Rossella describes her first feelings after giving birth like this:
«It's impossible to describe the emotion, the joy I felt when, after a few pushes, I felt her slip out of me…. she was all wet, whitish from the residue of vernix, a little stained with blood… even though she was a bit different from how I had imagined her, she seemed to me right away so lovely, soft, tender… I felt the desire to hold her close, to embrace her, caress her, kiss her… the pains of labor, over just minutes before, already felt like a distant, blurred memory, of no importance at all!»
For some mothers, attachment to their child is immediate: from the very first moment after birth they recognize him as their own, and are able to pour into the baby the strong feelings of affection that characterize maternal love, feelings they had already been experiencing before the birth.
For others, the feeling builds up gradually, as if time were needed to bring the image built up during pregnancy into line with that of the real baby. In the delivery room, each woman spontaneously expresses what she feels, whether through immediate outpourings of affection and a search for contact with the newborn, or by asking to postpone the encounter to a later moment, when she is less exhausted and worn out by the pain.
It happens that even women who intensely wanted their baby may not ask to see him right after birth, may not feel the urge to hold him in their arms, or may experience him with a strong sense of unfamiliarity that freezes their feelings. Even though their behavior departs from the image we usually have of maternal love, this doesn't mean they can't be good mothers! They simply need time and support to work through the deep, conflicting feelings from their past that resurface with the birth of their child, feelings that risk feeding a sense of inadequacy toward the baby.