Falling in Love

Did I gaze into my newborn son's eyes for the first time, sigh and think it was love at first sight? Not really. Harsh? Nope, just honest. I loved my son, but I wasn't in love with him. That came later.

After a 20-hour labor that ended at 1:15 a.m. in a c-section, I was too exhausted to think or feel much of anything. As I lay immobilized on the operating room table, a nurse held Oliver above me and I craned my neck to take a look at him for the first time, and all I remember thinking was that he didn't have a striking resemblance to either Chris or me. I felt guilty that if he had been put in a newborn lineup, I might not have been able to identify him as my son. The reality of the minutes after Oliver's birth were in contrast to the images I had filed away in my mind of the woman giving a final push, the baby being pulled out and immediately put on mom's bare chest where they meet each other for the first time in an ultra-emotional moment.

Instead, I waited to hear him cry to know he was okay, shed a few tears, felt relieved the pregnancy, the long labor, the will it end in a c-section, will it not, if it's gonna be a c-section, can we please just get a move-on,(oh, sorry, you gotta go wake the anesthesiologist up, right) and the anticipation of the birth were all over with, and then reportedly said, "I can't believe that used to be inside of me." That was it. Oh, and I felt really thirsty. I was begging for a glass of water.

In the days and weeks that followed, had you asked me if I loved my son, the answer would have been an honest, "yes." But it was a love out of obligation and void of emotional attachment. I loved him because he was my son, but I'd never had a child before and the concept of me having a son was still foreign. It felt like I had been handed a baby, a stranger, really, and told he was mine and told I was to be in love with him. I thought he was adorable, for sure, and I was curious about him and alternated between feelings of excitement that he was here and disbelief that I was finally meeting him.

In the weeks that followed, when the days blended into nights and nights that blended into days, when I didn't know if the meal I was eating should be called breakfast or a second dinner, when I was physically tired and emotionally spent, before I received a smile or any affirmation that Oliver even liked me, when I felt like I just gave, gave, gave and my son only took, took, took - it was love that sustained me. I loved my son, but I wasn't in love with him, yet.

Love at first sight makes a better story, but I ask you, how long did it take to fall in love with your partner? Although I knew I was crazy about Chris ever since our first date, it took three weeks to fall in love with him. And I thought that was quick. I didn't even know what being in love was, but trusted that I'd recognize it when I felt it. A few weeks passed and I realized I didn't want to live without this guy. And I knew I had finally fallen in love, even if it had only been three weeks.

And eventually I fell in love with my son too, and my love for him suddenly reached an intensity I didn't know was possible for someone I still barely knew. Where my expressions of love had previously been rote, I soon couldn't stop hugging and kissing him and telling him how much I loved him. I could hold him and cuddle him and never want to let him go. Women talk about bonding with their babies in utero, but I couldn't bond with someone I couldn't see, couldn't hold, but I finally felt that bond. Like I had with Chris, I recognized love when I saw it and I relished in the transformation.