Do you feel like you're being a handed 'a' baby or do you know it's yours??

[Bloo]

It's always been one of my concerns, that I will feel like I'm being handed 'a' baby rather than really feel that it's mine.........what have your experiences been?

I first saw DD1 at 6 weeks old in a clinic in Vietnam. I didn't really feel that she was 'mine' at the moment (she wasn't as we hadn't completed the adoption process) but I was totally entranced by her. When I saw her again 3 months later, she definitely didn't feel like 'mine', not least because she'd changed so much and become so plump. I bonded with her in Vietnam but she didn't feel like 'mine' until about a week after we had brought her home. I remember sitting in a chair in the kitchen alone one morning, cuddling her and realising with an extraordinary thump that I loved her and that she was mine and I was hers and we were mother and child. It's slightly unfortunate that there was a Madonna song on the radio at that very moment, 'Crazy for you', which will forever be associated with that moment.

I first saw DD2, one morning at work, as an image attachment to an email. She was about 12 months old and a friend who had been to the orphanage where DD2 was being cared for, sent me the photo of this baby that was unaccountably still without adoptive parents. I opened the attachment and thought, with utter clarity, Good God, that's my child!' That was it. She was mine from the first pixel.

Issyfit, that's so moving, and lovely all at the same time!

Oh, felt very assertively 'MINE' the second I held him. He was delivered onto my tummy so there was no delay. And they didn't wash him for quite a while - can't remember when exactly but not for hours IIRC. We just cuddled up and he fed pretty quickly. Last time I posed about this I mentioned I felt this really strong sense of recognition - 'Oh, it's YOU' as if I was meeting someone I already knew but had never seen before (a bit like a close relative from overseas or something, but many times stronger than that). Couple of other people posted that they had the same experience.

Definitely mine. If nothing else, I recognised him from the scan picture (I still get weird flashes of that pic when I see him sometimes with a certain look on his face).
Amazing, really.

Exactly like edam. Felt absolutely that ds was mine and that we'd known each other forever. Felt like he was a special firend who'd been away for awhile and just got back!

Definately mine.
With both it was total amazement. It was instant love and the feeling that they were me!
An amazing feeling that although i was seeing them for the first time, i knew from this moment on i'd die for them. Although their face was new to me i felt i'd known them forever.
It's the best feeling in the world.
Enjoy it+

thats so nice angelize, feel quite guilty as i felt in total shock to be honest

had both dds by elec section so very simialr birth experiences.

with dd1 dh and i looked at her when they lifted her up and i felt like 'oh, THERE you are! it's YOU' as if we'd known her all her little life and we were being reunited. dh and i burst out crying

with dd2 we both said hello to her and said her name but she seemed more 'detatched' than dd1. she didn't look like i was expecting, she was very pretty and small (unlike me!) and i was delighted with her but it felt like i was being given someone to look after rather than part of me, for those first few hours. that subsided by the end of the afternoon though and she felt more 'mine'.