Love isn’t a gift. It’s not a solution. It’s not expected to fix your depression/anxiety/whatever. Love isn’t the obsession or infatuation you see in your own twinkling eyes. Love doesn’t keep score and isn’t measured and doesn’t follow a clock. Love doesn’t preclude being angry or wanting alone time.

Love means caring, empathy, wanting what’s best for your daughter, prioritizing her well being above your own. The instinctive need to protect her. It’s stressful and it’s work. That’s it. If you recognize that you care about her well-being, you love your daughter.

Thank you for this post – it made my day and put me more at ease. My daughter is only four months old but I’m experiencing something similar to what you did: searching, searching for that moment when everything falls into place and I finally love my daughter. I do feel very warm, tender feelings of love but it’s off and on and when I don’t, I start berating myself – my anxiety goes through the roof and I feel ashamed for the thoughts and feelings I have, or the lack of the latter.

Like you, I struggle with anxiety and depression, something which really doesn’t help when facing major changes to your life. It’s far too easy to blame oneself for one’s shortcomings rather than to accept the situation and be patient.

Thank you anyway for this post.

Thanks so much Sandra!

Thanks Oren! That’s wild we wrote about the same thing. Your post is great too! That’s so cool we both got quoted in that Robert Duffer article. I completely agree w/ you about the importance of having people understand that that “click” isn’t a magic trick and that that’s ok. To me, that’s the biggest thing. I know now that it’s ok if it doesn’t happen immediately because that doesn’t mean it won’t EVER happen. Also agreed on the mother who doesn’t fall in love w/ her child immediately. No wonder post-partem depression is so rampant. You get the world telling you you’re supposed to fall in love instantly and life just isn’t like that

I’m a friend of Elaine, I’ve been waiting for the Jaffe baby for years, lol. Maybe YOU didn’t know you was in love but I believe you was in love from the beginning. From the FB pictures, comments and statuses, you were always in love,Sienna is a lucky little girl to have a father like you, waiting for your book!
From Sandra

Great post. When it happens to you, you feel like you’re the only one experiencing it, which makes everything even worse.

It’s ironic then that both of us wrote about the same thing at the same time: http://www.bloggerfather.com/2013/03/confessions-of-temporary-monster.html

One thing I mentioned in a comment on my blog, is that while this is hard to accept or understand as a dad, I assume it’s even harder for a mother who is often expected to love a child while she’s still pregnant, or at least love a child while feeding him for the first time.

Beyond your personal story (and my story), I think it’s important that we have these posts out there–maybe new parents will get to read them and understand the “click” isn’t a magic trick that happens the first time we hold our babies.

Lorne

Keep on keeping on.