On my first day of full time, solo parenting I managed to clip the tip off of Miss E’s big toe while trying to trim her toenails—I’ve not touched baby nail clippers since that day. I think that was one of the first times I’d ever really felt like her mother. I’d made, what seemed like, this huge mistake and there wasn’t a nurse hovering over my shoulder to fix it up for me.

If bonding with a healthy, full term baby is difficult than bonding with a premmie must be a whole different ball game. This is the story of my attempts at bonding with Miss E while in the NICU.

Miss E was born via emergency caesarean due to severe preeclampsia. I’ve said before that after she was born they pulled her resuscitaire up beside me to show me her face. What I didn’t say was that I really didn’t care. I don’t know if it was a result of the drugs or an emotional response, but it’s a great source of shame, sadness and disappointment for me. I never expected to react like that to the first time I saw my own baby. After that she was whisked away and I didn’t see her again, while lucid, until two days later.

I barely remember seeing her that time, even though the drugs had worn off and the addled knowledge that I was going to die mingled with a desperate need for sleep had gone away. Two days later I sat by her Perspex box in a wheelchair because I still couldn’t get my legs to work, swallowing back tears as Miss E’s nurse uncovered her isolette and lowered it so I could see in.

There, in a nest of wires and tubes, was my little girl and I felt nothing but fear. How do you bond with a creature that looks nothing like any baby you’d ever seen? A baby you’re afraid to touch because her skin is so fragile that it tears when she has her diaper changed and you can’t bear to cause her more pain. Even if you wanted to touch you can barely see enough skin to make contact.

Beyond just the physical limitations I was still dealing with the loss of my pregnancy and the birth I so desperately wanted. Not to mention shock. I think I lived in a bubble of shock and fear for two weeks. Afraid to touch or even talk to her with the portholes open in case I was sick and didn’t know. My mantra became “you’ll never forgive yourself if she dies because of you”. I don’t know how much time I spent making up excuses to not go to see her. I would have done almost anything to stay away from that horrible place.

The next four weeks were spent in a blur of expressing breast milk, containment holding and reading fairytales. I thought I was bonding. At the very least I wasn’t avoiding her.

Part 2 to come.