The doctor in the emergency room barely got out the words "you're pregnant" before I began bonding with my baby. All of the strange symptoms I had been experiencing - the rapid heartbeat, the exhaustion, and the strange rash on my right side - all seemed to disappear. I was pregnant and all I knew to do was talk to my baby; express how much I loved him or her and how much I couldn't wait for him or her to arrive.
As time past, I talked more and more to my baby. I got the strangest looks as I explained to the little life growing inside of me about all the vitamins and minerals in the foods we were buying at the grocery store. I apologized over and over for all the cheese we were eating, carefully explaining how Momma couldn't keep milk down and we had have our calcium. The check-out girl thought I insane was explained to my unseen baby that there were twenty-five pennies in a quarter and four quarters in a dollar as she handed me my change.
I read aloud constantly. Anything I could get my hands on, I read to my baby. The one book I read from the most was the Bible. Everyday, I read Deuteronomy 28, stressing verse 12 that told us that we are the head and not the tail; above only and not beneath." My son or daughter was not going to struggle with self-esteem, self-confidence and the sense of self-worth. Once I learned my baby was a girl, I read Proverbs 31 to her several times a day. She was going to know what it took to be a woman whose value was far above rubies.
She and I listened to music together. We listened to my church favorites like "Power in the Blood", "Hold the Fort" (my grandfather's favorite song) and "Not By Might." We also listened to Celtic music. Not only would my daughter know about her spiritual roots, but her family roots as well. Don Henley is one of my favorite singer/songwriters of all times, so we listened to his music also.
I told all of my friends and family from out of town to make audio tapes so we could listen to them together. I wanted her to learn all about words and they way people from all over spoke them. A dear friend from Poland even sent us tapes of her speaking Polish and Russian. I had no idea what she was saying, but my baby was hearing every word. When I would talk to people I knew on the telephone, I would hold the phone to my enlarging tummy and have them talk to my daughter.
As a first time mother, I was told by many mothers that I was going overboard and my daughter was experiencing an "information overload" before she was even born. I didn't care. She must know that she was loved and wanted long before I could hold her and she could see all those things in my eyes that my feeble words could not express.
In the birthing suite, I begged my doctor to let me push more because I couldn't wait to see her. We laughed and cheered as I pushed and pushed, trying to get her here as quickly as possible. My doctor, a wonderful Christian woman, compared my labor and delivery to a football game where the fans were thrilled their team was winning.
"Come to Momma," I told her, reaching as far as I could for her, the moment she was born. "I love you. I have to tell you so many things."
I was teased by my sister-in-law that once my daughter was born, I would have nothing to say to her because I had already told her everything. That was not the case. I re-told her about Jesus and how much He loved her. I told her the story again about how her Daddy and I met. My doctor and the two nurses stood and watched as I, once again, tried to express all the feelings in my overflowing heart.
I cried as if my world had ended when her Daddy cut the umbilical cord. She was now a separate individual, her own little person to make it on her own - with my help, of course. I didn't know if I could ever have her be a part of me again. The one physical thing that kept us forever linked had been severed. Now, I explain to her about her belly button and what it means to us. She puts her tummy and against mine and we touch belly buttons. "We are still together," she laughs as she pushed her tummy against mine.
All of the bonding I tried to do with my daughter did have an immediate effect on her. My doctor gave her a nine out of ten points on her APGAR test because she wasn't born saying "I am the head and not the tail, above only and not beneath." She had heard me say that so many times as my daughter and I went for our check ups. "I am genuinely surprised that baby wasn't born talking," I heard my doctor tell my mother moments after I was holding my daughter for the first time. "I never knew a mom who talked so much to their unborn baby. I ran into her at the store once and that baby knew about everything in the cart."
The nurses had to wait to weigh and bathe her. Her daddy and I were too busy looking at her and talking to her to be bothered with the mundane details the nurses normally would have done immediately. It was part of the birth plan I had made with my doctor - as soon as she was born, I was to hold her and let her nurse, but only if everything was okay. Everything must have been okay because she was almost three hours old before she had her first bath and we knew how much she weighed.
She was twenty-two minutes old before she "got groceries" for the first time. That is what I called it the first time we nursed and that term stuck. She would have gotten groceries sooner, but I was too busy talking to her and I forgot she was probably hungry. We said grace before she ate for the first time. Even my mom, who never eats a bite of anything with praying first, laughed when I laid her little hands on top of the other and thanked God for the good groceries He had helped me make for her.
Getting groceries turned out be the wonderful way she and I would bond. So wonderful, in fact, we still get groceries together. Just once a day, before bed, but we still do it. The world stops as we nurse. The phone is turned off and there is no television in the background. We don't even listen to music. That is something between just "us girls" and nothing comes between us when we get groceries.
When she was first born, I would touch her little cheek with my finger and talk to her as she got her groceries. Of course, I rattled on and on, but my tone was much softer. That was really the only time I spoke to her like she was baby. Any other time I spoke to her, I talked to her like she was an adult. I didn't know how to talk to a baby and I spoke to her like I spoke to anyone else. I tried to explain things to her in simpler words and shorter sentences, but that went out the window when she was just a few hours old.
Bath time was when she learned all of her body parts and about all the ingredients in baby shampoo and lotions. I would (still do) make up stories about bubbles and bath toys. She still asks me to tell her the story about the rubber duck that was swallowed by a bubble and taken to the land of the fairy princess and lived happily ever after in a royal baby bath tub.
Looking back, maybe I was a bit silly. I don't care. She will never doubt how much I love her and want her. She has no doubts her Daddy feels the same way. She is now able to tell everyone that she is "head not tail; I above and not beneath." She knows how much she is loved. She will never forget that as long as she lives. Silly? Probably, but I wouldn't change a thing. She and I share a bond that will never be broken, even though that umbilical cord was cut. Our bond now is much stronger than that cord ever could have been. I am the Momma and she is the daughter. Nothing comes between that as long as we love each other.