -- with Sally there was a certain amount of "OMG how the hell am I going to take care of this thing?" which I didn't get with Newt, because with Newt I knew how. But the standard "When I first laid eyes on that tiny helpless form, I knew, deep in my bones, that I'd throw myself under a bus to save her from harm"? Didn't have any sort of emotional epiphany like that. I love them both a lot, but I'm not really epiphany inclined.
Maybe you had to have a bit of time before you were sure they were yours.
From Oudie, with the comment "Brave! She'll get savaged for it."
In comments on the site at least this hasn't come to pass yet. Surely even on the Internet, people aren't going to give her a hard time for being ambivalent about an extremely difficult situation.
I mean, unless Ann Althouse still blogs. How nice it is that I'm unaware of whether she does or not. I'm not going to check.
People's ways of expressing emotion are so different from each other.
On the Internet all those ways seem to end in a blog post or a guest column, silently pleading for praise, calumny, notice, book deals.
Surely even on the Internet, people aren't going to give her a hard time for being ambivalent about an extremely difficult situation.
I don't know. There always seems to be a small army of scolds out there ready to tsk tsk anyone who admits to departing from the official script.
Especially when anything related to parenting is involved.
When Jessica first told the story of how both she and her daughter almost died, a chunk of the internet responded with, "Well, why do you even care?! You're pro-choice! You should go murder your daughter right now!"
I mean, unless Ann Althouse still blogs. How nice it is that I'm unaware of whether she does or not. I'm not going to check.
She'll be blogging until they run out of wineboxes.
A friend of mine was completely alienated from both her kids until they started to talk. She just sort of executed the mommy script like a robot. Once the little tykes started to say things she fell head over heels in love with them.
BUT THE BABY OF WOMAN RETURNS NO MORE
NOR CAN IT BE ABORTED ONCE IT HAS PASSED THE BARRIER OF THE VAGINA
12: It's not actually a line from Homer, but a parody of the line about the soul passing the barrier of the teeth never to return.
I suppose there's some sort of teeth joke to be made there...
9 makes a lot of sense to me. I was ambivalent, esp. about Iris, until she/they became at least a bit interactive. Kai was a cheerful infant, so he was easier to get into, but Iris, for 4 weeks, was basically nursing or fussing, while refusing ever to sleep.
AB had pretty much the reaction LB describes NOT having had in 1, although I'm not sure it was instant. Pretty close, though.
I suppose there's some sort of teeth joke to be made there...
Anima dentata.
"When I first laid eyes on that tiny helpless form, I knew, deep in my bones, that I'd throw myself under a bus to save her from harm"?
The funny thing is this was pretty much my only immediate reaction. Meaning, I wouldn't say I actually liked the little thing, or felt any epiphany of emotion, but for some reason I nonetheless "knew" right away that it was important for me not to let it get killed. Maybe that's just socialization.
Something funny that I think has to be literal parental instinct is what you do when you fall down holding a baby. It is completely natural (or, was for me when I tripped and fell holding Newt, and I've heard the same from other parents) to save the baby rather than yourself -- you tuck around the baby and fall down hard rather than throwing out a hand to catch yourself. It's not an emotional reaction, but something in your reflexes has priorities, and keeping you from breaking your kneecaps is secondary to keeping the baby safe.
18: I dunno if that's parental instinct; I've done it when carrying non-baby things that are valuable and breakable.
I adored my cat right away. I am better than all of you.
19: Could be, certainly. Man, thinking about this makes my kneecaps ache remembering a fall I took holding Newt.
18: Amalah had a post on exactly that situation.
Full force, right on my knees. And then I was so top heavy with everything I was carrying I lost my balance and fell forward, so I stuck my elbows out and BAM.And I lay there for a minute, propped up on my throbbing elbows, with the breast pump bag now sort of on top of my head, wondering WHO THE HELL TAUGHT ME TO DO THAT.
Noah just sort of looked at me, like why are we on the floor, Mom? And then he farted and sighed contentedly.
Kids. I SWEAR.
23: And, I suspect 111 is the fall referred to in 21.
Don't know -- for some reason my net nanny (which tightened up alarmingly a while back) won't let me read that thread at work.
I was playing softball last year, and the right fielder's toddler comes running up to him and jumps in his arms. As he is carrying her off the field, a line drive is hit directly at them. The guy reaches out, child in arms, and makes a perfect catch.
Best play I ever saw... especially considering the guy was from New Zealand, and had never played softball before in his life.
25: having read that thread, I can imagine why. The title includes tell-tale phrases like "unstretched".
my net nanny (which tightened up alarmingly a while back)
Time for some science:
Ballsack. Penis. Asshole. Roving Canadian. Belguim.
Let me know if you've gotten blocked yet.
Belgium
Banned in all parts of the galaxy except one, where they don't know what it means.
30: I heard it with frogs but maybe IRBs won't let you use vertebrates anymore.
Does anyone really know what Belgium means?
Look, don't worry about it. No good can come of worrying about what the NYT Modern Love column (or whatever - take it as a placeholder for received opinion) thinks about your internal emotional state. You don't have to listen to them. The same goes double for some faceless troll who Jess Valenti has omitted to moderate out of existence.
Don't listen to the arseholes.
(Sadly this thread has reminded me of a column by Ayelet Waldman that I had successfully repressed, one of my top five most morally egregious wastes of newsprint, about how she was worried that after having their baby she loved her husband too much and they were too happy and generally perfect and and rumbling down a hillside in an avalanche of pure smug.)
13: Herkos odonton! I hadn't thought of that line in, well, presumably all the time since I've been translating any Homer.
I am fascinated by this thread but don't have much to contribute because my experience was so different from giving birth. It was certainly easier to have protective and all-encompassing love for Mara from the first time I held her and after all those days of doing nothing but holding her than it was when we first hosted Rowan, who was then 15. I think that part is all normal, though I was somewhat surprised by the depth and physical intensity of my love for Mara. I guess I'd hoped I'd have that but hadn't wanted to hope too hard in case I couldn't measure up to it.
So, um, is the title telling us something?
|| Looks like the West Memphis 3 are getting out of jail, albeit in some bullshit thing where they're not being declared innocent (presumably so they can't sue Arkansas for 17 years of false imprisonment). |>
I slipped at the top of a flight of stairs, and dropped 16 month old Kid A straightaway so I could grab hold of the bannister (which was only on one side). She landed mostly on her head and then rolled to the bottom. I do still feel guilty about that, but I was 7 months pregnant, so I tell myself I was saving that one.
Kid A is also the only one with which I remember having an immediate post-birth gaze into her eyes moment. Kid D was born at home before the midwife arrived, and (once we'd had the "yay, it breathed!" bit) she cried for about 45 minutes so she was just this crying thing that I had to carry around because she was still attached to me. But I expect that by lunchtime I was in love.
36: Presumably it's referring to this.
I was glad to read in 23's link that Chopper has also thrown his baby down the stairs.
39 is right. I just love that video. "You're such a whore!" "I KNOW!"
"If it's a boy, I'm going to name him Cilantro."
The OP actually describes my experiences pretty well. I remember lying in bed eye-to-eye with my first baby right after she was born (I'm the dad FWIW), thinking "who are you, little person? Am I supposed to feel attached to you?" It was some days before I felt like I thought I was "supposed to." With the second (born 5 weeks ago yesterday!), I felt locked in from the first moment. As with asilon in 38, the 2nd was born at home before the midwife got there, so it's just as well I felt connected I guess... I had to engage with it right away. She didn't cry though, just let out one cry so we knew she was okay, then snuggled on her mother's chest for a half-hour until the midwife showed up. Good times. Now I think a 1-day-old is the best thing in the world, and feel all too tempted to put up with another 18 yrs of responsibility just so we can have another 1-day-old.
I find one day olds kind of spooky amazing. They are so new! I imagine that a lot of people who work in labor and delivery are partly in it for that contact high.
Yes, exactly - after my 2nd was born, I spent some time thinking "Hmm, maybe I should drop out of my current life completely and start a new life as an L&D nurse so I can hold newborns."
"If it's a boy, I'm going to name him Cilantro."
Vaguely on-topic, I met a little boy the other day whose name was "Championship". I hadn't heard that one before. His parents called him "Chip".
re: 26
In my experience that's a pretty typically Kiwi thing to do. Basically every New Zealander I've ever met is stupidly good at multiple sports.
I think the sporting prowess is some sort of compensation for the vowel thing.
Regarding the Internet/trolling aspect of this, my wife and I have decided to [try to] have a child, and one of her rules for the project is to not get any advice from the wilds of the Internet, lest the judgementalism drive her completely 'round the bend.
The actual subject and people's experiences here are interesting as well, of course.
49: Except, of course, advice from us. We're not the Internet, we're sane and helpful. Mostly. Sometimes.
one of her rules for the project is to not get any advice from the wilds of the Internet
I was going to suggest sexual intercourse, but I guess you guys will just have to figure it all out on your own.
I was going to suggest sexual intercourse...
And not in the good buttsex way.
I do make most of my suggestions via the good buttsex method.
Every time I watch a video like 39 I'm reminded that Lisa needs braces.
The setting for the video in 39 is, I believe we are supposed to assume, in New Jersey, but the particular form of masonry atop a cinderblock wall, combined with aspects of the vegetation, makes me believe that it was filmed in Southern California.
I had a smaller version of the experience in the OP. I had a very difficult delivery in the middle of blizzard (induction, 2 failed epidurals, emergency c-section). On the second day in the hospital I had a total crying freakout about how I wasn't attached to the baby and had no "natural" feelings for her. My husband correctly told me that I had been through this huge thing and was on a ton of drugs and that any lack of reaction I had was OK. After a month, I was super-bonded and jealous of anyone holding or touching her and filled with ooey-gooey emotions of love and tenderness that have basically stayed pretty constant since then. Parenting is different for everyone.
56: I suspect that is true; in particular because a bit of searching for clues to its filming location unexpectedly turned up this baby blog post from the person who is almost certainly* the actress who played the pregnant woman and she lives in Los Angeles. And hmmm ... Mostly, I just want to know why apostrophes won't show up on my blog. I'd blog about that all frickin' day long.
*If not, sorry random internet mother who has the same name as one of the credited actresses and also looks a lot like her.
And via the comments to one of her blog posts, a young baby video explicitly filmed in LA.
After our first was born* we got to experience a bit of crass commercial shaming related to this. Pictures of the baby were taken at the hospital by a professional outfit. Somehow in the stupidity of our "first child shock" we assumed it was some manner of actual hospital service, so when they offered a set of framed and wallet photos for "six-fifty" we were thinking, "That's not so bad" until it dawned on us that it meant $650!* When we indicated that we would not be taking them up on the offer my wife (who always seems to be compelled to give salesfolk some further details on her purchasing decisions) added that she was not really that interested in newborn pictures, anyway. To which the saleswoman replied, "I totally cannot relate to that." And then we found five fifty. In Southern California.
*I would not have thought it possible to misjudge the price of something by *two* orders of magnitude except that I have done so. Briefly.
58: Well, I'll be damned. She did get pregnant!
60: Huh. My hospital did have either a service or some reasonable private facsimile -- we got newborn mugshots for some not-exorbitant cost. Actually, now I'm wondering if Buck paid hundreds of dollars for those. I wasn't involved in the transaction.
Just checked. $35. Exorbitant, but not insane.
But that was New York I was in Southern California.
</Halford bait>
Interesting, though.
If you had paid more it would have showed you loved your baby more. But you know, it's not like having their parents only pay $35 for their baby portraits will cause permanent damage to their self-esteem.
Hmm. I loved pregnancy, so I kind of felt like I already knew Rory by the time she was born. That said, whichever person in the delivery room thought it would be magical for me to watch in the stupid rearview mirror thing can totally suck it. Labor and delivery is not magical.
66: Watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat.
Di, feel free to ignore this since it's about as personal as questions get, but is that truly not an option? You're clearly already an awesome single mom and if this is what you really want, you seem like you'd be able to make it work.
56 et seq: Leon/ra P/tts and I have nine FB friends in common, most of whom are former colleagues from City Hall, which makes me think she's something of a community activist in Atwater Village, which is an LA neighborhood in the council district I used to serve.
I/ana Cohn is married to Liam of Let's Get Some Shoes fame, one of the great pre-YouTube viral vids.
70: If I beleived for a second that I could do it alone...
You could get help. That HIV scientist's brother has his email address in that thread and he knows how to get cheap help.
71.1: That is pretty much exactly what she says in her "about" (second link in 56).
71.2: I'm almost sure this is his video as well.
whichever person in the delivery room thought it would be magical for me to watch in the stupid rearview mirror thing can totally suck it. Labor and delivery is not magical.
One of my closest friends just gave birth for the first time, and she was really into the mirror. I don't know that she'd call her labor and delivery 'magical', but probably something close to it.
I was glad to have the mirror available the first time. Not a big deal, but it was something of a progress report during a rather difficult 2 hours of unmedicated pushing.
75: redfox wrote about how the mirror helped her in her "just had a baby!" post, which is of course quite good.
I liked the various monitors. In fact I studied them a bit too much as I realized after my wife took exception when I said something like, "Oh, that looked like a big one!" based on the chart reading. Not as bad as the time the Pitt Big East tournament game was on ...
something of a progress report during a rather difficult 2 hours of unmedicated pushing
Yeah, we were through with 20 minutes or so of unmedicated pushing.
Di, you'll probably never see this, but since I'm the one who asked I'll say that you certainly present on the internet like someone who'd make a great single mother by choice. But I also know that after realizing how hard even parenting with a partner is, I'd have a hard time trusting that I could do it alone. I could totally see you and Rory and a baby as an awesome family, though.