Читать книгу Your First Grandchild: Useful, touching and hilarious guide for first-time grandparents - Paul Greenwood - Страница 26

I knew that Mum wanted to be with me during the birth, and felt very guilty about excluding her. I think I’d also want to be with my daughter, and can quite understand the impulse. But I just felt that I might not be able to do it with her there. Firstly, there is the privacy issue – we have never been a family to walk about the house naked. But more important than this was my concern that, were she there. I would feel like a daughter, and not like a mother myself. My Mum is very, very sympathetic and nurturing, and I worried that her concern would weaken me. My husband, on the other had, is extremely pragmatic. With him there, I felt I’d just have to get on with it – which I did!

So … the big event is over. To everyone’s joy and excitement, the baby has arrived. You hurry to the hospital and gaze upon the new infant. Don’t worry too much if you don’t feel deep affection for him or her at once. I found, from talking to others, that what happened to my husband and me is very common. Though you are proud and happy, you feel at first a little shy of the baby, of this little stranger who has arrived in your lives. Often there isn’t the immediate bonding that happens with your own child. But then, quite suddenly – sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but always when you are least expecting it – you fall helplessly and head-over-heels in love with your grandchild. You are utterly besotted and in a state of infatuation which, happily, will last for as long as you live!