Did you love your DC from the moment they were born?

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You often hear of mothers saying they had a rush of love the moment their baby was born. Just talking to DH about it and admitted to him I didn't with DD.
I obviously love her more the anything it just seems to develop over time.
Just wondered if others didn't get this rush of love?

@Illstartexercisingtomorrow this is exactly how I felt when DS2 was born. DS1 was the spit of his dad and I guess that made him more familiar. DS2 looked nothing like his brother and in hindsight I was subconsciously expecting him to, so when he came out looking nothing like my first or my DH I wondered who the hell's baby this was. But within an hour I fell head over heels for him and sort of love the fact he looks nothing like DH 😂

Yes...truly , madly, deeply
42 years in ...still do

@Echobelly she has brought me more joy than I ever thought possible and completed my family. I just feel so lucky to have her. It’s been a really tough few years but I’m finally calm and happy, in a way that I wasn’t before.

Yes. All three times.
As soon as I discovered I was pregnant I loved them all beyond all reason or explanation. I just hoped and hoped that they all made it here safely. They did, and the second I saw them I was head over heels before I even held them . Then I held them and every time was overwhelmed with love. I couldn’t even articulate it. Never will be able to.

They are the three loves of my life. Magical.

At 35 week growth scan I suddenly accepted that I was going to have a baby. I had a history of multiple msc and a very difficult medically managed pregnancy and having had multiple scares and admissions I hadn’t let myself believe that I was going to have a live birth let alone a healthy baby at the end of it.
I fell in love with him at 35 weeks because at that stage he looked like a real baby rather than an odd shaped alien. I think the sonographer thought I had cracked up when I exclaimed “ooh it’s a real baby”. I had been in hospital on bed rest for 3 weeks so cabin fever had set in.

Instantly and completely

Similar to a PP, I had a strange and rather cold childhood and am not close to my parents. I was pregnant slightly against my better judgement as XDP needed a medical procedure that carried the risk of damaging his fertility, and I had spent a lot of my pregnancy feeling ambivalent and a little detached.

When DS arrived (four weeks early) I was filled with the most euphoric rush of love that I've never experienced before and which took me utterly by surprise. To this day 15 years later, I still marvel that selfish little me can love and care so fiercely for another human being it would just be nice if fewer guitars were involved in our relationship now!

No. Took months. At least 6. I felt extremely protective over her and responsible for her wellbeing and happiness but the love came much more slowly.

Now I love her so much it's like a physical craving, it makes me nauseous sometimes and I can't imagine living without her.

Yes!

No, 6-8 weeks for me although I did have PND. I remember frantically googling as I thought I was some kind of monster. The love I have for her is so intense and I think it was there from birth but we had to get to know each other a bit I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Well if you take 100 reasonably clean living women who don't take drugs, eat fairly healthily and are used to doing gentle to moderate exercise for about 30 minutes at a time several times per week and try to get 8 hours of sleep per night....

and then keep them awake all day and all night, whilst making them do exercise at increasing frequency and intensity till the sweat is lashing off them, not let them eat anything for the last 10 hours of the experiment, subject them to ever increasing pain at the same time and then fix that with nitrous oxide, opiates (heroin, basically) +/- valium, in a trippy unfamiliar environment with lights and beeps, then hoik an 8lb baby out their cervix or lash a hole in their abdominal wall and pull it out that way, and throw a bucket of oxytocin over their brains at the same time, the results will be....variable.

I was absolutely out of my box with fucked up hazy euphoria by the time #1 and #2 were born and loved them like crazy. Being a square sort of teenager I had never danced madly all night on a fistful of pills in a Welsh quarry and staggered around the site at sunrise, dehydrated, exhausted, hallucinating flying rainbow unicorns and telling randomers that I really really fucking intensely loved them like nobody has ever loved before. But when I gave birth I was lucky and had a good trip both times. I could just as easily have been in the absolute horrors. Or like one of those meh nights out when you're just not feeling the great vibe that everyone else has, and more drink isn't fixing it so you fuck off home, annoyed that you've spent thirty quid and had a shit night and everyone else thought it was amazing.

Eldest - yes.
Youngest - no. I hated the pregnancy and couldn't wait for it to end. Baby no.2 was very difficult to look after with crying all the time and refusing feeds and having reflux. It took until about 18m-2yrs before I realised that yes, I do love my youngest.

I did with both my children, I was actually euphoric after my first was born.

I know a few people who didn't though and there is absolutely no shame in that. In my experience, those who have admitted the slow growth are just as wonderful mothers as the ones who got the mad rush of love.

In the sense of feeling unbelievably protective, yes.
But deeper than that, no. I still don’t love my youngest on any deeper level because she’s a baby and I love my older one for being who he is and I still don’t feel like I know who the baby “is” yet. It will come as she grows.

Not with DD. I had a very traumatic delivery and she was really poorly at birth. I couldn't allow myself to bond with her properly until she was out of NICU, I was so afraid I'd lose her.

I did with DS, easy birth and felt a massive rush when he was placed into my arms.

I sort of knew I needed to care for her, and that she was very sweet, but that was it. Bit of a difficult labour and emergency section, and didn’t see her for a couple of hours after she was born.

I’m not really sure when it came, as I never really got a rush of love at all. I think it just grew over time.

She’s 2.5 now and the light of my life.

No. I found it all extremely surreal and I remember thinking "why is there a cot next to my bed?" . Mind you I was high on (prescribed!) drugs for four days.

I didn’t with any of my three. It took a few weeks.

Yes, in the practical biblical sense of putting her needs above my own. I think this is true of virtually every parent, but it’s not what our society often describes as love.

No, in the emotional sense. That grew in the subsequent weeks and months.

I felt an a need to protect and looks after him that I had never felt before

That love feeling was certainly there indodnt want to put him down but the first time he smiled (was probably wind) I thought my heart would burst

Oh dear my mascara is now running down my face for some reason

Honestly, the moment he was born I was just pleased ut was over. It also took a further 48 hours before I was able to sleep, non of which helped. I didnt feel the rush of love and its thanks really to prior mumsnet reading that I took this as normal. The love grew though, and set in properly three four weeks in. I had bad PND though so it took till he was six months for the bond to be as unbreakable as it is. I love him more than anything in the world, even though there are times now during the terrible twos that I would happily swop him for a camal...xx

I didn’t feel the rush of love with DC1 until he was about two months old. I had a traumatic birth experience and it all felt rather surreal, I guess it just took me time to process what actually happened. DS also had chronic colic seemingly from the moment he was born and seemed to scream 24/7 which didn’t help. I felt incredibly overwhelmed and it lead to PND.