They are now five days old and I watch her and marvel--she's never had puppies before, she had no training or preparation--she didn't even understand what was happening to her as she grew larger and more unwieldy as the days progressed. And yet, even though she is a spoilt and coddled little darling and this was sprung upon her without warning, she is such an excellent little mother it is heartwrenching.
For the first four days she would not leave the box with the babies in it for more than the 30 seconds it would take her to go use her potty pad. Food and water had to be delivered to her or she would not eat or drink. The tiniest squeak of one of the babies put her on instant alert, looking for it, then licking and nuzzling and nudging it towards her belly until it quieted.
She has allowed nothing to interfere with the well-being of her children, denying herself sustenance, staying indoors, sleeping in the box instead of on my pillow where she has slept since she came to us 3.5 years ago...those babies come before anything else in her world just now...
And I have to wonder, what was wrong with our mothers that we were never accorded the kind of selfless mother-love that even a spoilt and pampered little dog can give to her puppies, and how sad it is that my dog's concern and care for her babies is so much greater than our mothers ever had for us.
Great story! It just goes to show that our "mothers" are unknown creatures. The majority of animals that I know about goes out their way to protect their own. The sadistic Narcs are not so. I always wander what are these creatures good for?
ReplyDeleteThis post reminds me of when I had my son. I was unexpectedly pregnant (I had thought I didn't want kids) and terrified of being a mother.
ReplyDeleteI was blown away by the protective instincts even just minutes after he was born. It wasn't "love at first sight" like some new moms talk about, but I fell totally in love with my baby not long after.
Everything I felt about my son belied the wrongness of my own mother. Before then, it was easy for me to assume I was an unloveable kid.
Your doggie is adorable. Congrats on the puppies!
Thanks Anonymous and Vicarious for writing. I find myself marvelling at the mixed emotions I feel in dealing with these puppies and their mother, how pleased I am they are here, how cute they are, how I can't wait until their eyes open and they become playful (Yorkies are high energy dogs and Yorkie puppies are just full of the dickens--they are SO much fun!), counterpointed with a sense of loss I had thought long purged. Perhaps that feeling never, ever goes away, it just becomes sufficiently buried that we can live without it sharply poking us every day.
ReplyDeleteBoth of my little Yorkie girls came to me at a very young age and they have been raised with the kind of nurturing and coddling that any young child should have. They are both loving and sweet, so much so that the younger Yorkie, who is, at 19 months, is too young to breed, is constantly trying to take a puppy for herself!
For them it is not a choice--it is instinct, pure and simple. But those of us who have had babies ourselves, know that that instinct is alive and well in humans because we have experienced ourselves. The difference between us and the dogs is cognition--we can choose to follow those instincts or not. And when our child is more important to us than our ownselves, we choose to follow it...
Aww, congratulations on the puppies!
ReplyDeleteI like the comparison you make in this post. I'm not a mother, so I can't understand the "maternal instinct" thing first hand. But when I see babies, sometimes I get such an overwhelmingly happy and pure feeling in my heart, which is what I image to be the maternal instinct and God's love all at once.
The thing with my mother that makes it so hard to deal with her is she isn't entirely void if being loving. As in, she didn't entirely drop her maternal duties. In fact, my NM is engulfing and started showing her NPD when I went against her wishes for the first time. Before that, we were extremely close and in certain senses, enmeshed in ways that were not healthy (e.g.: think no boundaries, lack of privacy, etc). That is acceptable when a child is an infant/very young and can't take care of him or herself, but when a child starts to become an adolescent and then adult, this becomes a problem. And it was something my NM couldn't deal with.
To this day, she occasionally excuses her emotional and physical abuse for happening out of "love" and for not wanting anything bad to happen to me or my dreams/future goals. It's horridly contradictory, but I think she truly BELIEVES this to be true. The fact that she can be nice and "normal" for extended periods of time that make me believe she cares then suddenly pulls me down with abuse out of the blue is very destructive to me. Each time it happens, I feel beaten down and like life has been taken out of me. Just when I think she is getting better, I'm brought back to reality and feel stupider than ever.
In hospitals when a child is born premature and has to be taken to the NICU for three weeks, the mothers generally undergo severe separation distress and anxiety and literally become hysterical. Because the baby is a part of them and taking the baby away is akin to asundering one's flesh. Do NMs who have premature babies feel the same. I would like to know.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if anyone ever studied that, but I would guess that they have no more angst from being separated from a preemie than they would from a full term infant. The difference would most likely be they would revel in the Nsupply of pity and sympathy and concern expressed by others over the premature birth.
DeletePerfect. Curse the child for costing her so much money and so much time away from party and frolic. Hate the child for being physically fragile and needing extra attention and silently hope it dies!!!
DeleteThank you for sharing your experiences! I am currently battling my SIL for custody of my beautiful Neice. She has been through so much in her short 15 years; every minute of it occupying the position of ScapeGoat to her NPMother. NMom is an expert at manipulation and my Neice...??? oh she lies, she's trouble, she's the cause of our problems, etc, etc etc. In fighting to protect her from this Predator(mother) I have gotten keen insight on just how hopeless she must feel. No one wants to believe ME regarding what is happening (with stacks of real evidence) no wonder my poor neice feels so defeated. I've made a promise that I fully intend to keep; I will never stop fighting for her!
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