This is the introduction to “Why I Love My Children: What I Love about Emerald”—kind of the lead-in for future posts about the many glorious aspects of my beautiful daughter. With so much negativity, stress, and worry prevalent in my posts, I do not want to overlook how very lucky we are. I view myself as a bit of the family scribe—the keeper of the archives that one day we will be able to look back on and see how far we have come…it is important to me that it not just be the tedium of our every day comings and goings, or the trials that we are faced with. One day, I will want to look back and remember who we were; and to show the kids how their mother sees them. So, that is really the purpose of these posts. Hopefully you find them as meaningful and accurate as I do =)
I have been told time and time again that a mother falls in love with her child the moment he or she is born, part of God’s design and nature’s intent to protect the next generation. But that wasn’t the experience I had.
Many will claim that it was because I had an unnatural birth—a cesarean section that did not allow for the rush of hormones that bonds the mother and child irrevocably—but at the first meeting of my only daughter, the overwhelming emotion that I felt was confusion. It is a very odd sensation to be introduced to someone you feel you know intimately, that you know better than anyone else on the face of the planet could know them…and to realize that they are still a complete stranger, an unknown commodity. This was no longer a part of my body, something that I was creating, but a person in and of their own right.
Those first moments, I saw her with fresh eyes. I could objectively say that she was quite lovely. Thankfully, I missed the unattractive belly-filth that she had come into the world coated in, but all ready wiped off and wrapped in a blanket, like a little gift to me. Her watermelon-colored lips were pouty and full; her eyes a smoky blue and intelligent. A light dusting of strawberry-blonde hair made her look like she was crackling with electricity on a head that was not warped or alien-esque like other babies’. What struck me is how much bigger she was than I had expected. I had imagined this teeny creature, supported by the doctor’s assertion that she was surely less than 5 pounds…but this was a hale and healthy looking child.
Over the next several days, in a pain and drug-induced daze (legal drugs, get your mind out of the gutter—I just had surgery) I began to really observe her. She looked so different from me. Her skin against mine was so pale. Why didn’t I see any of myself in her? Family kept insisting her glower was a dead-ringer for me, but I just couldn’t see it. I was fiercely protective of her, and genuinely quite fond of her, from her squeaky alternative to a sincere cry to the downy, substantial feel of her in my arms. But honestly, my mind was too confused to even grasp the concept that this was mine, something I would shape and develop over the years.
Don’t think me callous, please. Have you ever been petting a cat only to be struck with the realization…this is a living creature? Maybe it is just me, since before I became a mother I was a bit of a robot. I would much rather figure out why people think and act as they do then to actually interact with them.
The weeks that followed Emerald’s birth were a blur of sleeplessness, unaccustomed frailty, and adjustments. Not to mention that I was planning my wedding at the time…I spent every waking (and sleeping) moment with my infant, but I didn’t feel like I was getting the hang of it, like I was getting to know her. What was I doing wrong? Was I just an emotionless monster?
One night, up late at my parents’ house making wedding invitations and drinking pots of coffee to stay awake, I unthinkingly nursed Emerald as I always did. It’s like we both realized at the same time that I had an ungodly amount of caffeine inside me and was now passing it to her, because we both began to laugh. It was her first real laugh—more of a throaty chuckle then a belly laugh—but we bonded. In that moment, I fell in love with her. All my fears that I was incapable of maternal love fled.
From then on, every day I loved her more. I was getting to know her as an individual, and I realized how much I just genuinely LIKED her. She was smart and sweet, curious, and never upset for long. It was magical, getting to watch her grow and develop and come into her own.
Many years have passed since then—she is nearly four years old now, and I can confidently say that Michael and I know her better than any other living person. It won’t always be like this, I know—one day, her best friend of the week will know more about who she is because she has shut me out of her head—but for right now, I know who she is inside and out. And it is that person that I love.
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