And Then There Were Three...

      Children... Children add a whole new dimension to life, don't they? To everyone's lives. But especially adding your child to your family and making that whole new life changing situation your reality... thats definitely a new dimension.
      The discussion this week was about how children change your marriage relationship. It was quite the discussion. There obviously is such a difference when you bring a child in to be a part of the family that you and your spouse created. Especially with the first child. In talking about it in class, it was just so crazy to think about. I mean, I think that I have thought a lot about marriage and being prepared for that and making sure you are working on your marriage relationship and all of those things. I think I've thought a lot about what raising kids will be like. I watch my sister and sisters-in-law and I think... wow, okay, I am quite grateful to be single and childless right now! :) I mean, I know how kids are. Obviously I don't know how it is to be the mother of the children and I don't yet know how my children will be, but I'm just saying, it's something that I have considered a lot. But what I haven't considered is making the actual transition between the two of you being married to the three of you trying to figure out a new family life.
      I think it's kind of like dance. If you've ever been in a dance class before you know that often when you are being taught the dance, you will be taught one sequence, with 2 or 3 moves in it, and then another sequence that follows right after with another 2 or 3 moves in it.  And often when you are getting taught, you think, okay, yeah this isn't that hard. I can do this, no problem. But it's when you try putting those two different sequences together that you start to get problems. You have to not only know the sequences, but you have to know the transitions. You have to know how the weight changes are and where you put your feet as you move from one sequence to another. But once you get that transition down, the whole step fits together pretty well. Well, I think that is how adding a child to a marriage is. You know how your marriage works, you feel comfortable with each other and how the relationship is progressing and where you need to work on things or communicate more and where you get along really well. You know all these things. And while you may not know much about having children, you know that it's what you need to be doing and you know that things will work out. And you might have a small idea at least of how your spouse interacts with children. But it is that transition from one stage of life to the next that might slow you down. You have to figure out where the time changes are (like no sleep!) and where you have to give a little here and take a little more there. You may have to find a whole new way of communicating with your spouse because you have a whole new thing to be communicating about. Your lives change drastically and everything you thought you knew about the relationship you had, has suddenly turned upside down.
       Now all of that probably sounds pretty bleak... it did to me when my teacher was discussing this all in class. I was thinking, geeze, there's no way to not be totally freaking out and miserable when you first have a child. But of course, that wasn't the purpose of the class and we started talking about things you can do to help keep your marriage going well during this transition so that you two can still be happy and so that you can be good parents. So I'm just going to include the list here:

--Start from the beginning to involve the father in the process of raising this child. Often husbands complain that they feel left out and ignored by their wives when this new little baby comes. A lot of that comes from the way in which the pregnancy and baby is handled. Obviously some of that is just part of life, but some can be controlled.The mother has an automatic opportunity to bond with the child, seeing as she is actually carrying the child for nine months. Also, if she breastfeeds after the baby is born, she has hormones releasing in her body that continue to help her connect with this baby. By the forces of nature, men obviously don't have these experiences. They don't just happen for men. So be conscious about having the father involved; make sure he attends doctor appointments, have him feel the baby when it's kicking, even having him talk to the baby. And when the baby is born, allow the father to do all that he can. We talked about girls who simply think 'well I can do it better then you, you just don't even know enough to raise this child.' If he doesn't know as much, teach him. Let him try and sometimes fail. After all, don't we all make mistakes? Invite him into this process of raising this child. Don't just let him be/ make him be on the outskirts of this experience.
-- Set aside time that you will talk with each other, decide to make that a priority. Talk with each other about the child and their needs so that you can both be equally involved.
--Realize that there are going to be huge life changes coming your way once the little one enters your lives. Talk about what those changes may be and how you want to handle them. Determine have open communication with each other as you go through this life change.
--Spend time both with the baby and some one-on-one time. It is good to bond with the baby, obviously, and to spend some quality family time together. But don't put your relationship off. Remember that if you put yourselves on the back burner, that is only going to inhibit you from being a good parent in the future, and will therefore hurt the child. So make sure your time together is still important.
--Be considerate of the extra strain that will be placed on both of you. Realize that most likely neither of you know how to do this, and you're both going to be feeling a lot of pressure and stress as you consider being the one responsible for this little one for the rest of forever. Thats a big deal and can really affect people.
--And finally, work on communication and building your relationship before you consider having children. Those couples who had good relationships with healthy communication and interaction before the baby was born had higher levels of marital satisfaction after the baby came. (That one sort of makes sense you know...)
Anyway, this post ended up being super long. But I just really appreciated the things I learned in class this week. I'm grateful to know these things before I'm even headed in to marriage... not saying that I'll be really good at doing all these things, but at least I have a chance of doing a few of them that might help, as opposed to not knowing any at all like I did only about a week ago!
As always, thanks for listening!