As with anything involving a confession of shortcomings, this is a hard post to write. It is especially hard because the shortcomings involve my children and parenting. But as we all know confession is healthy, cathartic, might help us keep from repeating the same mistakes again, and might even help another brother or sister in Christ. ... But this post isn't about confession... Yeah I'm stalling.
So here it goes. (deep breathe and words tumbling out in a rush) Going from one to two babies has been hard, hard. It has been challenging in many ways, but especially so emotionally. I didn't feel the same way toward Evie when she was born as I did toward Eb. In fact I struggled to feel that gushing affection for her for almost two months. Whew. There it is. Ugly, huh? I feel like it is which is why I was afraid to say it.
I loved Evie deeply from the first moment I knew I was pregnant with her - but I didn't feel a super intimate connection with her until fairly recently.
I know part of this struggle was connected with all the challenges and long recovery postpartum - PPD and exhaustion definitely played a huge role in my emotional sloppiness.
Haley over at The Tiny Twig identified another part of what I was experiencing in
this post:
"To be fair, I loved Cooper immediately. But, I loved him because I knew I was supposed to. I loved him by virtue of being my son. In a lot of ways, I loved Cooper because I saw the love Noah had for him.
I didn’t feel the same intimate “I’ve known you forever” connection that I felt after having Noah. I didn’t get to log hours staring at his sweet face. Sweet Cooper logged a lot of time in the Baby Bjorn or bouncy seat while I chased after Noah, who was a crazy climber by that point.
I remember confessing to Mike a few weeks after Cooper was born that I was worried I’d never feel connected to him like I did Noah. I felt guilty even entertaining those thoughts, let alone actually feeling them and verbalizing them to the father of these boys.
It wasn’t until Cooper was about 9 months old and had begun to develop a little personality of his own that I really felt equally attached to both boys. I had always had a strong affection for Cooper and I had a deep feeling of responsibility for him, but I finally began to know him and feel bonded and connected.
And now, it’s as if those early fears of not loving another child as much as my first never even existed. I couldn’t adore Cooper more if he paid me a million dollars and took me on a vacation to the moon. Even if it took me a bit of time to feel intimately connected with Coop, it is true that love is multiplied with each child and never divided."
Just like her I loved Evie from before she was born, and in part loved her more because of Eb's love for her...
.... but didn't feel intimately connected to her the way I felt with Eb.
Reading this nailed down my true hurtle to feeling intimately connected to Evie - fear.
I wrestled and struggled with this lack of intimacy for months. Desiring to connect to Evie but never quite accomplishing it, always feeling like I should give her more but not sure how. When I cried out to the Lord about this he showed me my fear and that it was causing me to hold back, that I was preventing my heart from growing. I had been afraid since Eb's birth that my heart wasn't deep enough to love another baby like I loved him - after all he had plumbed depths I didn't even know existed. I was afraid that if I really tried, really poured all of me into my littles, I would discover to my dismay that there just wasn't enough room in my heart for both of them. I was afraid loving Evie with all my might would somehow diminish or deprive Eb of the love he needed, or make me love him less. I was worried Eb might feel replaced if he saw me making over his sister too much. Accompanying this somewhat horrifying revaluation came the prompting to love all out, all of the time - to not hold back. The Lord comforted and assured me that he would cover the gaps and that he created my heart with the incredible ability to expand.
So I did. I broke down that dam that I was using to meter out what I thought was a finite supply of love only to find my heart completely overwhelmed and engulfed with love! It's all there and then some!
When I called out to the Lord and embraced his prompting all of my fears were exposed as the lies from Satan that they were. Where I was afraid that loving Evie would leave less of my heart for Eb, nothing could be further from the truth! He already loved her more than I could have ever hoped, now our shared love of her deepened our love for each other and our love for her. It's kind of like a reflection of light bouncing between mirrors, not only is the light undiminished but because of the mirrors more light is visible and we get to see different spectrums because of the multiplication through the mirrors.
If you hear those lies from Satan, if you feel those fears, call them out. Then lean into God and trust him to fill you where you're lacking as you pour yourself into your beautiful children and loved ones around you. I promise he will not disappoint!
Please check out Haley's full post here - it was so encouraging to me I'm sure it will lift you up too!
