baby bonding: less comical thoughts on motherhood.

i've been wanting to write a post for awhile on a more "real" aspect of being a new mom.
not just the funny surprising little things, but the real struggles and baby blues i've faced so far on this journey.

i wanted to talk about it because i feel like a lot of people don't.  and since no one really talks about it, it kind of caught me off guard when i experienced some of the feelings that i did.  i have a feeling a lot of people probably go through the same thing, but it's hard to talk about it so most people probably don't.

when i had finn, i didn't bond with him right away the way that i thought i would.
i thought when your baby was born, you would immediately be madly in love with him in this crazy storybook kind of way.  i expected to think finn was the most beautiful baby i had ever seen, to experience that love everyone talks about that makes you feel like you're going to explode, and to think motherhood was the best.thing.ever.

those things didn't happen to me.  when finn was born i felt tired.  so completely physically, mentally, and emotionally tired that that's about all that i really felt.  the thing that helped me the most during the first few hours after finn was born was seeing his special bond with billy.  they were immediately enraptured with each other, and that made me happy.

in the first few weeks we were home with finn, i thought he was really cute, but i didn't always think he was the most wonderful baby in the whole wide world.  sometimes, especially when he was gassy, he would make faces that were so truly unattractive that billy and i would look at each other and be like "dear god baby, please never make that scary horror movie face again."  it was not beautiful.  it was gremliny.

sometimes i thought finn looked like a creepy little old man.
lets be honest here people, lots of babies look like creepy little old men. 

a lot of times i felt like i wasn't doing it "right".
i felt like things weren't always going the way they were "supposed" to.
i had a lot of expectations about what it was going to be like when finn was born, and that's where i first went wrong.  i shouldn't have had any expectations.
the best thing to do, i now know, is to cut yourself a break and play it by ear.

truly bonding with finn was not something that happened immediately for me.  bonding with him has happened through a process of getting to know one another over time. i think this probably sounds bad to some people, but let me say that i always loved finn 200 million percent from the very beginning, and i always had this incredibly strong maternal instinct to take care of him.  but that truly special "my baby is the best baby ever" feeling didn't hit me right off the bat.  it's been a gradual process.

i wanted to talk about this because, frankly, i felt like an asshole in the beginning.  i thought there was something wrong with me for not thinking finn was the gerber baby, and i felt really guilty a lot.  i was pretty insecure and all i wanted was someone to tell me that i was doing it the right way.  in those weeks of internal doubt and baby blues, i read something that said, no matter what you're thinking or what doubts you're having, you are truly the best person to be taking care of your baby.  and that helped me a lot.  no matter what i was feeling, i was still finn's mommy and he was given to me because i'm the best person for the job.  i told myself that a lot throughout the day.  "you are the best person for this job."  and it helped.

now i know that having a baby isn't always a magical fairytale and you don't always feel exactly like you think you're going to.  and that's okay.

now that the crazy weeks of baby blues and self doubt and adjusting to motherhood for the very first time have passed, i can say that being a mom to finn actually really is the best thing ever.  (it happened.  it just didn't happen right away for me.)  i wake up in the mornings and see him and find myself thinking "wow! i get to see him again today! i get to spend another day with him!"  every day is such a blessing.  he changes so much every day and learns new things every day.  it's absolutely amazing to watch him grow.  just this week he has started laughing, started grabbing his toys and pulling them to him, kicks and splashes in the tub, sings all the time (even recorded his first single with daddy... it's the cutest thing i've ever heard in my life), and has fallen absolutely in love with his blankie.  he really is becoming such a fun little person.  part of me already misses the days when he was just a little lump.  but when he wakes up and smiles at me with his one little dimple, it makes my heart melt.

it's hard to believe that soon he'll be sitting up by himself, eating real food, talking, crawling, walking... all of these huge milestones are so hard to wrap my head around but they're coming up so quickly!  it's so utterly amazing to me to think that i grew him inside of me, and now he's this real functioning little person.  i'm so excited for everything that is to come... from making my own baby food, to having a coloring pages stuck to our refrigerator... i'm looking forward to it all!  and i truly treasure every day that we have with our precious little boy.

i've learned that there is no "right" way to do it.  you just eventually find your own way together.  it's not always a fairytale. (but i do have a handsome prince...  and we have the best little boy we could dream of)