MY HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED

Towards the end of my pregnancy I became very nervous about meeting our new daughter. I was worried that we would not "bond" like I the fantasy plays out. I wrote about this in my journal. Fortunately, it did work out exactly like you hear. The moment I laid eyes on her I realized she was all we ever dreamed we wanted. Below is a few pages from my journal written from hospital bedrest in July 2006.

Do you believe in love at first sight? I didn’t even fall in love with my husband until our first real date ….and believe me he would be the most popular (and gorgeous) man in prison. That was only what seemed like last week and now five years later we are all one big happy family! We are a modern day blended Brady bunch. Yes, it works for us and I love it! We have been so blessed! We have an amazing warm and loving home, a child on the way and already searching to make more closet space. I love my husband, Hailey, Daniel and my growing family more than I could have ever imagined I was capable. But somehow the media, well-meaning people and every Sandra Bullock movie ever made have drilled into our heads that this mythical ideal of instant love is better. And this is no truer than when it comes to mother-baby love.

During my pregnancy people constantly assure me that I will feel this incredible, overwhelming love for my baby, like nothing I have never experienced (clearly most of them have never been overserved on cheap booze) the very second my daughter is placed in my arms. They say that whether you are scared and ill prepared or excited and impatient to be a parent, you will experience this deep unfathomably profound bond immediately.

I compare the feeling with unboundaried pressure and high expectations. I compare it to a date on Match.com up until meeting you have a rough idea of height and weight and a fuzzy photo to work from. I can imagine being induced with more drugs than Robert Downey Jr and credentialed Doctors hand you a baby while you are high. So much for first impressions.

I read the pregnancy websites there are women who report feeling madly in love with their babies the second they lay eyes on them. These women are lucky, lying or just needy – I don’t trust them. These are the same women that keep minute by minute scrapbooks, bank core blood, eat placentas and name their babies “Apple” Then again, maybe they are the normal one, but they are awash with raging hormones and class 3 narcotics. I have a sneaking suspicion a lot of them go on to home school. But, that said, good for them.

The majority of my friends assure me bonding takes time. You have to get to know each other. Go slowly. It probably does not help I have read that before introductions are properly made the little one is already sucking your breast two minutes into your relationship. Already getting to second base! I have read babies are very forward with their needs. Actually, it is refreshing – no games….just the basics.

Personally I am fully expecting to take one look at my baby and feel the kind of blinding maternal love you only see in Lifetime movies. I attribute this to a year of raging hormones or a study I read at www.whattoexpect.com said when you give birth, a chemical called oxytocin pumps through my body. Not to be confused with Oxycontin – but think how great that would be? This hormone is supposed to be so strong it brings out the mothering instinct in Martha Stewart.

Since I became obsessed with this bonding issue (yes one of the many things I am driving my sweet husband nuts over) the study says that as you care for your baby and you begin to bond you body produces a compound called Dopamine. This is a chemical that triggers the reward center of your brain, sort of like nature’s heroin. When the chemical is released it causes you to become “addicted” to your baby. So I guess women that have 8 or 9 babies are “chasing the dragon” What if there is nothing like the initial high? According to similar studies I have found this hormone can be severely damaged by anxiety, fear and postpartum depression. So there are no guarantees you won’t hyperventilate from shock either. I am telling myself I didn’t like West Wing the first season either and now I cannot get enough.