This past Wednesday was my first night out, all alone. It was only for two hours to go into Gifu to meet my knitting buddies for our knit night.
It came as no surprise to me that this was as difficult as it was. It was, after all, the first time since Ewan was in the NICU that I had been separated from him, aside from one or two walks out alone with Papa.
Long before Ewan was born, Aaron and I began talking about the way we wanted to parent. We had a lot of ideas about what kind of parents we wanted to be, what kind of child we wanted to raise, and what we wanted our family to look like. I read a lot of books, not only about pregnancy and birth, but also about parenting. We ended up finding that we were most closely aligned with the Attachment Parenting style.
This style encourages parents to create a strong and secure bond with each other and with the baby. The way this bond is fostered can vary from family to family, but in our family some of the primary ways that we foster this bond have been breastfeeding, babywearing, responding quickly and consistently to his cries, and sharing sleep.
These are the things that we imagined ourselves doing before the baby was born, except for sharing sleep, but they became even more important after his time in the NICU. We were both so hurt and frustrated with the separation, so worried about our bond with Ewan and Ewan’s bond with us, that we knew we had to work hard to make up for the lost time. We had to work hard to teach Ewan that he could depend on us to meet his physical needs, that his cries would get answered quickly (something that didn’t always happen in the NICU), and that he would get the love and support that he needed to grow.
In addition, as parents we needed to be close to him to help heal the wounds, pain and disconnect that we felt after being separated for so long, after not holding our baby for over a week after birth. I, specifically, needed his closeness to help my body start producing the milk that I so desperately wanted to give to him. The attachment parenting style has helped us to meet our needs and his simultaneously.
Since the moment we have brought him home he has been in our arms, a sling, our lying next to or on us almost continuously. Initially we didn’t plan to have him share sleep with us, we only knew that we wanted to share a room. Ewan’s need for closeness, and warmth (especially in our cool Japanese apartment), and our needs for sleep ended up winning out and Ewan quickly joined us. Ever since, all three of us have gotten good sleep and woken up well-rested virtually every day.
He has taken a handful of naps independently and he is getting accustomed to lying next to us, without physical contact, at night. But for the most part he feels most calm and secure when he is physically connected to one of us. He is the first-born which means that our attention isn’t split between children, we are able and willing to give him all this attention.
But, to be perfectly honest all this does make it a bit difficult to leave. All this attention and holding means that the bond is strong, very strong, and I worry about him if I am not here. I worry when I leave. Also, I am the sole food source at the moment, yes I do have breastmilk stored in the freezer just in case, but I worked so hard to get feeding established and move my boy away from the bottle that we had to use in the hospital, that it is a little painful to go back to it.
I know it is healthy and good for us to have our time apart. I know that it is important for me to continue my life and doing things that make me happy and fulfilled, but for right now, the thing that makes me happiest is being with my husband and my son. I feel so fulfilled to be an essential, non-disposable, member of this family of three and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
