Bonding

The boys are turning three in just a few weeks.  Three!  I can hardly believe it.  I was feeling nostalgic this evening and pulled up some of our video of the boys as babies.  It has been a very long time since I looked at that footage.  For a while, it was painful to look at, because of the open wounds left from my postpartum depression.  But once I had healed, I looked back and could smile at the cute baby things they did – cooing, drooling, smiling, crying. 

Watching this footage tonight, I experienced something wholly new. It is hard to describe, but it was as if I saw the same scenes through different eyes. What once looked like typical baby stuff is now strikingly familiar and unique.  My guys are there.  They WERE there – I just didn’t know them yet.  Lukey’s concentration, Ethan’s expressiveness.  I hear their voices in the cries, the squeals.  The smiles are the same.  The things they laugh at are the same. The facial expressions, the mannerisms – so, so much the same.

It makes me think of a conversation I had with my dad early on.  When the boys were about six weeks old, and I was still unaware of the postpartum depression that was creeping up on me, I shared with my dad my sadness at not feeling “bonded” with the boys.  I don’t know exactly what I expected to feel, but whatever I defined as “bonding” – I didn’t think it was happening.  My dad said something along the lines of “Jess, you have a lifetime of bonding with these children.  Did you think it all happened at once, in the beginning?  There is so much you are going to go through together, so much to learn about them.  Bonding is a life-long process.”

His words were great comfort to me then, and ring so true to me now.  I loved these little boys the moment I knew they were inside me, but falling IN love with them is a constant, deepening process.  I don’t just love them because they are my babies, but I love them because of who they are.  Our time together brings us shared joys, shared challenges.  With every experience, with every day, our “bond” grows stronger.

To look back at those babies in the videos and be able to see my Ethan and my Lucas…it makes me want to hold them again, kiss their little cheeks and tell them that we have so much to look forward to together.  And to tell them how much I love going through each and every day with them, getting to know more of how extraordinary they are and growing closer all the time.