[DoulaAlicia]

I'm wondering if anyone has felt this way about this pregnancy or others in the past. In other pregnancies I've felt some sort of sense of personality from my babies inside, some instinct, and a bonding I guess. This time I'm having a harder time with this. I feel like I don't have a strong sense of who this child is and still have a hard time imagining he is "real".

And I'm trying to reflect about it. I'm not really sure why it is happening. These are the things I've pondered:

1) Maybe because it is another boy? I have three boys and they are all very unique personalities. They have some similarities but are all different which amazes me in a way. They are all genetically mine yet so different from one another. Maybe I just can't even imagine yet another different BOY. Or maybe there is some anxiety about having another boy and never having a girl (this will be our last).

2) Am I just too busy with the other kids, family, and stress right now to make time for getting to know this baby?

3) Are worries about his position clouding my ability to relax? He is still flipping all over it seems at 31 weeks and I'm quite nervous about this! I have 8-9 lb babies so he shouldn't be small by any means and I really wish he would stay head down!

I don't know. I do feel strength from this baby and humor. But that is about it. Anyone feel similarly?

 

[ArtsyMomma]

I'm having a hard time bonding with this babe (also #4 btw). I do have nice moments, where I feel close and connected to the baby. Most of the time though - everything seems so distant. I'm not sure why I'm having a hard time making that connection. This pregnancy has been an interesting journey, it wasn't planned, then there is the 'What are we going to do' period where we spent months trying to figure everything out. Perhaps I'm not bonding because I'm busy with the other kids, I'm very tired and under some stress? I'm not sure, but I do know that once this baby is here, I'll be over the moon!

 

[tomtemama]

I'm feeling totally the same way. This is my third pregnancy and it was my first unplanned one. I've always imagined that that is the reason for this disconnect.

I feel terrible. I'm not even feeling excited about birthing and meeting this baby right now

. I'm expecting that this will change once the baby is born and I meet him/her but in the mean time I'm feeling so guilty about my lack of excitement. I'm also concerned that my lack of enthusiasm to meet the baby may make for a much harder birth

.

 

[jsh7809]

I was just talking about this with DH... and it's our first baby! At times I feel very excited, somewhat connected. But mostly I feel mystified and like I don't have any sense of who she is. I have nothing else to compare it to since it's my first, but I guess I expected I would have more knowledge somehow of her personality by now

I'm trying to think that that's a good thing, that it means I will be open to who she is and not put my own expectations on her - but it can be frustrating and confusing, as I try (still!) to process this whole pregnancy thing. I am looking forward to meeting her and the birth, but when I try to intellectualize taking care of her 24/7 as an infant (and, you know - basically FOREVER) I feel really confused about it. In some sense she seems like a stranger, though she is wiggly - and I do say I love her but I just don't understand what it will be like to really love her.
I'm trusting it will come in time... hope I don't sound like a bad mother!

 

[rhiOrion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsh7809 I was just talking about this with DH... and it's our first baby! At times I feel very excited, somewhat connected. But mostly I feel mystified and like I don't have any sense of who she is. I have nothing else to compare it to since it's my first, but I guess I expected I would have more knowledge somehow of her personality by now I'm trying to think that that's a good thing, that it means I will be open to who she is and not put my own expectations on her - but it can be frustrating and confusing, as I try (still!) to process this whole pregnancy thing. I am looking forward to meeting her and the birth, but when I try to intellectualize taking care of her 24/7 as an infant (and, you know - basically FOREVER) I feel really confused about it. In some sense she seems like a stranger, though she is wiggly - and I do say I love her but I just don't understand what it will be like to really love her. I'm trusting it will come in time... hope I don't sound like a bad mother!

I could have written your post

 

[jolesh]

i find it really hard to bond until i can look at the little baby - and even then it is hard at first. takes time, i don't think it is super unusual. i hope not anyway, i don't want to be a freak! but with my DD i felt very disconnected from the whole process and even when i saw her i was like "huh, who's that??" but something kicked in pretty quick and she is the best thing in my life. i am betting this one will be the same. i am nervous because it is a boy and i have this weird fear that i won't be able to be so close with a boy - i had no brothers and my dad left when i was young so we had no males around when i was growing up which might be part of it. but i figure i have to trust myself and this babe that when he comes he will be part of me and part of our family and everything will be great.

hard to imagine, i can't imagine what he will be like. other than a kicker, because that is what he does.

 

[GreenTeaGinger61]

Maybe it's because I'm not a big fan of pregnancy but I find it hard to bond with the baby in my womb. Even when I knew the genders it didn't really help. I'm trying to savor this one as it is my last but I still find a kind of disconnect most of the time. I have moments where I will be laying my hand on my belly and feel a kick.

Perhaps its because I just never felt anything intutive about what the babies were like until they were out and growing. I don't feel like there is anything to know right now. With all of my kids I felt very intense about them once they were born but even then getting to know them has been a process as opposed to an instant thing.

 

[veryerin]

I am so busy with DD that I forget I'm pregnant until I either need to get dressed or bend over. So, no, not so bonded.

But I don't know that I really felt "bonded" last time either, and when she was born we bonded right away, so I'm not worried.

 

[jenfl]

With DD, I felt very bonded to her while I was pregnant. I'd talk to her and be happy I had a little companion going everywhere with me. I'd see her pattern of getting active everytime I sat down or stopped moving and think about what a crazy, active kid she'd be, not happy sitting quietly and always wanting movement.

And then she was born, and I didn't feel bonded AT ALL! I wondered where this little creature had come from, and what I was supposed to do with her. And my "intuition" about her personality was completely wrong -- she loves to sit quietly and read, and has always lagged behind, gross-motor-wise.

With this one, I've been so busy with my DD that I don't have time to obsess like I did, or talk to my belly. And I'm kinda embracing that. I'm going to do my best to be open to whoever he is, and not have the disconnect I did last time.

We'll see....

 

[zannster]

I'm not bonding well either. I was a little ambivalent going into this...afraid of ruining my relationship with DS, not looking forward to the big changes in routine/sleep...and since I'm older now (37), I'm concerned about genetic problems. It's just not the totally joyous experience that it was the first time. I assume this will change when she gets here and we figure everything out.

 

[Carita]

I am with Jenfl - during pregnancy , I was very bonded with DS (at least I felt like I was before he was born), but when he came out, I felt like they just sent me home with a stranger. So I don't think bondedness in and ex utero is necessarily correlated. I have noticed that this baby its easier to not pay as close attention to things, and so I have made a really important effort to do prenatal yoga 1x/week, which allows me to focus just on us for 1.5 hrs. And aslo at random times in the day, usually when she's kicking, I just stop and say in to her and rub my belly.

I think these things I've done just in te last month ahve really imporved my relationsip w/my daughter

Don't let it cause you anxiety!!

 

[OneWithTwo]

With my first, I was very in-tune and bonded with her the minute I learned I was pregnant.

This one has been hard on me. It's a boy first of all....I'm not with the dad, no emotional connections there what so ever. Complications have began and he could end up coming now @ 32 weeks. I almost feel like it will take time away from my daughter? Or maybe my NICU experience with her in my mind is untouchable and I am afraid of how this one will go?
I am afraid of how our life will be after. I see my daughter going through so many changes and I can't help but to feel guilty. She didn't ask for this. She keeps telling me she misses me and tells me not to leave her..it kills me. She can't stay in the hospital with me and I am going to try work this by her going late at night to her dads and he'll drop her off WAY early before he goes to work and then her and I will be in the NICU all day...just trying to balance.
Then I am afraid of afterwards..I mean, with my daughter I was a SAHM. I work now and I do need to go back to work. I had so much bonding time with my daughter, but his will be limited...
I do feel bonded on a certain level...it's the fear of what is to come and I don't want him hurt..but I don't feel that same bond I had with my daughter.

 

[nikirj]

I'm having issues with this too. I don't feel like I have a "sense" of this baby. Even my firstborn, who I had major issues with (PPMD related), I had some sense of while I was pregnant.

This baby was planned and desired and we waited a while after we really wanted a baby for the time to be "right." But first I miscarried and I just never regained the happiness at being pregnant this time, even when it became clear that this one was "sticking."

With my youngest, I felt very bonded very early, but she also came out and from the beginning was a very attached baby and really wanted to be close to me and/or DH all the time, and it's kind of a chicken/egg thing here; was that bond so intense from the beginning because it's her personality to want that kind of intense bond? Or did at least part of that personality (I know kids are the way they are and I'm not totally responsible for it) come out of me feeling that way about her? Maybe it isn't that I'm not feeling bonded this pregnancy, maybe it's just that this baby isn't going to need the level of affection or strength of attachment that my youngest did. That might be fine; I actually liked having a baby/toddler that just wanted to be on me all the time, it made life easy for me because that need was easy to meet, but I can see how someone who was determined to put the baby down and do their own thing would have gone NUTS.

I also feel like I know so much about fetal development, pregnancy, and birth, that I've had to shut off my wondering/inquiring brain a lot, and that might be affecting things too. I'm the kind of person that likes to know things. It's just that thinking about this stage of development doesn't just bring "oh wow this is what's happening now!" it also brings "this is what can go wrong and this is what I've seen go wrong and OMG" feelings with it, and it's been easier for me to avoid that altogether than to try and sort those things through.

 

[crazyeight]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jolesh i find it really hard to bond until i can look at the little baby - and even then it is hard at first. takes time, i don't think it is super unusual. i hope not anyway, i don't want to be a freak! but with my DD i felt very disconnected from the whole process and even when i saw her i was like "huh, who's that??" but something kicked in pretty quick and she is the best thing in my life. i am betting this one will be the same. i am nervous because it is a boy and i have this weird fear that i won't be able to be so close with a boy - i had no brothers and my dad left when i was young so we had no males around when i was growing up which might be part of it. but i figure i have to trust myself and this babe that when he comes he will be part of me and part of our family and everything will be great. hard to imagine, i can't imagine what he will be like. other than a kicker, because that is what he does.

it's amazing how much a boy can be just their mothers!

seriously ds is a spitting image of me emotionally...so much so that i can hardly relate to him at all. add in that he is of the male influence and it makes him this carbon copy stranger. it's weird. i also grew up with ONLY girls. mom, and sister. dad was around sporadically. no major male influences (2 serious BF's of my moms lived with us for a while but nothing i can really say was a father figure i remember).

anyways i'm afraid of all of it. theres still 8 weeks to go for me. it's a short amount of time. i'm counting down now instead of up but i know that it will fly by and crawl by at the same time. i am not afraid of birth or of babies or of anything that in general a baby brings but as a person i don't know what to do. i'm afraid that when's he born i'll be looking into the face of my ex and i don't know how i'm going to handle it. i'm more in tuned with how foods/drinks affect the baby and if its hands or feet hitting me but with the others i wasn't however i always felt like i loved them and just felt different with them.

 

[treefrognyc]

Thanks very much for posting this.

I've been feeling a lot of guilt about this very same subject. This is our first child and we're both 40. I've had a hard time feeling all Earth Mother-y as I hoped/thought/fantasized I would from the time we started TTC.

I had a miscarriage in March '09, so when I first found out I was pregnant, I was cautiously optimistic. I told myself I could enjoy the pregnancy once it was "secure," but then I kept hearing stories of women losing their babies even as late as five months. Now that the baby is viable, I still have not really had that sense of abounding love and joy and spiritual bliss I have been hoping for. As I mentioned, I'm 40 so this may be the first and last pregnancy I ever have. I wanted it to be fabulous!

I've kept putting off my joy, or, rather, waiting for it to kick in, and it hasn't yet...really strongly, anyway. I've been lucky and had a really easy pregnancy. But I feel physically awkward (I'm usually very trim and athletic) and emotionally drained.

Perhaps because of my age I'm very used to living a certain way, and now all that is gone. For example, I love my red wine at night and resented having to give that up. I decided to compromise and save it for the weekends (just a couple of glasses here and there).

I do try to remember that there are times in our lives when we dread change only to find later that that very change has been the best thing in our lives. You just have to get through the transition...

One more thing that I think about often, and I hope it helps you all: when my father was dying, one of his poetry students who is Chinese told me that when his father was dying, he told him, "You and I aren't really father and son. We're more like brothers. In this life we ended up as father and son, but maybe next time I will be your son..." He said that we all come from the same source, so in a way our children are our spiritual siblings. They are sent to us to care for -- and we will -- but they are their own miraculous lives. And we get to be around that, which is a blessing.

 

[snoopy5386]

I don't really feel bonded to this baby either and at times I do feel guilty. Part of it is disappointment - I really wanted a boy and this baby is another girl (and our last), so that is making it really hard. Add to that I'm not 100% convinced it is a girl - the tech says so but I never saw any 3 lines - it was more a "lack of a penis" than anything else. We also don't have a name picked out like we did with DD.
That and I feel like I am trying to spend as much one on one time with DD before the new baby comes - trying to savor as much "just the two of us" time as possible. Which is wonderful and I feel is really important but it leaves little time to concentrate on the baby. I feel bad, I've only taken one belly pic this pregnancy, haven't kept up with reading the pregnancy books, etc. But with DD, I had nothing else to do in my spare time (which was copious) but focus on her arrival - reading, shopping, researching, savoring belly time, etc. That is just not the case now, I have a different life now and that is ok. I'm sure the bonding will come after the baby is born.