Last night I had coffee, which I didn’t realize until today isn’t very good for babies. Afterward, Maybug was kicking like crazy! I’ve never felt him or her move so much in a day, let alone a three-hour period! Even after I went to sleep, I kept waking up because he or she was still kicking! I felt really bad, because obviously it was like a caffeine rush for him or her, but it was cool to have him or her saying “hello”. I first felt him or her move about two months or so ago, but I think he or she is still pretty small, so I don’t really feel him or her very often. Maybe two or three times a day, and usually when I’m being as still as I can, like he or she’s saying “Hey. Hey you, are you okay?”
So yesterday, when he or she was still buzzing from the caffeine, I laid down on my back and every time he or she kicked, I tapped back at him or her. We had a good ten or fifteen minute “conversation” with each other like this, going back and forth.
I’m emotionally connected to him or her now, on some level, I’ve realized. Finally, the reality of him or her has hit me, in a way that even seeing exactly what he or she looks like couldn’t make me see. I love this baby, and he or she loves me, on some unconscious level of his or her being. I’ve been trying so hard not to get an emotional attachment, but I think it must be healthy. This way when he or she comes and goes, I’ll be able to mourn, be able to take it as a loss and somehow get through those first days or hours or weeks where it’ll almost certainly be the worst emotional pain I’ve ever felt, instead of pretending that it never happened, bottle it all up until someday ten or fifteen or twenty years from now when I’m pregnant with my own baby and I’m an adult and I’ve done the stuff you’re supposed to do before you give birth and give up your life for someone else when I just snap.
I think loving him or her is the only thing that will get me through losing him or her.
Claudia said,
January 21, 2008 @ 2:27 pm
Hi there, I found your blog via Babycenter. I’m amazed that you’re only 16. Your writing is very mature! I just wanted to send you a little note to say that when my daughter was born, I had an inkling of how much her birthmother loved her (and I know she still does) and it made me happy to know that my daughter knew that love right from the start. She did tell me that she tried to detach herself from the pregnancy in some ways, which was certainly understandable.
kim.kim said,
January 24, 2008 @ 7:09 pm
You might not have another baby, I never had another baby, a very large percentage of reliquishing mothers never conceive again. I always thought I would have more children “later”.
You also might have more children, you might be really find with adoption, it might be ok for you.
It’s really important that you talk to a lot, I mean a lot of mothers who have gone through this. Some are okaish about it others seriously have grief and regret.
I also thought that having a child meant you lose your life, it would change your life but then by the time he is in school you could study full time again, you’d be young enough to do that. You’d be 21, that’s so young. You have a whole life ahead of you, do you really want to live the rest of your life with adoption?
If you do, ok, that’s up to you, I want to be supportive of whatever you choose.