Marriage Diaries: How Having a Baby Has Affected Us

I’m happy to have Kaitlyn of Wifessionals here today for our last post in this round of the Marriage Diaries! I really admire Kaitlyn for initiating her Tough Topics series, where she invites real women to talk about problems they’re facing, from infertility to a premature birth to parenting a special needs child, and much more. I love the candor these women use when they share their stories, and I know I’ve often been uplifted by their positive outlooks. Kaitlyn is just like that. Honest and positive – perfect for the Marriage Diaries. 🙂 I hope you enjoy her contribution today! Thanks so much, Kaitlyn! 

I am so thrilled and honored to be sharing today on the topic of children and how they can affect your marriage. My husband, Ryan, and I welcomed our first child, a little girl Rilynn, into our family last September. I would never say that having a baby negatively affects your relationship with your spouse – she is an amazing blessing and I wouldn’t trade her for anything. But having a baby definitely brings some adjustments to your marriage, and some of them can feel quite painful or cause a few tears.

Ryan and I were so ecstatic when I found out I was pregnant with Rilynn. I had lost the pregnancy prior to that, so finally getting pregnant again, and then making it to full term, was a huge blessing. I always knew that I wanted to be a mother, so Rilynn fulfilled many prayers that had been whispered throughout my lifetime. When we finally brought her home we were really overwhelmed – Were we really ready for this? What if something happens to her? How do we know if we are doing things the “right way”?

As a first time parent, you feel like you are basically out of your mind those first few weeks. Add to that the sleep deprivation and the hormonal mood swings and I can honestly say that some days I felt like I didn’t know if I could handle it all. But I pushed through that month and things settled back into a routine for our little family.

There has never been more love in my heart for Ryan than there is now. Watching him be a dad has made him even more sexy and desirable in my eyes. But you don’t have very much time (if any) to do things alone. Date nights now have the cutest little third wheel. Conversations you used to have over meals are replaced with taking turns holding the baby and entertaining them so you both can get a chance to eat your food. And if you are blessed to get a night out of the house early on, everything in you draws you back to the house, ASAP, because you are so worried about being apart from that sweet bundle of joy.

Most days when Ryan gets home from work, the next few hours are spent eating dinner and taking care of Rilynn, before finally putting her down to sleep. By that point I am so exhausted from caring for her and managing the house all day, that all I want to do is sit for 5 minutes and relax or sometimes just go to bed! Ryan’s tired from working all day and then helping with Rilynn from the minute he gets home, so he’s usually on the same page. I’ve laid in bed at night and cried because I feel like we aren’t “fun” anymore and I’m afraid our relationship isn’t as great as it was “pre-baby” because we have such limited one on one time together. Other nights I’ve even wondered out loud if we had a baby too soon…

Ryan is so wonderful about quickly reminding me that even though we feel exhausted, our relationship is still amazing – it’s just different now. We both love each other so much and are constantly working to make sure the other person knows how much they mean to us: little surprises, sneakily placed love notes, just a call to say ‘I love you’…This season of our life is something brand new, something we’ve never experienced before, and yes, sometimes that can be really hard. But Ryan will also remind me that if we were here, without a baby, I would be crying and sad that all my friends have babies and we didn’t. My mind would be fixated on having a baby (like it was before we got pregnant) and I would be praying and wishing for the life we have now.

Rilynn has only multiplied the love within our family and she is such a light in our lives. When Ryan was unemployed we had some very depressing and dark days, but we always said that God blessed us with Rilynn during that time. She was a daily source of joy and I truly believe she is a huge reason as to why we kept such a positive and optimistic attitude the majority of that season in our lives.

A lot of people probably worry about adding children into the mix, but I assure you, I wouldn’t give any of it up. Yes, our life has been completely taken over by this tiny human, but it is the best, most rewarding thing I have ever experienced. It has strengthened my marriage with Ryan, taught me important lessons on what it is like to be truly selfless, and created more love in my heart than I ever thought possible. It can be hard if you let yourself dwell on the way life was “before,” but I encourage you to focus on the beauty of what it is “now” instead. I also believe that it is so important to plan special times where it is just the two of you again. Ryan and I make an effort to go on at least one baby-free date a month and we are taking a trip later this summer, just the two of us.

I hope that some of you may find encouragement from this – I’m not saying that everything is easy and “perfect” when you decide to have children. It will change your relationship with your husband and challenge you to still make your marriage the priority. But having a baby will never be something you regret. It is the greatest decision that we ever made and I look forward to adding more children and love to our family in the coming years.

Linked up with Works for Me Wednesday and and Grace at Home.