When does the love come?

[Italiangreyhound]

Can I ask experienced adopters, please.....

When does the love come?

When did you tell your little one you loved them and did you genuinely feel it or were you 'faking it until you make it'?

Please PM me if you prefer, I know it is a sensitive topic.

Thanks.

I'm pretty sure you know my answer Italian because I haven't been shy about shotuing it at everyone!

I felt responsible for him very quickly but I have no idea when I really loved him. In my case (a bit like Devora) it crept in unnoticed sometime between 3-12 months but I do remember thinking at about 3 months that every day just seemed to get better and better. And that probably happened for some months. Once I'd started falling in love with him it seemed to improve all the time with barely a backwards glance but it did take at least 3 months to get there.

It was probably delayed a bit by the plethora of "stuff" I was dealing with for the first 3 months like a different language, impenetrable weather meaning real life was impossible, bureaucratic paperwork delays.

Someone saying they loved their child very quickly wouldn't worry me I just think that they would probably look back and admit it wasn't really love.

I knew I loved DS when I thought about him dying (cheery!) and I was amazed to find tears in my eyes at even the thought of it and my first thought was "what would be the point to anything after that". That I suppose was my first recognition that the little bugger had wormed his way in.

My sincere condolences 2old2be, I remember the panic of DS being rushed into A&E in the dead of night with croup. I can't imagine how anyone deals with worse and stays sane - I'm truly grateful that I can't imagine it and my heart goes out to you and your family.

Wow Kew, it's fair enough to speak about your own experiences, but I think it's a bit off to dismiss mine.

I nearly didn't post my experience precisely because of this and now I feel like you're saying I don't actually love my DD, I just think I do.

I didn't mention your experience - I was addressing italians question Would you be scared if the love came too soon?

Thanks Kew, I think your experiences sound very specific to your situation but actually we would all have things that could ‘get in the way’ of love developing.

Ironically, I think my dd'sneeds may mean that although I already feel a degree of love for my new little one it will develop as we develop as a family. If that makes sense.

Sometimes being in a foreign country etc could glue you together, I remember falling madly in love with my Indonesian boyfriend because he was so different to me! (I know it is a different kind of love!).

I guess what I mean is all our experiences are valid and useful and by sharing them we see insights into our own lives”! Hardly a news flash for you but thanks for sharing.

I think my version of a different language, impenetrable weather meaning real life was impossible, bureaucratic paperwork delays. will be DD’s tantrums if things don’t go how she expects, the reality of my being a person who needs adult company and isn’t great on my own and …I’ll think about what the third one could be!

Someone saying they loved their child very quickly wouldn't worry me. I just think they would look back and admit it wasn't really love.

That was part of your contribution Kew. It doesn't specifically mention what I said, but does completely dismiss it.

I'm not interested in getting in to an argument, but I think we should acknowledge that all any of us know about is our own experience and we shouldn't dismiss people who've had different experiences.

Hi Italian, although I have no adopted children, I am adopted myself.
I just wanted to add that when I gave birth to DS I din't feel any love. At all.
It was 3 months before I said that, although I didn't love him yet, I felt that it was coming?
And after 4 months I knew I loved him.
Doesn't matter how they get here, the love will come eventually. Luckily it isn't a race!

Oh, I forgot to say, that I never lied about not feeling love straight away.
I'm sure many parents, of adopted and natural children, grow to love, as opposed to feeling a rush.
I was never worried about it.

Thanks everyone.

GirlsWhoWearGlasses thanks for your thoughts, I totally know where you are coming from and of course all experiences are valid for the person who has them. I did not feel a strong love for DD (birth child) when I first had her, I was ill, in hospital and it was hard. But I did quite soon after we came home.

Over time my love for DD has deepened and deepened. It is very different to how it was at the beginning. My new DS is lovely and I already feel love for him. I am sure it will change over time and grow but I do already feel love so I totally get where you are coming from.

Even though I have felt love early on, and you did too, those feelings will still be different to each other, we are all different and it is very good to hear experiences from others. I might have felt worried I was feeling love too early! But your post has reassured me, as others have been reassuring if the love does not come straight away.

123jump, thank you. Please consider posting on my new thread or PMing me if you feel able to assist me! here

123jump it is www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adoptions/2081446-Are-you-an-adult-who-joined-your-family-by-adoption

Girls yes of course that is only my experience/opinion - thats why I said I several times in that sentence. I include/was talking about myself in that looking back and thinking what I felt was not what I feel now.

Everytime I express an opinion it does not mean I am dismissive of other people with different opinions and experiences but if I am obliged to caveat every opinion I express with the fact that of course other people are entitled to feel differently this board is very quickly going to become rather formulaic and dull. And I post a lot so really it would get boring for everyone.

You don't need to be defensive about me feeling differently or react as though my opinion somehow trumps yours - why do you think that? Families got in way before you with the "pretty much instantly" comment and I hope she knows that what I say is what I feel, not any indication of how she feels. Indeed just about everyone of us has different experience and feelings and I think we are all pretty well used to trotting out differences without feeling it diminishes each individual contribution. I'm certain Italian is pleased that you feel the same way she does and surely it far nicer to feel like that than my rather stressful situation of not bonding with my child for really quite a long time.

If you haven't come across it already you will find that many people (non-adopters) will express the opinion that they couldn't possibly love an adopted child the way they love their birth children and after a few years of trying to convince them it isn't true I have made peace with the fact that you will never convince some people that what you feel for your child is as strong and your feelings as valid as theirs. I made my peace with it when I realised that the reason I was trying to convince them was because I felt defensive and unconfident about how I felt and how others viewed my attachment to DS particularly because of our rocky bonding road. Once I'd accepted that I genuinely didn't really much care what others thought and anyway, they might be right, maybe they couldn't love a non-bio child in the way way. Maybe they really don't have that capacity.

I'm sorry if you felt my opinion was dismissive - it is/was how I feel. Perhaps it will give you comfort to know that my bonding process was hard and painful and yours hasn't been.

I will also hold my hands up to assuming that people have read my opinion so many times that I paraphrase and shorten it to avoid boring everyone with it again which might also make me sound a bit dismissive. Whereas in my mind I'm just answering OP in as quick a way as I can.

When I don't paraphrase you all end up reading posts like the one above and losing the will to live!

I hope you don't mind me copy/pasting myself!

"It did take a long time for me to attach to her [DD1]. She felt like a stranger for months, sometimes I liked her, and sometimes I disliked her. And i didn't feel i could say anything because you aren't supposed to look at your child and think 'I don't love you, and i dont like you'. It was difficult not to resent her at times which made me feel awful because the adoption was my idea not hers. But slowly I did start feeling love for her. I didn't feel it happen, but when I looked back after 9 months-1 year or so, I knew that if she left my home, i would feel really sad and miss her. And after another 6 months, I would have been devastated had she left. I think it took 18-20 ish months to feel unconditional love

It was really similar with DD2, but it took even longer for me to really love her.

It was easier with DS, maybe because he was quite clingy and wanted me near him all the time (unlike DD1 who was very self sufficient and independent, and DD2 who was very push-pull when it came to wanting me). Certainly, it was easier in that I knew what to expect! When I adopted DD1 I was thown by my own feelings, which made it much harder, but by the time I adopted DS I knew what to expect, so I wasn't beating myself up about my lack of love."

I really did love my DS a lot quicker than the girls (which was because of his dependence and his deep need to be near me and cling to me), but in the end, that doesn't matter, because I'm at the same end point - unconditional love. However long it takes to get there, you get there.

But I am very big on telling people "it often takes time for love to grow, it's NORMAL if you don't feel it straightaway". I've seen so many people over the years who are struggling because of their own expectations of bonding quickly, and so this is one of the things I like to bang on about

Aside from love, I did feel very responsible for them immediately and determined to protect them all and determined to carry on and keep carrying on. And then it was absolutely 'fake it till you make it'

Thanks all.

For me the love has been almost instant and so I am relieved we are all different. I got used to people saying it took time and was wondering how it would be and of course now we have met I am able to base my thoughts on a real person and not just a description (however detailed) and a picture.

Being very trite here but felt love was there when I could eat their left over food from their plates or share a toothbrush!!

Not trite 2old I can remember thinking "well now I'm sure I love him" as I caught his vomit in my hands once!

The left over food thing is interesting isn;t it - I can;t imagine doing it with anyone else and I used to think it was biological but it isn;t is it - its to do with a lack of separation somehow. The line that separates you from your child (especially when they're young) is blurred.

Kwewcumber vomit!!

Re food I agree with you but please do not ask me to share their milk feeds YUCK PUKE

Yes, I agree, I have managed a bit of ds left over food and felt totally the same.

I find it hard to explain but here goes ....

From hearing about him he seemed "right". From meting his Foster Mum he felt like he was right for us. We received a pretty poor photo of him and I kept it in my bedside drawer until I got to meet him -about 5 months later. In the interim received a 5 min Dvd of him which I watched a lot - I think then my heart just opened up to him being my son and I was willing the dream to come true. It didnt seem real. The first time I met him he threw his arms around me for a hug -he was 4. It was all I had dreamed of but so much more - he was our boy and I loved him. I didnt want to leave him behind when we had to go home.

That said the love has changed in the 2 years of being his Mummy. I utterly and completely love him - he is wonderful. I think I loved him day 1 but now I know that I do love him, still love him,am in love with him and love him so much that it is impossible to think of our family being without him. Every day he makes me smile -i love his hand holding mine, his hugs and him saying Mummy - yes there are times I dont like how he may behave but I know that I will not stop loving him. From early on with him here I would say I love you and I meant it but probably it was more at being so happy to be a family at last. Every day I tell him I love him and it really is meant. My Dh feels it too but for him he found it harder to say early on and was faking it but probably from 6 months onwards it began to feel real to him.

Fwiw our Ds when talking about coming to live with us says that he fell in love with us the first time he saw our picture in the Tomy book !

BeaLola how lovely.

We had the Tomy book.

It's taken me quite a while, which is hard to admit. Dd1 had very delayed speech when she came to us and dd2 didn't attach to me to begin with.....would literally cry when I went near her to change her nappy! I would say I love you to them all the time but it was faking for a while.

I think with dd1 it was when she started preschool about 9 months after moving in that I suddenly realised that I had that kind of love for her, I felt so protective and worried.....spent the first few times collecting her holding back tears. She wouldn't cry in the beginning if she hurt herself, or have help with anything, hold hands or hug. In fact I think it was only recently that she said I love you too at bedtime to me. But she shows it in other ways if you know what I mean!

With dd2 I actually think we have a way to go.....she will still push me aside for DH which I struggle with. But she will say I love you mummy a hundred times a day.....she knows how to get things!

Thanks Ladyofthehouse.