Bonding

I was one of those annoying pregnant women.

No coffee. No soda. No sugar substitutes. No non-organic food. No beef or chicken: the hormones they inject into those poor beasts!

I did prenatal yoga and continued exercising.

I was planning on birthing this babe sans drugs, in a Jacuzzi, with scores of scented candles flickering and woeful acoustic guitar music swelling in the background. My baby would room-in with me, breastfeed seconds after birth. I’d only spend a night in the hospital before whisking him home to my Brooklyn abode where no non-organic soap or cloth would touch his pristine skin.

So naive.

Of course that’s not what ended up happening. Instead, I had a c-section under general anesthesia after five days of bedrest at 28 weeks. I didn’t see MAS until over 24 hours after he was born, didn’t hold him until day 8. Didn’t take him home for another 66.

And now? Five months later he and I are as bonded as a Mama and Baby can be.

All those days of kangaroo care in the NICU, all those hours of struggling with breastfeeding. Each second I spent adding a little dab of glue, bonding us just a little bit tighter.

In the end, bonding isn’t something that happens in a day or so. It’s a process.