When DId You Fall In Love With Your Baby?

[Jennifer13]

I would never ever tell my son that i don't love him. I just love him in a different way. I would never ever scar my child for life like that.

Of course not, hun. I think it's not fair to expect everyone to love each of their children exactly the same anyway. Love is love is love. I know my Mum has her preference among me and my 2 sisters and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I prefer one over the other between them as well! She still loves me, just differently. As long as she isn't unfair in the way she treats us, what does it matter. Personality, circumstance, situation, all come into play.

If we could walk in another's shoes for just a day...

[Lulu]

We know you wouldn't Turk, s'ok.

[paradise lost]

Don't sweat it Turk, tact is unfortunately not universal! I really appreciate your honesty and don't doubt your loving care of your kids for one second.

I don't know how to answer this because i think falling in love is one term for a large range of emotions. Did i feel a rush when she was born? Yes i suppose i did but honestly i think it was oxytocin and relief. I have felt more and more love for her as the days and weeks and months and years have passed. I do love her, but am i "in love" with her? I don't know how to answer that!

I adore DP. Do i love DD more? No. I don't. I know that's a terribly unfashionable thing to say but there it is. She is my child, and i love her. I would die for her, give her my last of anything, do whatever it took to make sure she is safe and well and happy. But i know that if it came to it the motivation to do those things comes more from my point of view that i'm her mum, and i stand between her and oblivion, not from a feeling of being "in love".

If DP and DD were both in the sea i'd save her first, but only because i know he can swim better than her. If a bullet were speeding towards either of them i would leap to intercept it but for DD i would do it knowing it was my job, with DP i would do it without any thought at all.

If one of them had to die and i had to choose which i'd choose to have DD live, but only because it's my duty to do so. Not because of love. Loving DD is a responsibility and a duty and much of the time getting to do it is a complete joy. But loving DP was and is always only a joy.

Bx

[Dragonbub]

What a great question, and so many varied answers, each one as special in their own right.

I never really "fell" in love with DS, it was not really love at first sight, more just the reality of that love in physical form rather than the abstract form of pregnancy. All of a sudden he was there, as if he had always been there and all the time I had spent wondering on who it was growing inside me all of a sudden became him, and it was like it was ALWAYS going to be him. That doesn't make sense, I know, but it is as if I was never NOT in love with him, since the moment I myself was born.

There is simply no other love like it in all the world

[Jewel]

With both my boys it was when they were first put on my chest. Our first cuddles.
I think I had a bigger rush of hormones with DS2 though due to the birth and the need for rush rush at the end and almost not making it.

[Moi]

What a great topic and so many different answers.

I had a moment during the pregnancy where I thought I was going to lose my DD (around 28 weeks) and I just realised how much I already loved her! Then I had a c/s at 40 weeks and I couldn't connect that the baby they were showing me was the baby from my tummy! In recovery though I was dying to see her again. They took me back and I ended up being so ill I couldn't hold her for two days. But I couldn't stop looking at her bassinet and listening to her and watching her little feet on the change table while DH changed her. I was so in love by then. And finally I just decided that I needed to get better for her and I reckon will power helped heaps cos I had a huge turn around within a short time and was able to hold her again.