Slow love

I'll never forget the day I fell in love with my son. He was already several weeks old, at the time. We were at an infant massage class. He was lying on his back, while I gently kneaded his little toes. He stared straight at me, his eyes dancing with mischief. I tickled his tummy and he let out a gurgling, belly laugh. My heart skipped a beat.

I had spent the months leading up to that moment, anxious and uneasy. I was convinced that I was an inadequate mother, entirely lacking in maternal instinct. Sure, I loved him whole-heartedly, but it wasn't the mad, blind adoration, that I'd pictured myself feeling, from the instant of his birth.

"He's changed your life unrecognizably", a wise, older friend said to me. "You're just taking your time to know and love him. Why should this be different from other relationships?"

I realized then, just how much we mythologize motherhood - setting ourselves up for self-doubt and guilt and disappointment. We expect to feel the perfect feelings, at the perfect time, for our perfect babies and are devastated when things don't go according to plan.

It's the one truth that I wish somebody had told me about parenthood  - that it can be a slow falling in love. But when you do fall, you fall hard, never to recover.