Step by Step Parenting

My marriage is forever changed now that my husband and I have twins.

Before we found out we were expecting last June, we only had kids every other week as a result of our custody arrangement with our previous spouses. We really struggled with missing our kids on the off weeks, but filled the space with a puppy, extra date nights, running and hiking, and traveling. We went into every week with our kids feeling refreshed and ready for the chaos.

When we found out we were expecting, and especially when we found out it was twins, we were overjoyed, but a part of me was scared.

I had grown used to the way our relationship was, and I loved it. I was worried it would change for the worse once the twins were born.

My husband and I have both experienced having kids with our ex-spouses. Neither of us would say that those experiences were the reason we got divorced — it’s a lot more complicated than that — but both of us knew how the newborn trenches can place a strain on even the strongest of relationships.

I had only been through that with the wrong person, and given that being postpartum from my first daughter was the most vulnerable and broken I had ever felt in my life, the fact that my first marriage crumbled afterwards has left me with… certain scars. I knew my relationship with my current husband was a night-and-day difference, but I was still nervous.

Would he still love me when he saw what I was like postpartum?

Would he still love me if I didn’t “bounce back?”

Would he still love me if exhaustion got the better of me, and I snapped at him?

Would he still love me if he saw my postpartum rage? Or how postpartum depression changed me?

My worries were endless.

Mentally, I was prepared for the worst. I was getting ready for my husband to fall out of love with me, for arguments to become a constant, and for having to do everything alone. In my heart of hearts, I knew none of that would happen, but because of my past, it was hard to shake those fears. Nothing could have prepared me for what happened instead.

It started just hours after I gave birth, in the middle of the night, in the hospital. Neither baby was crying, but neither baby was asleep, either. I had been awake for almost forty-eight hours at this point. I was so tired that I was delirious. And my husband and I were giggling.

I can’t remember over what — I wish I could — but I remember it hit me in that moment: This is going to be different.

My husband was staying awake because he knew I needed the company and the help. He was also tired, yet not only did he not complain about it (smart man), but he maintained a good attitude, always had a smile on his face, and swaddled our babies like a pro. Even one of the nurses commented on how his swaddling skills were better than hers.

I knew when he had my giggling like a little girl in the middle of the night, the first night postpartum, that what we had was truly special. And over the next few months, he found different ways to remind me of that over and over again. Wanting to remember those instances forever — and wanting a way to calm the far-fetched fears my hormonal brain would conjure out of thin air — I started keeping a list of all the ways my husband showed me pure, gentle, unconditional love in the weeks following birth. Some examples from that list include:

• One time, I fell asleep while pumping, so he helped me take the pump off, and then went to the kitchen to empty the milk and wash the pump himself. He logged how much I pumped in my app that I use to track my output (because at this point, I’m asleep) and he woke me up when it was time to pump again because, since I was asleep, I hadn’t set an alarm.
• He has the same conversation of “how do we tackle this phase of life in a way that’s fair to both us” over and over again, as many times as it takes.
• He read the instruction manual to every single baby product we bought, whether it was the bottle washer or the milk cooler or the baby carriers, and then he showed me how to use it, too.
• One time he said, “Hey, I read online that if this one specific part of your breast pump starts to look like this it could affect the suction and not work as well, so I’ll keep an eye out for that.”
• There have been countless times that he goes into work at 5:00am after staying up all night with babies, or comes home from work at midnight and immediately helps with babies, all without complaining or having to be asked, but simply because he’s a parent, too.
• He often holds both babies and lets me eat dinner first, before switching off so he can have a turn to eat (though that may be because he’s scared of me when I’m hangry…).
• He’s listened to every wild intrusive postpartum anxiety thought I have had and helps me dismantle it rather than telling me to “just relax” (though he does say that afterwards as a joke).
• He helps me find ways to cope with postpartum rage rather than treating me like a monster for having those feelings.
• Because of my husband, I have to say “I don’t know, let me ask my husband,” when the pediatrician asks how nights are going, because my husband handles the nights so I can just worry about pumping and sleeping.

The list is, thankfully, much longer. At some point, I stopped keeping up with it, because the goal was never to keep score (I would lose). Instead, I wanted to get in the habit of recognizing ways my husband shows me his love in the aftermath of having twins, even if it looks different than before.

Because yes, we have rarely gone on real dates since the twins were born. And yes, we rarely have hours of uninterrupted alone time like we did before. We can no longer go on runs together anymore, and honestly, most days, we are ships passing in the night. We take turns being the “on-call” parent at home so that the other can work, study, exercise, and recharge. This means most of the time, I just really, really miss my husband.

But I know that this is only a season in life. I never expected our twin-newborn-parenting phase to be just like our newlywed or honeymoon phase. The day will come where it feels easier to schedule more regular date nights, when the kids will sleep through the night, and when it’s feasible to pop out for runs even if the kids are home. My husband and I will be with each other for the rest of our lives, but our kids will only be this small once. That doesn’t mean we’re placing our whole marriage on the back burner until they’re eighteen, but it does mean that certain things will be different now, and that is okay, too.

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