Addicted to Love

Written December 27, 2013
Did any of you feel like this?

When I met my partner, Alice’s Dad, I felt something snap inside me, as if I’d not be whole again if I couldn’t be with him.
And when I saw a photo of my gorgeous nephew, tiny and strong, I felt my heart burst open and fill with instant love and adoration.
And whenever I saw babies – human or other wise – my insides would melt in to goo and I felt like my life was infinitely better because I had laid eyes on them.
And when Alice was brought into the world, pulled from a warm bath by her grandmother (by her tiny foot, no less) my first thought when I saw her was something along the lines of ‘Oh, there she is’. There was no snap, no burst of love, not even a drop of goo! I was just cuddling a baby, my baby, in a different way than I had been for nine months already.

During those first six weeks, when we were all exhausted and I felt more like a teary alien than a mother, there were times when I reflected on those first few moments and the fact that there had never been a burst of love. It made me question everything – is she crying because I didn’t feel that soul-destroying love at first sight and she knows it? Am I an awful mother? Could I love her any more and I just don’t – what on earth is wrong with me?!
However now we are twelve weeks in, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and I know a thing or two about my love for Alice.

First of all, her new-born cry physically hurt. I’m an early childhood teacher and I can handle crying, tantrums and tears with the best of them. But when Alice cried my stomach cramped, my head throbbed, and I was overwhelmed with sorrow. It took superhuman strength to not pick her up every time she made a noise and when she cried, there was no strength at all. Alice was nuggled when she was upset because it stopped me hurting.

Next, I find if someone else is holding her there is no point in having a conversation with me. For the first few minutes I am marvelling at the way she moving, looking around, and learning; for the rest of the time I’m anxiously waiting to get her back. I have to tear my eyes away and really concentrate on what’s going on around me, and often I miss the punch line all together!

As well as all this, there are several times a day when I just can’t kiss her or hold her close enough. The expression ‘I could just eat you up!’ has taken on new meaning for me – it’s like I feel that Alice should be a part of my body.

This is why I don’t think I felt that enormous, overwhelming rush of love when Alice was born – I have always loved her and I was just waiting for her to arrive so I could show it. My partner, my nephew, ducklings – they make my life wonderful and happy and my world would be an awfully sad, lonely place without them. I know I would be a husk of a human if they weren’t a major part of my life. But Alice, she is life. She is my life. I feel like she is a part of me, we are forever connected, and I can’t imagine how I could go on existing without her.