In late December 2009, the month my oldest son was born, I was scrolling through the photos in my phone and kept going back to two key pictures.
The first was taken in the early morning hours on the day of my son’s birth, with me standing in the hospital parking lot with my hand on my big belly, smiling big. You can almost feel my nervousness and excitement in that picture.
The second picture is the first photo I took of my son, sometime late that night. He was swaddled and sleeping on my lap in my hospital bed. In between those two pictures, I became a mum and my life was changed forever.
But instead of feeling like it was a magical transformation that occurred, looking at those two pictures left me feeling angry.
I remembered the 18 or so hours between those two pictures. There were only two or three photos of me with my son on the day he was born, and I looked like someone who was hospitalised for a serious illness, not a woman who has just given birth to a miracle.
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While you are pregnant you get all manner of advice - from family, friends and random women on the street. The only piece of advice that really helped in the the early days came from a colleague. She said that the 'rush of love' mothers talk about doesn't always happen straight away and for some it's not a rush at all, it builds slowly over time. She had felt very nonplussed when her first child was born and worried greatly about it, but the love came with time. When I had my first after an induced but fairly easy labor I felt exactly the same. I found my daughter interesting but felt like I was watching from a distance. I really just wanted to hand her off to someone else and have a sleep. I never felt guilty because this wonderful woman had shared her experience and I knew it would all come with time, and it did. Interestingly when my second child was born nearly 2 years later I did have the rush of love and the tears in the delivery room, even though the end to my pregnancy was traumatic and we nearly lost him 10 minutes after birth. Every birth is different and every mother's experience is valid.
I had a textbook, 3hr labour
It still was not magical, it was the most traumatic day ive had in a long time
I was scared of the hospital due to needle phobia and fear of hospitals in general, hadnt even had bloods taken
I was treated like crap by staff
And was still coming to terms with fact i was having a baby as i found out very late