Marriage After Baby

Perry and I just celebrated our two-year wedding anniversary. Around this time two years ago, I was graduating from my higher degree program, working into the wee hours of the night making wedding decorations and still unpacking the house we bought a month prior. I remember feeling so lucky to have met my person (and I still do!).

Fast forward to today, our relationship has changed so much. Many things for the better, but to be a honest, there have been some rough spots that we had to work very hard to overcome.

It's no secret that life after baby is hard. Between the sleepless nights, the worry, the HORMONES, and the steep-ass learning curve of parenting, there is not much room for romance.

Of course I heard how hard it was going to be from others, but I don't think I believed how truly taxing it would become on my relationship until things started to get a wee bit turbulent. A few weeks into motherhood and I was still all googly-eyed for Perry; I thought for sure we were the exception to the rule. WRONG. Suddenly the sleep deprivation caught up with us and our patience for each other was minimal. We fought, we snapped at each other, we said some untactful things. I resented him for not having boobs and not knowing what postpartum felt like, and he resented me for resenting him. Although we both tried so hard to keep our feelings in check, sometimes our emotions got the best of us. I understand why they use sleep deprivation as a torture technique. It took a toll on my marriage, my life and my self-esteem.

I wish I was kinder back then. I wish I would have taken a deep a breath every time I felt like spitting venom at my husband. I wish we would have asked for more help from our friends so that we could have gone on a thirty minute bike ride, just the two of us. Hell, a nap at the same time may have done the trick.

But here we are. Married with a seven-month-old and learning what our love looks like in this new chapter, because he is my person, and I am his. I find that we’re beginning to do small, simple little things to show that we care. He braids my hair, I rub his shoulders. When he puts hot-sauce on his burrito, he offers me some too. I am certain that we must have done a bit of these considerate gestures throughout the last seven months, but we were too tired to appreciate them wholeheartedly.

I don't want to scare anyone who is pregnant or thinking about children. No, your marriage won't fail because you had a kid, but it most certainly will change. I had no clue that despite the bad moments, the mishaps, the poorly chosen vocabulary, that I would look at my daughter and see my husband in her, which would lead to a smile so big that my cheeks began to hurt. I had no idea that when the postpartum cloud lifted from my shoulders, I would realize that I had grown two hearts over the last seven months, one for him and one for her.

Our love has changed, but it has deepened too. I will forever be grateful for the man that made me a mother. Despite our minor missteps early on into parenthood, our marriage is becoming the best it's ever been. I will never stop loving him. He will forever be the most amazing father to my daughter and for that I am forever grateful. Marriage is a choice. It’s hard work, but I wouldn’t want to be in an eternal partnership with anyone other than him.

I resurrected these old pictures that we took in 2015 with Magnified Joy. It's so fun to look back at time when Winter was just a day dream, Perry had short hair and I fit into skinny jeans (wink!).