Why Falling in Love With My Son Took Time

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Photo provided by Laurie Sandell 

I’ll never forget looking at my son for the first time. The nurse draped him across my chest after a hard, drug-free labor and I thought, “This is crazy; there’s a baby on my chest.” I circled my arms around his tiny body and peeked at his face. Teddy was undeniably beautiful — even pretty — with bright, alert eyes and a perfectly round head. He was much smaller than I imagined a baby to be and radiated calmness, the embodiment of everything I’d hoped for when I’d decided to have a baby on my own with an anonymous sperm donor.

I turned to my friend Alexandra, who’d accompanied me through the pregnancy and delivery process. Her face was streaked with tears. “Look at him!” she cried, stroking his damp forehead with her thumb. “Aren’t you just madly in love?” I hesitated. I knew at my core that I would throw myself in front of a truck for him; the biological urge to protect came instantly. But love? “I guess,” I said. As soon as the words escaped my lips, the realization hit me: I didn’t know.

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When I first told friends I was pregnant, most had the same reaction: “Just wait,” they said. “The minute you see your baby, you will feel a love so all-consuming it will change you forever.” But I knew myself, and I’d never fallen in love at first sight with anything: not a city, a pet, or even a guy. A baby was different, I knew, and I’d hoped his birth would transform me into a person who could love instantly and completely. But when it came to my heart, I was still the same cautious Laurie I’d always been. Was I missing a motherhood chip? What if I never fell in love with him at all?

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Photo provided by Laurie Sandell 

I decided to consult another mom I knew, with a baby just a few months older than mine. Like me, pre-motherhood she had a nonstop social life and a career that took her around the world. If anyone had to confront feelings of ambivalence about the tethers of parenthood, I figured, it would be her.

“The minute I saw his face, I melted,” she told me. “It was like nothing I’d done before mattered.” The conversation just confirmed my fears. I knew there were monsters in the world whose hearts didn’t belong to their children, but now I shuddered at the awful possibility: what if I was one of them?

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When I returned home, I was met by my baby nurse. Carmen was a Jamaican midwife who’d been delivering babies for 40 years. Her incredible store of knowledge only served to highlight how little I knew. Diaper a baby? I’d gained some experience with my sister’s triplets, but they were already seven years old. Breastfeeding didn’t come easily to me; I couldn’t get Teddy to latch and ended up pumping full-time. I was also terrified of dropping him: at six pounds, my baby looked no bigger than a football. I found myself deferring to Carmen’s expertise at every turn, even as I started to feel quietly resentful of her for usurping my role. I wanted to be the perfect mom but I was all too aware that I knew nothing about motherhood. I found myself saying things like, “Is it OK if I hold Teddy now?” At which point she would look at me like I was crazy and hand him over.

When Carmen left, my mother moved in for two months. Every morning she came into my room and took Teddy, giving me a few hours of blessed sleep. During the day, she held him, sang lullabies and read him books — all wonderful Grandma things — while I took care of the housework: cooking, cleaning and running errands. My best friend Genevieve, a mom of two boys, even commented that it was supposed to be the other way around. But I didn’t mind the arrangement. Running to Whole Foods for groceries gave me a minute to breathe. And I still spent hours cuddling and cooing to Teddy. But there was always a nagging question at the back of my mind: why wasn’t I swooning?

As my mother grew more proficient at caring for Teddy, my confidence plummeted. I didn’t feel safe giving him a bath by myself. When I drew blood at my first attempt to clip his nails, I immediately handed him to my mother. I wanted him to be comforted at the deepest level, something I did not feel equipped to do.

Then, all too quickly, my mother left and I felt like I’d been abandoned in the wilderness. The first time I had to take Teddy to a doctor appointment alone, I couldn’t figure out how to lengthen the straps on his car seat and sat next to him in the driveway, sobbing. I couldn’t believe how vulnerable I felt with this baby who would someday call me “Mom.” Certainly, I didn’t feel qualified to be anyone’s mother.

But then something happened. Once my mother left, I had no choice but to fail— and in doing so, I found myself solving problems. Teddy, I discovered, liked to be held upright with his face snuggled into my neck. When he wouldn’t stop crying one afternoon, I held him in my arms while bouncing up and down on a yoga ball; he was miraculously, instantly soothed. Once I actually started caring for him, the feelings I’d been waiting for flooded my system. And it didn’t take long to fall madly in love with my son.

Today, watching my 17-month-old make a pretend omelet in his toy kitchen, I get to experience every emotion in the rainbow: proud, lucky, charmed. For a while, I beat myself up for getting all that extra help since it delayed our bonding, but later, I realized that I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Taking time to step into motherhood allowed me to fall in love slowly — the way that I know best. And now, when friends say, “You think you love him now? Just wait,” I have to smile. It’s hard to imagine loving him more.

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