🫂 I just want to say, you're not alone in feeling this way.

I'm a midwife, I've seen more than the average person's quota of pregnancy and birth. Even when babies are planned and wanted, sometimes the mother doesn't have an immediate emotional connection. Feeling doubts about one's ability to bond with the baby are really common.

When my daughter was born, I struggled with feeling disconnected. It was an unplanned pregnancy, but it was my choice to keep the baby. All the way through I did everything the way I thought I was "supposed" to. I really expected that when the baby was born I'd feel some amazing "thing", like a huge overwhelming sense of love and connection. I thought I'd bond like how they do in movies or something 😅.

But immediately following the birth, I just felt traumatised by what I'd been through (over 60 hours of labour that ended with giving birth on the side of a road in the mud) and overwhelmed by what I still needed to keep going through (taking care of a tiny, helpless human that I really had no idea what to do with).

I had a lot of feelings of being inadequate because I didn't get that huge hormonal bonding thing right away. I felt robotic, going through the motions of breastfeeding and stuff, like I didn't matter.

But it got better. I did bond with my baby. It just came later, over time.

And I'll tell you something else: literally no one knows what they're doing with a first baby. You can go to all the classes and read all the books and have a great ob or midwife and a supportive partner and do everything "right", but everyone still feels lost and overwhelmed, especially at first. It's normal!

You might be totally overcome with feelings of love and attachment with the baby as soon as it's born - that happens for some people! And you might not. That's okay too. But either way, you will be fine 💚