Baby, bonding, twos, and 2.

Recently, I have noticed a lot of mamas talking and writing about how it took them a long time to bond with their babies. I've seen articles like this, and when a mama friend recently wrote this, I can't even tell you how many mamas in our playgroup said that they had felt the same way. I've had mamas from other groups I am in say similar things, and had several mama-friends tell me that they didn't really bond with baby until the baby was more interactive, or that the baby felt more like an appendage than a person for the first few months.

This was not my experience. Although I feel like I am in the minority, I have to admit that I was immediately, wholly, and completely smitten from just about the moment Henry was born. Even after 24 hours of labor on 2 hours of sleep, I think I stayed awake almost continuously for the next 48 hours, unable to take my eyes off of him even when he was fast asleep. If I was unprepared for anything, it was the intensity of the emotion and the feeling of shift in self and surrender to this tiny person.

As babies go, Henry was a bit unusual. He was bursting with personality from the start. I had spent my whole pregnancy warning Bret that babies don't make eye contact or interact right away, and it might take some time for our baby not to look and seem a bit like an alien. But Henry wrecked all my conceptions of babies by making and sustaining eye contact the first day, holding his head up, smiling - honestly, it felt like he was actively bonding with us. He continued to shake my expectations throughout babyhood: he was like a clock, eating and sleeping regularly (with no prompting or "training"); he slept well, and consistently; he never got sick; he never, ever really cried; he smiled and laughed regularly at first, and constantly from about 4 or 5 weeks old. I could say that I tapped an infinite well of patience that made me love being a mommy to a baby from the beginning, but I think having Henry as that baby made it a lot easier. Trust me, I have no idea how I managed to get what might be the happiest baby I have ever heard of.

Now that I am about to have my second son, I worry about this bonding issue. If it takes me longer to bond this time around, how will I handle it? I know that as Henry has entered toddlerhood (well, really since he turned two) he has become quite a bit more unpredictable and difficult to manage. I have found myself far less patient than I was when he was a baby, and that worries me too. Will I find that well of patience that I was ready to tap into when Henry was born, or will the new baby get a much more high-strung mama? How will I negotiate dealing with the frustrations that come with a two-year-old while I also mother a newborn? How does developing a bond with another baby really impact your first baby with whom you have this incredibly strong, organic bond?

I'm also worried that because Henry was such an easy baby, I am totally uprepared for the reality of life with a baby. Maybe lighting will strike twice, and maybe my new baby will be super-mellow, engaged, and happy all the time. Maybe. Or, more likely, I will have to completely re-learn how to be a mama for this new person, and it may take a little longer to get to know him. It's nice to know that if it does take a little longer this time around, there is a posse of mamas who know how that feels.