Their backyard could really only be described as ‘the hardest working quarter-acre in LA’. It had all-the-things: wall-to-wall landscaping, an outdoor pool-table, heaters and AC, what looked like an 8-burner grill, and turtles. From our lounging position on the L-shaped sunken-in couch, the bounce house was nearly silent underneath the gurgling of the nearby DIY fountain which itself was intermixing with the sporadic fizz from one of the three taps on the no-frills home-built tiki bar.
7-months pregnant, the conversations around us was leaning as hard towards babies as the nearby kegerator was leaning towards foam.
Specifically, we were talking about births.
Our discussion had gone through chaotic hospital arrivals, past an assortment of actual birth stories and just arrived at that middle ground right after birth…but before doctors give the official the ‘all clear’. That time when parents are stuck in what Dr. Seuss would probably call ‘the Waiting Place’…the recovery room.
Objectively, the Recovery Room is a shared observation bay chock full of machines, one-time-use baby products and computer screens – everything either beeps or feels cold to the touch. It’s also a room full of firsts; first family photos, first baby-hand-off between parents, first time that 9-months of expectancy settles down into a parent’s lap and becomes a solid thing with a future.
Among all these firsts there’s also this little talked about other thing…a feeling that is expected but maybe doesn’t always arrive right then. This moment that I’d never heard put into words before now…
“How soon did you love your baby?”
“Would you say you ‘loved’ your kid at first sight? In those first few minutes?” (liberally we were allowing the first few hours to still count as ‘immediately’)
When I was preparing for the birth of my first kid, my entire life – decades – as a non-parent had lead me to assume that immediate love – ‘love at first sight’ – for my new kid was normal…a commonly shared experience between all parents. I expected that seeing my kid(s) being born would hit me like the Grinch deciding to give back the presents – sudden, physical heart growth…Bam! This is Love!
More than even ‘the experience’, this love-at-first-sight thing was my ‘the expectation’ for becoming a parent, really the litmus test to determine if I was going to be a fit Dad. ‘Good parents love their kids right at birth’. Right? Instantly…a flood of emotions..busting out of the heart-size-scale.
That hadn’t been ended up being my experience with Augustine and it was uncomfortable for me, something I never openly acknowledged…
…but it turns out that my whole ‘lifetime as a non-parent’ hadn’t given me the right expectations…because…
…No one in our conversation loved their kid immediately…
Well…No one except John.
John may be the first guy I’ve ever met that I immediately aspired to be. So, I don’t know what it says about me that he turned out to be a love-psycho (according to this informal backyard poll).
Of the 15-20 parents gathered, only John admitted to instantly falling in love with his daughters. Also, he knew this was weird.
As we got into this topic, he began to shy away, but his wife didn’t let escape. She was the first person to call him a weirdo for his sudden attachment, forcing him to confess that ‘yeah, I loved them as soon as they were born’. (His sorta mumble was clearly and indication that this was not the first time he’d been singled out like this.)
We made fun of John. Despite his extremely likable personality, no one could empathize with his feelings…he was weird…but for me…
This chat felt awesome.
As someone who spent their teens and 20s as a self proclaimed romantic, I’ve always believed in Country Music style love and Hallmark movie-esk big, grand life moments. I was certain they existed, even though I’ve rarely experienced them. This spit between what I want to belive and what I’ve lived – it’s made me always kinda feel like I’m doing things wrong -or- I’m making bad decisions that keep me from reaching these big life-shattering highs. Which is how I felt when I wasn’t struck blind with love at the birth of my daughter.
You know, when Augustine was born I had expected to be blown backwards by a surge of emotions – for the world to become briefly more saturated…for warm tingly waves of emotion to roll through me. I mean, I wasn’t expecting hallucinations, but…I could really only picture Augustine emerging from Jade on the crest of a rainbow while all the doctor broke into tears – temporarily unable to do her work. At this same time, Jade’s skin would, of course, be glowing like a Breaking-Dawn vampire in the sun…my wife seemly covered in a myriad of rare, tiny diamonds.
Apparently though, movies and songs aren’t the best emotional-barometer – not every guy breaks into tears gazing as their amniotic-fluid-glistening child…nope, just John.
Hearing other parents admit that it took time to fall-in-love with their kids was way more of a life-changing moment than I let onto right then over my foamy beer. Really, each story was like another arm catching me in this trust fall of normalcy.
Sure I’d felt things, but now I knew it was ok that I didn’t feel big-screen style love.
Actually, I’d felt a bunch of ‘stuff’ at seeing Augustine for the first time and even more ‘stuff’ over the following days and week…but I didn’t call any of that emotional ‘stuff’ love.
- Honestly, I don’t know exactly when I would say that I ‘fell in love’ with Augustine. If I had to guess, I’d say maybe in the first month – mostly likely within the first month. If not right then, well, definitely by age 2.
Atlas was born about 3 months later
In the days leading up to his birth, Jade and I weren’t ready. I was so focused on trying to get into a positive mindset about adding a second kids to our family that I didn’t even worry about actually ‘loving it’ – I just wanted to reach a place where I ‘wanted him’.
I still wasn’t totally there as I waited in the same hallway I had 6.5 years earlier while Jade got her epidermal.
Well, like Augustine, Atlas began life without blasting from Jade’s belly on the backs of a pack of white stallions. Little red heart bubbles didn’t carry him above our heads and rest him gently in my arms – there were no rainbows at all.
- (I wasn’t totally expecting any, but my heart-of-hearts hadn’t given up all hope.)
Instead, Atlas came out of Jade’s uterus into the hands of cluster doctors and was immediately greeted by a series of vacuums and cool pressurized air streams (he had some fluid in his lungs).
I didn’t really get to hold him for the first time until we were back in the recovery room – 37 minutes into his life.
Again, there was no Kenny Chesney swell of love. No tears. Hallmark would have wanted a reshoot.
But, I did feel something. There was this palpable pull towards Atlas. I just knew, so clearly – I wanted this boy to be alive.
Ok…wtf?
This sensation, it wasn’t an emotion – not some mental ‘a-ha’ moment. What I was experiencing was physical…my want for Atlas to be alive was something that I could feel growing into me. It was like my son had shot out a physical root that took hold (somewhat uncomfortably) right in the marrow of my sternum. I was holding him – clutching him really – and I just understood that I wanted him to be here and to have everything.
“Oh F**k, I’m John”
…
I’m not John (I mean, I still want to be but..) I’m not him.
I wasn’t tearing-up. I didn’t start telling Atlas I loved him. I didn’t even mention this intense sense of protection I felt to anyone. It was just how things were. 2-hours prior – ‘we made a mistake’, now – ‘my life for you’.
I’m not trying to underplay any of this for dramatic effect, but – put simply – I think what I was feeling was love.
Well, it was at least a kind of love.
As someone who tried for years to write a hit country song, I can tell you that this ‘root in my chest’ sensation wouldn’t make a great chorus. It was more like a rock or an anchor – something solid and necessary. It was the color Gray. Although it was new, it also felt as common as a sedan in a Target parking lot.
It just was a thing. The right thing? I don’t know, it was just how things were.
Maybe I don’t know what love is most of the time, or, what’s more likely, is that I want it to be something bigger. If love is framed in my world as ‘the biggest and best emotion’ – I always expect it to be at that huge level…but sometimes it’s just some-smaller, necessary thing.
I don’t know John very well (never meet your idols – right?) but maybe John didn’t spend 1999 bumping Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet soundtrack. Maybe John’s understanding of love acknowledges these more elementary moments. Maybe he recognizes non-glitzy versions of love. Or, maybe John just didn’t overthink his kids’ births.
Maybe all the ‘feelings’ that the other parents shared in the backyard that day were just iterations of ‘love’. I think they were because otherwise wouldn’t we have all just walked away from the recovery room? It’s just, maybe love is just good at disguises and hard to pin-down when it’s not standing out in its full Hollywood glory.
As for finding out if I’m going to be a good parent right at birth…
On my second kid now, I think anything that what happens in the hospital is probably a bad litmus test for how someone will fare as a parent in general. And if that’s true, then feeling big ol’ Michale Bubble style love for a screaming blood-cover wad of flesh upon first sight is probably an even worse litmus test for being a great Dad (though it might be a rather good test for a career in taxidermy).
Still, I think many of us might be pretty anxious about how we’ll actually feel when we see our baby for the first time. But that first time, there’s like a million things going on. So, I think maybe the best way to understand how you feel isn’t be assessing your emotions, but by paying attention to ‘what you do’ and ‘what you think is necessary to do’. Love can be rocking a baby, being really picky about how their head is supported, holding their hand…love can show itself in all these little symptoms
But again, don’t base anything on what happens while in the hospital – that’s a bizarre place that exists only to deliver babies and then give parents enough false confidence to enable them to get all the way home before they realize they have no idea how to do this.