I Miss My Husband

Hi I’m Lisa, and I’m a new mom.  (Does that feel a bit like an AA introduction to anyone else?) The past six months have been quite the learning experience for me. When I found out I was pregnant, I read every piece of literature I could get my hands on from pregnancy to parenting. I knew I would never be 100% ready, but my type-A personality wanted to be as close to “ready” as possible. Looking back, I realize that all the books in the world couldn’t have prepared me for the love-at-first-sight, I-think-my-heart-might-explode feeling you get when holding your newborn in those surreal first moments right after delivery. Pure euphoric bliss.

Then reality kicks in.

Nurse. Change diaper. Swaddle. Set timer for next feeding. Shoot, did I sleep through that one? Now he’s sleeping. Wake up and eat, little one. I wish he would sleep on me like this forever. Change diaper. This is the tiniest he will ever be his whole life. Nurse. Change diaper. Fall asleep nursing. Repeat.

I definitely wasn’t ready per se, but I felt adequately prepared and just googled the rest. After we got home from the hospital, something happened that I didn’t see coming and it hit me like a ton of bricks – I couldn’t believe how much I missed my husband. I had read about the baby blues and maybe this was a version of it. There I was with my brand new baby who I knew would become the love of my life, but I missed my first love. I felt like no one talked about it because when you say it out loud, it sounds like you don’t love your baby which is absolutely absurd. I spent nine months praying over and dying to meet this little man who I vowed to devote every thought and moment to for the rest of my life. But I still missed my husband.

Being a new mom is not only hard because THERE REALLY IS NO INSTRUCTION MANUAL, but because it’s the start of a new chapter. In an instant I became a mom and it was no longer “just the two of us.” Ready or not we were now a party of three which I couldn’t be more excited about, but things were different. We were on shifts. Divide and conquer was our new way of life. There were no more trips to the grocery store together, strolling down every aisle without a care in the world and making (at least) one miscellaneous purchase. Sleeping in and enjoying coffee once we finally forced ourselves out of bed and onto the couch. Spontaneous date nights or trips planned on a whim. I had to mourn the loss of those things, at least for a little while. I wanted to spend every waking second with my son, and once he was asleep I couldn’t wait to spend time with my husband because it felt normal, and the new normal was hard. I was exhausted and confused because I didn’t expect to feel this way.

My son is now six months old. I don’t even know how I let that happen. We have all settled into a new routine and the raging hormones have calmed down. I’ve begun to embrace this new chapter and it’s even better than I could have imagined, but I do wish someone had warned me of the adjustment period. I still miss the time I had with my husband pre-baby, but now I get to miss my son too. I miss him when I’m at work. I miss him when he sleeps. Missing them makes the time we’re together that much sweeter. I had to say goodbye to our old way of life and I’m ok with that because from what I hear, the best is yet to come. And I can only dream of it getting better than this.