Baby reaching for other parent
My daughter did something today that simultaneously made my heart melt and completely broke it, and I feel a little ridiculous about how hard it hit me.
She's almost 6 months old, and today she woke up from a nap with her dad. She was happy to see me, and when I came over she leaned back like she wanted to be picked up, so I grabbed her, changed her diaper, and picked her back up. A few minutes later, her dad came around the corner and came over to give us a hug.
And she REALLY reached for him.
I'm talking whole body turned toward him, both arms stretched out, leaning as far as she possibly could like, "I WANT YOU."
She's never done that before. Not to him. Not to me. This was the first time she has ever so obviously reached for a specific person.
And I cried.
The stupid thing is that it also made me happy. I genuinely love that she loves her daddy. I WANT her to adore him, and seeing them have a good relationship is something I hope I get to watch for the rest of my life.
But damn, I wanted that first.
I think there's a lot wrapped up in why it hurt so much. I've struggled with postpartum depression and anxiety since having her, and especially in the beginning, I was terrified that I wouldn't bond with my baby the way I was "supposed" to. I worried that something would be missing, that maybe I wouldn't feel like her mom, or that she wouldn't feel that connection to me.
Instead, I fell completely, ridiculously in love with this little girl. Our bond became one of the most important things in the world to me.
I've also spent a lot of my life feeling like the person who doesn't get picked. The person people can take or leave. The person who loves people harder than they love me back. I don't think I realized until today that somewhere along the way, becoming a mom touched that part of me too. There was this tiny part of me that thought, "Finally. I'm going to have this incredible bond with someone, and I'm going to be somebody's person simply because I'm Momma."
So when she threw those little arms toward her dad, my rational brain was saying, "Oh my God, look how much she loves her daddy 🥹," while some much older, more wounded part of me was saying, "Of course I wasn't the first one she did it to; I'm replaceable here too."
Our current situation probably makes that fear louder, too. Her dad has been home for the last couple of weeks while I'm working. During the week, I get a couple of hours with her in the evening before bedtime, and then I soak up as much time with her as I can on the weekends. His work slows down during the winter, so this is pretty much what the next several months will look like too: Daddy will be home with her a lot more while Mom goes to work.
I'm genuinely grateful that she gets all of that time with her dad. I know how fortunate she is to have a dad who gets the opportunity to be so present with her. But there's also this scared little part of me that wonders, "What if all those extra hours mean he becomes her person? What if I'm the parent she loves, but he's the one she wants?"
Her dad noticed me quietly crying afterward and asked what was wrong. When I tried to explain it, he laughed because from the outside it sounds like such a tiny thing to cry over. And logically, I know that. She's a baby. She wasn't ranking her parents. She wasn't choosing Daddy over Mommy. She saw someone she loves and discovered that she could throw her entire tiny body toward him to communicate that she wanted him.
But I think that's when I realized I wasn't really crying because my daughter reached for her dad.
I was crying because I wanted so badly to know what it felt like to be someone's first choice.
And that's a really lonely thing to admit.
I don't actually need to be my daughter's favorite person every second of every day. She's going to love so many people throughout her life, and I WANT that for her. I want her to have an incredible relationship with her dad, grandparents, family, friends, and someday people I haven't even met yet.
I think what I'm really longing for is to feel irreplaceable to someone.
There's probably some working-mom guilt mixed into all of this too. I spend all day missing her, thinking about her, wondering what she's doing, and counting down until I get those couple of hours with her at night, while knowing that an entire little life is happening during all the hours I'm gone. After already spending the first months of motherhood battling my own brain and worrying about whether we'd bond, I think I'm terrified of finally finding this enormous love and somehow losing my place in it.
I know that's not how love works. I know a baby doesn't calculate attachment by tallying up hours or decide she only gets one "person." I know her loving and reaching for Daddy doesn't subtract anything from her relationship with me.
Apparently knowing something logically and getting your heart to believe it are two very different things.
I'm sure someday she'll come crawling or running toward me with her arms stretched out yelling "MOMMY," and I'll probably absolutely lose it when she does.
But tonight I'm sitting with one of the stranger things motherhood has taught me: becoming a parent doesn't just introduce you to this brand-new little person and all of their firsts.
Sometimes it introduces you to parts of yourself you didn't realize were still hurting.
Anyone else have a completely innocent baby moment absolutely wreck you like this?