[spaypets]

Lisa brings up good points -- I have gone as far as wearing mother daughter outfits (I just mentioned this on another thread)--in part because I enjoy the irony of being a fair skinned bottle blonde dressed like my beautiful brown girl. But part of it is claiming her too -- a shorthand way of saying to strangers in a group "Hey, we go together."

We're Jewish, so the whole conversion (involved dunking her in our pond) supported my feelings of entitlement, as did the naming ceremony we had several months later.

DD is a mimic and imitates my and DH's gestures and expressions. Our friends and family have noticed and even though we look nothing alike, comment on the resemblance. She borrows our phrases--few things are funnier than to hear a 3-year-old imitate some grown up phrase ("That's the plan" is a big one right now at our hosue) that you don't realize you say.

I don't think I ever really struggled with entitlement per se. Indeed, one of the hardest things about the long wait was my overwhelming sense of entitlement. As in: "I followed all the rules and all the directions, jumped through all the hoops. I am entitled to a baby NOW."

But I think we all need to feel like we are parents, not babysitters. Even now, when I hear other mothers talk about how they'd take a bullet for their kids, I wonder if I really have it in me or is my sense of self preservation stronger than that. Don't get me wrong, I love my daughter, but I wonder if I'm fierce enough.