Daddy Expectations

I am a first time mom. I've been at it now just over 10 1/2 months. I am still learning, but to be fair, I think I've done an amazing job thus far.

I can now admit that I had a touch of the 'baby blues' for the first 4 months or so after my son was born. This didn't really effect my ability to be a wonderful mom so much as it put a strain on my ability to be a good wife.

My husband and I had a talk recently. We have always been able to sit and talk. It's the one thing that my husband and I have in common- we were both raised to be opinionated, respectful debaters and communicators. Realistically this talk should have happened WAY sooner than it did, but I guess I was too much of a grump to talk to for the first four months, that by the time my husband could have brought the issues to my attention he had grown accustomed to sweeping everything under the rug.

Becoming parents was the hardest adjustment either of us had ever had to face. Jon, my husband, and I met in high school. We dated for 2 years before he moved in with me (I was a freshman in college, he was a senior in high school and one day his things all appeared in my apartment and he never left). The longest amount of time we had spent apart before our marriage was the 2 weeks I spent traveling through Australia and New Zealand with my family. We married after 5 years together, and were separated for 21 months starting 9 days after our wedding, due to him joining the military (boot camp, AIT, deployment to Korea). Jon returned home from Korea in November, and by January we were pregnant.

To clarify, we tried to get pregnant. I remember laying in bed one night after having thought about whether I was ready to have a baby or not for a while yet, when I asked my husband if we should try to start a family. We discussed it, decided we were both ready, and agreed it was time to try. We are in a partnership, we are a unit. I have a friend who told me I was a romantic because I refused to 'just trick him' into getting me pregnant... Just let that sink in....

I had this vision, though, of this little baby fitting into our lifestyle and doing nothing but make us a closer couple. My husband and I hardly fight. We bicker every once and I while- mostly because he stays out late working on his truck, or I didn't separate his laundry correctly- irrelevant little things really. We had an amazingly strong relationship. We did almost everything together, but were A-OK with spending time apart since we knew that if we spent time apart we would have things to talk about. (It's hard to ask 'so tell me about your day' when 'your day' was exactly the same as 'my day'.)

I found out I was pregnant on my 24th birthday. It was a spectacular birthday gift, and being able to surprise my husband with a present (a onsie that said 'lil punkin' on it and a positive pregnancy test) while he gave me my gift was a moment I will never forget.

This was also the day that things began to change.

I was too sick, or too tired to go out with my husband for much of the first trimester. By my second trimester the off road races had started, and since I was pregnant riding with my husband was out of the question. By my third trimester I hardly went anywhere with him, and he had grown used to not taking me with, so he stopped inviting me to go anywhere.

October 14, 2012 we welcomed our son, Nathan into the world. Labor was awesome and my son was gorgeous- the first two days were the greatest days of my life. And then things became difficult. I decided to breastfeed, but my body wasn't making milk. My son cried and cried for days while I supplemented with formula. Because I chose to breastfeed, even when my milk finally came in, my husband couldn't help me when my son would wake up at night, or when he would cry all day- all he wanted was to be at my breast. My son had a touch of colic for the first 3 months at least, which gave me, in a sense, 'buyers remorse'.

I do recall getting mad at my husband a few times for going out and 'playing trucks' with his friends while leaving me with a screaming infant. I clearly remember thinking that this marriage wasn't working out because he wasn't being the father or husband I needed him to be.

As my son got older, and easier to handle, my anger subsided. My husband was able to come to me with this heavy burden he had been carrying, but was too afraid to confront me with until I seemed more approachable: he was afraid he was a bad dad.

At some point in the low following my sons birth, at the time I was contemplating whether this marriage was working out, I suppose I vocalized my frustrations before thinking them through. I had told my husband he wasn't being the father I had envisioned or wanted for my son. I know now that this was not fair for me to say. Just because I was struggling, and going through the hormonal changes that one goes through after giving birth, it was not right for me to make him question something so important.

As I thought about it I told my husband that I now know I had unrealistic expectations of him. I hadn't processed the fact the since I was choosing to breastfeed that only I would be feeding my son, or that being at my breast would be the only thing that would comfort him. I didn't expect my son to cry for the first 3 months straight. I hadn't processed how big of a change bringing a child into our relationship would make.

Now that we have settled into our roles and understand each others expectations of one another, things are back to being amazing. We go on dates again, go to the races again, and are back to bickering just every once and a while about him staying out late to work on his truck and my seemingly inability to figure out what colors actually qualify as 'darks' and 'lights'.