Connecting with baby?

[bumpbear]

It would seem that perhaps not boding straight away is more of the norm than the exception. I think the media is to blame, showing women get a positive pregnancy test and then rub their nonexistent stomach with a huge smile. Also, as with most things in life, people are weird and selfish and make everything a competition and a show. I'd guess some women who claim to have loved their "baby" (cluster of cells) from the moment of conception are sensationalizing the whole experience.

Pregnancy is long and drawn out, you have plenty of time to experience the gamut of emotions, not all of them warm and fuzzy. It's almost as odd as saying "I loved my husband before I met him". Of course I didn't. I knew he existed somewhere but you can't really love someone before you meet them! Any connection in utero is most likely evolutionary carry over that serves to protect the fetus for survival. Us humans just have to muck it all up with attributing emotions

Not sure I agree with this. My mother's love is very different to the love I have for my DH. It is instinctive, all consuming and just there, always will be and it will never go away. Even if it is an evolutionary instinct, it is something that is definitely there and definitely very different to any sort of love you could ever feel for anyone else, except perhaps an adoptive child or other littles in your care. It is not in any way similar to the love I fell in to with my husband if that makes sense, or the love i have for other family members? Its just different and incomparable. I'm not sensationalizing it because I am not a soppy person, it's just the way mother's love feels to me.

 

[mrs sunflower]

Bonding with our son was similar for my husband and I. We loved the idea of him but didn't really feel like we knew him when he was born and bonded with him most over the months after he was born. It seems like things will be similar for both of us with this new baby. I'm not worried about it this time because we both grew very attached to DS and will in time with our second.

 

[MummyToAmberx]

ive never connected to my baby when pregnant, i enjoy things pregnancy brings but hear mums to be singing, talking and naming their bumps i feel uncomfortable with all that.
After the start to this pregnancy with HG my positive side has been limited i dont know if thats going to have an effect later on.

Saying all that, as soon as ive given birth its been instant connection and bond had started properly.

 

[BigAl]

I think everyone has a different experience of "motherly" love. It's a special feeling knowing I have another person growing inside me, but i'm not sure it feels like love. It's definitely not the same feeling as I have towards my son.

I didn't feel any real connection until my son was a few months old. And even then I didn't love him as much as I do now.

I guess that would sound awful to some people, but everyone is different.

 

[Unexpected212]

That doesn't sound awful for me.

I would have died for my son the second he was born, but that super intense motherly love only really started to develop after a few months

 

[Hurrikane_Kat]

Yea, I'm in the same boat. Funny, I didn't think there was even a chance of my being pregnant while my Hubby chased me around the house with a stick begging me to pee on it before work! It came at a weird time, though, we literally found out the day my Hubby got laid off on his 30th birthday. Went into a kind of shock where I acknowledged it, but didn't feel it.

I snapped out of the shock and more into excitement. Still don't feel a connection though. Maybe when it starts moving it'll spark something for me!

I'm not a very emotional woman, though. I also usually don't get excited/nervous until the last moment. May work the same for you?

 

[MamaLa]

Since I am still pretty early it's hard for me to bond. Since I don't feel anything besides my uterus pulling, and stretching. I feel the most bonding when I am looking at the ultrasounds. But other than that nothing. My coworker told me that when she would feel the baby moving it use to make her nauseous.

 

[Sour_Skittle]

This is baby number 3 for me. I bonded quite a lot with my first. My second baby I didn't bond AT ALL until she was born. And instantly fell in love! Idk... I didn't even believe I was pregnant with my second because I had miscarried before her... And I guess I was afraid to bond I suppose. But that hasn't changed a thing once she was born. I love her t bits. She's very independent though... But I'm guessing that's just her personality and not because we didn't bond when she was in tummy...

This time.... I still don't believe I'm pregnant even though I just heard his or her heart beat. I don't feel movements yet either. I'm so busy with two toddlers running around and driving me crazy it's hard to sit down and concider there is another on around even though he or she isn't visible at the moment. But I'm positive I will love this one just as much as my other two.

 

[edthedog]

I didn't bond per say at all with either of my babies before they were born. Obviously I cared about things going well and that they were okay but I just couldn't imagine them enough to do any sort of bonding. Never sung or talked to them when I was pregnant as I never felt the urge and it's the same with this one.

The moment they were born though I felt an instant connection with them like 'oh of course it was you inside me all along'!

I think pregnancy is such a surreal experience -it never really sinks in until the baby arrives and even then it can take a bit longer.

xxxx

 

[Rickles]

TBH - I'm too bloody exhausted and stressed to bond!!

We're building a house - which is all going wrong, and my daughter is sleeping really inconsistently and testing me quite a bit during the day...

I'm excited to be having a baby but also relieved to be in the small bump stage as I feel I have so much to do!!

I feel like my bond with DD grows every day - so not worried - it will with this baby too once they get here (and probably before - usually once the hiccups start and we have chats in the night about stopping!) xx

 

[wookie130]

I definitely felt some type of love for my daughter when I was carrying her. It wasn't the same kind of love I feel for her now, now that I KNOW her, and am physically and emotionally caring for her in the flesh, at 14 months of age. That bond really does grow and change with time, and I think it's fine to acknowledge that.

With my son (my current pregnancy), I feel much the same way. I do love and care for him, and want to meet him very much...but I know that the real bonding will occur in my arms, after he's born, and he begins forming his own little personality and such.

I think largely what we feel during pregnancy is more about a promise, and the dreams and hopes you have for the future. We daydream about our future children...what they may look like, WHO they may look like, what we'll do with them, how they'll feel in our arms, etc, experiences we'll share. It's a lot of unknowns, but it's definitely a time to dream, and fall in love with THE IDEA of our babies, and who they may be.

I know that the instant I saw my daughter, I would die for her, and that is by no means an exaggeration. I immediately fell in love with her, and that her birth marked the beginning of the BEGINNING of us, as mother and child. I don't think you can adequately express it, unless you've experienced it yourself with the birth of a child. I do hope that we all go on to have that feeling, either for the first time, or again.

 

[SmallBear]

I worried a lot about this at the beginning of my pregnancy (I'll be 14 weeks Wednesday -- moved over a smidge early). But at some point I just decided not to worry about it until the little person gets here.

I felt a lot like I was betraying my 2-year-old by getting all caught up in the "Tummy Baby," even though we decided to definitely have another one so she'd have someone to grow up with.

I don't know how I shook it -- lots of prayers is part of it. But I just keep telling myself I can worry if I have a bonding issue once there is a baby in my arms.