Loving Through Everything: New Parent Edition

About a year and a half ago we were still dealing with the loss of Mason and I wrote this post Loving Through Everything about my husband and our relationship. At the time, we were going through the hardest time in our lives as a couple. I never thought we would be in a place similar to that again but here we are 16 months later with a newborn baby and our world was turned upside-down (but in a good way this time). Even though the change was good, not all the after-effects were. Before I write everything else I just wanted to say that I will always tell the truth in my blogs. Just because my life takes a turn I don't like, doesn't mean I won't talk about it. My husband and I have also talked about it, and he agrees this is a topic that is ok for me to write about.

Right after Averie came home from the SCN I quickly realized I was in over my head. The every 2 hour feedings were running me ragged and although my husband took 3 weeks off of work to help me I quickly realized that there wasn't much for him to do unless he miraculously started lactating. We have never done this full-time-newborn-parenting thing and we were learning as we went. No amount of research really prepares you for a newborn because your kid can be completely different from another kid. It's great to have a plan but don't kid yourself into thinking it's any more than a plan. In the first few days my husband was great- he would get me whatever I needed and made sure that I ate regularly (i kept forgetting to with everything else I had going on) and he would switch off with me during the night-time feedings.

After about a week of this and severe sleep deprivation we both started to lose it a bit. I wrote a little bit about it in my last post. I had an easier time with adjusting to my new lack of sleep but I was still pretty stressed and cranky. I constantly worried that we were doing things correctly and spent a ton of time on my phone trying to research every little decision. My husband started to be come distant and very short tempered with me. Of course I didn't take any of that like a champ, and responded with the same level of annoyance.

The one bright spot in this, neither of us ever acted like we were upset with the baby and we never acted mean to each other on a personal level. I can't speak for what was going on in his mind but I can attest that whatever was bothering me when it came time to be around the baby I could turn it off an focus on her exclusively. I assume Kev did the same, because he never acted upset or tired around Averie.

What was happening was we were forgetting about us as a couple. It scared me how quickly we both neglected the other and only focused on the baby. I truly believe that to have a happy marriage you MUST put in the effort on each other, or it will just crumble. A little 'us' time is crucial for Averie's sake. We want her to grow up knowing what a healthy and happy relationship is... and for a few weeks in the beginning we forgot about that. The best way I can describe what was happening was we were acting like a team, (getting things done, and doing it well) but we weren't acting like us. We are known for being a fun and silly couple. We are best friends and that's usually evident after spending some time with us. I started to feel like I was losing my best friend, and losing myself in the process.

Like I said before, I can't speak for Kev but I was feeling pretty small and unimportant. It started to hurt how much he was neglecting me on a regular basis. I felt like when I walked into a room he didn't look at me, he was looking around me for the baby. He stopped helping me with the little things that allowed me to have time for myself so he could sleep more. I found myself alone a lot, and while I loved my alone time with the baby I realized I would go hours without saying any actual words to another person. In the first week of Averie's life I made sure to get up early and make myself presentable- doing my hair and makeup- because it made me feel good but as my husband stopped looking I stopped caring and spent weeks in my pj's going days without even looking at myself in the mirror.

Right before my husband went back to work I just broke down crying in front of him and told him how I felt: he wasn't helping me enough, he needed to step up his involvement, and he needed to pay attention to me. I very clearly can see the look on his face when I think about this particular moment. The baby had been asleep in her crib and I had just taken a shower where I balled my eyes out. He went to make sure the baby was still sleeping and I was putting my pj's on unable to hide my tears. I couldn't suffer in silence any longer. My husband hates to see me cry, and I hate crying in front of him and we both knew in this moment we had to talk, it couldn't go on any longer. It seems silly now that I even let myself feel that low for so long because once I put all my feeling out in the open he completely understood where I was coming from and wanted to correct what I felt he was doing wrong. I expected him to lay into me about what I was doing too but he didn't. He just apologized and acknowledged how I was feeling and promised to help.

Things were great until he had to start juggling a full time work schedule and helping me in the middle of the night. For the record, at this point we were both only getting up once at night (the 2-hour night time feedings well behind us) but it was a lot for him and he became overwhelmed and tired. I think we feed off each other's energy because as soon as I sensed him going down that familiar path I did too. Even as I was aware of it, I couldn't do much to stop it. I like to blame things on hormones but I think what it really came down to was this: I am used to my husband making me feel amazing and lifting me up for the last 8 years. When he stops doing that I let myself fall back down again. This is not his fault. Everyone deserves to be devastatingly tired and have some time to adjust. These are my own insecurities and faults coming through, and I shouldn't depend so much on another person to make me feel good. (More on that topic in another post)

The last straw for me was when he stopped saying "I love you" before we got off the phone and he stopped kissing me hello and goodbye. I know those sound small but you have to understand that every day of our relationship these things have been the norm. I wasn't used to the simplest parts of my day just vanishing. It really felt like the bread and butter of our relationship just vanished and I would cry. I would sit and cry and think "I just want my husband back." Even thinking about it now, it's one of the saddest points in our relationship. I just felt invisible. There was one point where I really thought "maybe i should just do this on my own" and it's the first time in our entire marriage where I considered things without him by my side. It was a fleeting moment, and I knew I would never go through with it- but that thought running through my head was enough to scare me into talking to him about it.

I knew I was equally at fault in this situation. When he stopped trying, so did I and I should have had the energy to talk to him sooner instead of let our behaviors continue. It was a weird space for our relationship to be in because like i said, we weren't being mean or rude we just didn't try to be anything more than Averie's loving parents. Our attention was solely on Averie and while that was great for her as a newborn, it wasn't going to be great for her in the long run. My husband and I talk a lot about some of the couples in our lives that clearly stopped trying and caring about their partners and we never wanted to be them. As soon as I started this conversation with my husband, we both recognized traits in ourselves that resembled those couples... and that we didn't want them to become perminate traits.

This talk was different- we both had some underlying issues we had to talk through first before we could address ourselves. This was a better talk to because it wasn't just me saying "you're not doing this or this" it was more "we need to do this" and I know we both left this conversation better off. Without talking about too many of our intimate details, I will say this conversation was harder than my first tear-soaked one because there were more serious issues to be discussed. When I told him about my fleeting thought of being a single mom it seemed to snap him out of whatever funk he was in. I tearfully told him that all I wanted was to be a good mom, and to actually hear him say it, because up to that point those words hadn't come from his mouth ever. It made me feel so much better once he validated all my 'crazy' and told me he really did think I was a great mom.

He gave me a few things that I needed to work on too- like realizing how hard it is to juggle work and home, and that I needed to relax a little with the baby (in the beginning i wasn't too keen on letting the baby out of my arms for longer than a few minutes and I never wanted to leave the house), and that we needed to have fun again. He was right about all of them and since this last conversation (a few weeks ago now) things have been so much better for us. I didn't even realize how neurotic I was being about going out until he pointed it out.

I know that he sees me now. I don't feel so invisible, or like a walking feed trough. We've been working out together, going on dates and have been more adventurous with our outings with the baby. He has been helping me more (although I think we need someone else to help us with the house lol because neither of us seem to be able to accomplish that) and he has been more present when we are together which is all I really needed. I do my best to really listen to him to make sure he is having fun, and that we are doing things he enjoys. I have made conscious efforts not to nag him as much about things around the house... but lets be honest, he doesn't have the best memory so I always come out as a nag in the end, but hey we are both still a work in progress.

One thing that still hasn't changed in our new chapter in life is how much we love each other and want our relationship to continue to grow. All couples go through rough patches, it's how you handle them that counts. He could have easily told me I was just being hormonal and brushed off my feelings both times but he didn't, he always listens to where I am coming from. I could have easily just said "your lazy- you are the worst dad" but it never crossed my mind to do so, instead I explained why I needed help and he was happy to help me. People say the first year of marriage is the hardest, but I'd put my money on the first few months of having a baby as the hardest because it's so easy to forget how you got there when you put all your energy into loving and caring for your child. It makes me feel good to come out on the other side of a hard time knowing we grew together instead of growing apart. Knowing that even when mom and dad were going through a hard time Averie felt nothing but love. One day she'll be able to recognize that no matter what her mom and dad not only love her, but they love each other and will do whatever it takes to make her home a happy one.