I Didn’t Love My Baby Right Away
By: Jessica Hillis
Tags: Birth, Depression, Mental Health, Motherhood, Parenting

I look at my 6 year old now and find it hard to imagine not having my heart fill with love when I look at him. Truth be told, it wasn’t always this way.

He was conceived around the time I was planning on leaving his father. Just one of those random nights of random sex. We hardly ever had sex at that point. But it only takes one time.

Two weeks later, I was looking at a positive pregnancy test, crying. That second line wasn’t supposed to show up! God damn it! I don’t want another baby with this man.

We decided to work on things and hopefully save the relationship. Except then he was hospitalized for 3 months due to poor life choices. It was a rough pregnancy and I essentially spent it alone, looking after our 2 year old.

Am I bitter about that? You bet I am. Am I upset that I had the baby? Not at all. He is one of the best things that has ever happened in my life. I don’t regret him for a second.

The love wasn’t there right away

This is hard to admit; I didn’t always feel this way for him. It took a while for me to bond with him. It wasn’t like it was with his older brother. I loved him but I didn’t really like having him around.

We mothers aren’t supposed to feel anything but love the minute that baby is placed on our chests after we give birth. Our hearts are supposed to swell with love at the miracle that has just happened.

At least that’s what we are lead to believe. The feelings I had for him, or lack thereof, probably contributed to the postpartum depression I fell into soon after his birth. Or maybe it was the PPD that contributed to my indifference of him.

Either way, I felt like a horrible mother. He was an adorable baby. As beautiful as they come, with a head full of dark hair that needed to be brushed the day he was born. He had a perfectly round head with the most kissable lips. Just perfect.

I joke his cuteness saved him. I am only kind of joking when I say that. Not that I ever felt like hurting him but I sure felt like running away more times than I care to admit.

Instead of love, there was indifference

I did love him, I just didn’t feel that attached to him. I took care of his needs the way you would take care of a kid you were babysitting. There just wasn’t that overwhelming feeling of love when I looked at him.

He cried a lot. A LOT. He slept maybe an hour at a time. He always wanted to be held, unless he didn’t. I never could figure out a way to make him happy. I got angry at him a lot. Yes, I got angry at a baby.

He cried and I cried. I remember one day he was looking up at me and smiling. His older brother was climbing on me and giving me hugs. I just sat there and cried. A big, sobbing cry.

I looked at both of them, “I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry.” I kept saying, gasping for breath.

I was sorry I was such a shit mother to them. I was sorry that all I wanted to do was run away and never look back. I was sorry I didn’t love them like I should. Like I thought any good mother should love her children.

Turns out I wasn’t a bad mom, I was just sick

This was the PPD talking here. I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t know that feeling these dark feelings wasn’t normal. I just thought it was my fault because I didn’t want to be a mom anymore. It was something wrong with me as a person, not my defective brain.

I should have sought help sooner. But I didn’t think anything was really “wrong”. Like I said, I thought I was just that bad of a person who doesn’t love her baby. What kind of monster doesn’t love her baby? Me. I was that monster.

But I wasn’t a monster. I was just very sick.

There were days that I would be driving and think, “If I crashed my car into the lake, it would look like a freak accident. People wouldn’t have to know I killed myself. They wouldn’t think I left my children by suicide.”

That’s not healthy thinking. This thinking and this struggle went on for over a year. I needed help.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Asking for help

I honestly can’t remember what made me ask for help but I did. I sat in the doctor’s office while she listened to me cry about my life.

She was wonderful and let me talk. She then gave me a prescription for Prozac. I reluctantly took it and filled it. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to take it. Wouldn’t that be admitting defeat?

Prozac literally saved my life. I was in such a dark place before taking it. Within days, the light started to come back into my life. I was smiling and feeling something. I hadn’t felt anything, good or bad, for well over a year.

For a year I suffered with this. I hate to admit it but I remember very little of that first year of his life. I can’t recall a single thing about what happened in that time. I only have pictures to show that it actually happened.

I remember the feeling though. I remember how I wanted all the mental pain to end. I remember resenting this beautiful boy who didn’t ask to be born. I still feel guilty for having those feelings.

Thankfully, with the help of medical intervention, I grew to love that boy with my whole heart. It took longer than it should have but I believe it is better late than never.

Postpartum depression can be a sneaky bitch

I didn’t get it with my first baby so I didn’t expect it with my second. I felt so guilty that I didn’t love my baby the way I should.

But you know what? I found out later that these feelings are normal. Are they good feelings? Obviously not but it doesn’t make me a bad mother because I felt them.

It might take days, weeks, months, or even a year (in my case) to bond with your baby. It doesn’t make you a bad mother if you don’t right away. It doesn’t mean you are weak because you need the help of a pill to come out of the darkness.

It is a very common thing to go through. It isn’t talked about much. We are all expected to love our babies the instant we see them. I am here to tell you this isn’t always the case.

Unfortunately, I know I’m not alone in my experience. I wish someone would have told me it was all going to be OK. That it was OK to not feel OK. That I wasn’t a bad mom because of the way I felt.

I’m here to tell you it is OK

Because of what I went through and the darkness and guilt I felt, I want to help other moms who feel the same way. I am open about my experience. I am always willing to talk about the hell I went through.

More women need to be honest about this. I feel if we all share our stories, the real stories, fewer new moms will feel so alone. You are not defective if you don’t love your baby right away. It is more common than you think.

I hope my story can make you feel less alone. I hope you know there is someone out there that gets what you are feeling and is not judging you for it. I hope you ask for help because help is out there.

You’re a good mom and you are going to be OK.