Seeing DC for the first time

[amrscot]

What is that feeling like when you see your DC for the first time?

My mind can't actually comprehend it and I can't imagine what it's going to feel like when I do finally give birth!

I'm dying to know what he's going to look like 😍

She was in NNICU, first I saw of her was a picture when I came round from anaesthetic. I just remember seeing a beautiful baby. Strangest thing was, I hadn’t actually noticed the tubes and wires. When I saw her for real two days later I thought she couldn’t possibly survive so small. Thankfully she did.

One thing I really missed not having was that moment with my husband after she was born where we met her for the first time.

I was so shaky I was scared to hold him. DS was the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen with a mop of blonde hair. I also couldn't believe how big he was. 8lb7oz. I didn't look pregnant and they'd told me he'd be small. I spent long periods in hospital on the antenatal ward and all the midwives came to look at him because they couldn't believe how big he was. Another mother to be asked why I was on the antenatal ward two days before he was born!

First thought with DC1: "thank God for that". These were my words and thoughts precisely. It was the labour from Hell with a 10lb stuck baby (I'm 5 foot and 6 stone), and we both nearly died. I have not completely recovered psychologically, and he is 17.

DC2 (ELCS, needless to say). "Are you really sure [she's a girl]?" This birth was much easier all round. She was also 10lb, despite being delivered 2 weeks early...

Truly overwhelmingly incredible. I think it's okay if it isn't, but for me it was like time stood still. She was gorgeous and beautiful and I almost felt like if I breathed I'd ruin the moment!

Enjoy it OP. It's the greatest thing I've ever done.

Emergency C-section...surgeon held her aloft over the screen Lion king style and announced 'here's your little girl'.

First glance was therefore of her bits as I was flat on my back, so I did a quick check to make sure they were correct!

They gave her to (then) DH to bring over to me, he told me she had my eyes and he handed her over, I immediately noticed she had his Gran's mouth.

That was it really. Sounds simple but it was mind blowing and I can still remember the whole thing 14.5years later.

It's an amazing experience and yours will be all your own and just as memorable.

@EssentialHummus

Oh, I think saying hello is wonderful. 👏🏻

#1 “eww, he looks like kitten”

#2 “I love her”

#3 “Wow, that was quick “

#4 “are you sure she’s not a boy?”

#5 “this is my last new born ever!” followed by half an hour crying

Scary and overwhelming. Suddenly we were expected to know how to hold her, dress her (well, dh, as I was a bit incapacitated), and eventually allowed to take her home which did feel odd to be trusted to care for another human being completely.

DS1 was put on my chest and he opened one eye to look at me (not that they can see much) and it seemed an age until he opened his other eye.

Then I thought something along the lines of OMG I seem to have a baby.

But then the midwife noticed the knot in his umbilical cord and said what a lucky boy he was.

Mine was, "Hello! Well, of course that's what you were going to look like!"

C-section. Panic as the gap between someone saying the time and her first howl felt like forever. Then mind completely blown as she came through the curtain onto my chest flailing and screaming. Then she put her head on my chest and stopped. The whole thing was just amazing. The most exotic and incredible thing I have ever seen.

DH said, "Happy Birthday!"

DC1 very traumatic crash emergency c-section after 3 days' labour, very sleep deprived, didn't really have a lot of time to think anything much. But I remember when she was put on my chest under my nightie and thinking Oh here you are, of course, it's you.

DC2 planned section, I just cried when I saw her.

1. thank god that’s over (forceps in theatre)
2. wow it’s a baby
3. what is it (then laid her on me with her back to me so I couldn’t she if she was a girl or a boy)
4. wow she’s got a full head of hair no wonder I had bad heartburn!

I love you already. Phew.

You look strangely like DP.

(DS was 8 months old and we hadn’t seen any pictures before we adopted him).

What's funny is that, although I had a bad time with DC1 in labour and post birth, I look at him now with complete adoration and wonderment that I gave birth to him. Given that he's 17, this has taken a while, though. I don't think this proves really started until he was a toddler and DC2 was born. There's no one or right way to be or feel.

For ages with DD1 I was wondering where the hell the baby had come from. I knew I was pregnant, but it was a quick traumatic labour.
DD2 was less like that, more “wow, she’s really here”.

Just an utterly overwhelming feeling of love, he had blond hair and the longest eyelashes.
I absolutely knew in that very first moment I would give my last breath for him. And I feel like that over twenty years later.
Same for my daughter.
They are the thing I am most proud of. Both have had quite difficult childhoods for different reasons but how they have come through it and got where they are today, I have nothing but utter respect for both of them - my heart literally bursts thinking of them.
Enjoy it OP - it is the most fabulous rollercoaster ride.

Honestly I have no idea what I thought. I had an emcs and both twins were really unwell, one more than the other. They were worked on while I was being stitched up and taken straight to NICU.

I was kept downstairs and in a lot of pain and I had a huge amount of pain relief. It was 7 or 8 hours before I got to see them at all, they wheeled me up to NICU in my bed and plonked me between their incubators - I couldn’t reach to touch either of them and honestly I can barely remember it. I know I was there for about an hour before they took me to get some sleep.

Went in later that morning and was allowed to hold one of them - think I was in shock, I don’t remember thinking or feeling much of anything to be honest.

I hope your birth all goes to plan and you get to hold your little one right away - I envy those moments that most mums get when their baby is first born and brand new. Cuddle them every second you get - they grow so fast!

It's here. It's a boy. No it's a girl. I'm a mum. I'm doing mum stuff. Feels like she's someone else's. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing though.

After a sleep I woke up with this over whelming she's my baby I need her now give her too me feeling. Marched up to the midwife and took her back like they'd stolen her. They'd been kindly watching her to let me sleep.

Second one it was instant. The moment I saw him.

Proves? Process...

My first thought as she was put in my arms was that 'I'm never going to let anything bad happen to you'. It was a very fierce thought.
Followed by 'oh her ears are curled up and she hasn't got any eyebrows and her bottom is wrinkly'. Instantly followed by I don't care, I love her, she's mine.

"Thank God you're alive". I sobbed with relief for ages. Didn't see her again for 4 hours while I had surgery and honestly, I was so drugged up I don't remember seeing her again or holding her for the first time.

Don't feel disappointed if you're not overwhelmed with love. It doesn't happen to everyone. I fell in love with DD one day at a time and wasted so much time beating myself up for not loving her straight away. I did, it just felt very different to my what I was expecting. The head over heels love came later.

I remember thinking DS2 was perfect. He was lovely and pink and all scrunched up, and very, very fresh out of me (and the forcep bruising hadn't developed yet ) I was so relieved that he had come out of the main exit given that I was in an operating theatre as he'd only just made it to the point of no return and minutes earlier it looked like another EMCS.

DS1, I just got a brief flash of as he was whisked off to NICU after being distressed in a long labour resulting in EMCS. I was worried as no one was telling me anything, just picking up snippets. I sent DH down with him as it seemed wrong for baby to be alone.
It was very exciting seeing the pram being wheeled in to me in HDU a few hours later. He did have an alien ventouse cone head going on DH did the first nappy as I was well wired up. The first feed (and many more over the next few weeks was very much by hook or by crook) It was bliss when DS2 latched on like a pro for an hour when we were in recovery.

A lot of it is down to the nature of the birth and drugs involved

Also I didn't feel like I knew her at all. In fact I mourned for the baby I'd been carrying for a few weeks. It didn't last, and now I can see how her behaviour in the womb was very similar to her character outside of it! But at first I felt totally lost.