By A Cogent 
I remember lying there, having just heard the first screams of my newly-born baby girl. Feeling incredibly worn out, yet incredibly relieved to hear her little voice for the first time. They handed her to me, skin to skin, and I fully expected a wave of motherly love. Instead, one of fear, curiosity, and hope came over me. I wanted to learn how to take care of her, how to cherish her, how to meet her every need. After all, I had just carried her for nine months; I’d done lots of rubbing of my belly, talking to her, singing to her, reading all the things to do (and not do) while expecting. And yet that wave of motherly love everyone seemed to talk about? I’m not sure it just came like an overwhelming flood of emotion. I do remember caressing her face, holding her close, not wanting to let go, and thinking, I hope I’m enough for you. I will do my best, and I’m so excited to get to know you.
But for years, I felt a hidden shame over not having the instant bond with my daughter that everyone else seemed to describe. I was comforted by the fact that a bond did develop over the following days, nights, months, and years. That by the time my second daughter came along, that wave of motherly love did come over me when the nurse handed me her little newborn body. But shame would speak back, Why did you get it with her, but not your first?
Until I began digging into my healing journey. Until I began unpacking childhood wounds and trauma. Until I picked up the book Mother Hunger and learned that if one didn’t experience maternal nurturance in the womb and during infancy, it will influence a mother’s ability to bond with her own children, because she never experienced it with her mother. In other words, what came naturally to so many of my mom friends couldn’t come naturally to me, because it wasn’t given to me. In fact, I learned that my first three days of life in the hospital were spent alone. No, I wasn’t in the NICU with parents who came to visit whenever they were allowed to. Instead, I was quite literally abandoned with no skin-to-skin, no motherly touch, no familiar voice to lean into.
Is it no wonder that when my daughter was handed to me, my inner child—with her wounds and the emptiness of those newborn days (which turned into months and years, far into foster care)—had no idea what motherly love felt like in that moment?
As I began to navigate the healing journey, my shame began to dissipate. Instead, I began to feel pride. Not the arrogant kind. Oh no, it was the celebratory kind. The kind rooted in grace and gratitude through my Heavenly Father. The kind that says, “Your daughter knows motherly love because you broke the cycle. One day, when she has children of her own, she won’t have to feel lost or afraid or confused. Because she will have experienced the bond between you. From the very beginning.”
You see, my birth mother’s mother abandoned her as well. There has been an unnurturing cycle of maternal nonexistence from long before I probably even realized it. And yet, my daughter from infancy knew, even when I doubted my qualifications, the love I had for her. No, it didn’t come over me in an instantaneous wave of emotion. It trickled in during the first few moments of holding her in awe as I thought, It’s so nice to see your little face after all this time of growing you inside. It continued filling in in the wee hours of the night, when her little cries asked to be nursed, and I found myself singing to her You are my sunshine… It eventually came in the giggles of her discovery of this world. It came in the hours I reserved just for her when I got off work, putting off chores. It continued to grow in the months and weeks before her sister arrived, and I insisted on as much one-on-one time with her as possible, to savor her only-child status.
And looking back, when that instantaneous wave came over me with my second daughter, it wasn’t because I somehow loved her more. It was because I had experienced that love with my firstborn. Indeed, she taught me what that bond felt like through my hard work and purposeful choices. Then it did come naturally with my second.
And maybe, just maybe, my inner child finally understood, was finally repaired, and allowed me to pass on a cycle of overwhelming love, the choice to continue to let go of generational hurts, and the ability to carry the mother-daughter bond into the birth story.
by Leslie Deane-Mountjoy 
by Kirstyn Wegner 
by Amanda Guarniere 
