My Fiance And I Are Celebrating Surviving Our Baby’s First Year Without Killing Each Other

My son celebrated his first birthday this summer and the fiance and I are still celebrating. We’re still celebrating because our baby is one, yes, and we did not kill our baby, true. Mostly we’re still celebrating because we didn’t kill each other. Cheers!

I have always said to new parents, ”If you can make it through that first year together, you’re golden!” Either a new baby will bring a couple closer, and you’ll see a lovely new side to your spouse, or a new baby will tear your relationship apart with arguments you’d never have seen coming. Or it could be a mixture of both.

When I had my daughter, I couldn’t believe how many times I’d call and ask her father at the office, ”When are you coming home?”

I had never really asked him this before we had our daughter, and if I had, he wouldn’t have answered so shortly, ”I don’t know Beck! For the hundredth time, I’ll be home when I get home. It’s, like, 11 o’clock in the morning!”

Numerous times he hung up on me. And I never thought I’d be the type to be saying to him, ”On your way home, you need to pick up Elmo diapers. She only likes to wear Elmo diapers,” which he totally didn’t get, and neither did I, but it was a hell of a lot easier just putting her into the diapers she liked, so I’d go through the box of Sesame street diapers, looking for the Elmo ones, like I was a rock star who demanded only the red M&M’s.

I’m not a nag. I hate nagging even more than I hate naggers. But having a baby turns you into one and suddenly you’re like, ”Oh my god. Who AM I?” You will hear yourself say, ”What do you mean you didn’t stop for milk? I TOLD you we needed more milk!”

And you, or your spouse, will for sure find yourself at an all-night gas station somewhere in town, buying milk at midnight or some 24-hour drug store to buy diapers, because you have just run out and SOMEONE has to get them and no one wants to go out that late, and so you just get mad. Then you will hear the, ”I got up with him at 5:30 a.m. two days in a row. It’s your turn!” Or you’ll end up saying, ”I put him to bed three nights this week. It’s your turn tonight.”

This is especially true if you both have careers. Though many, many men are now taking paternity leave, it’s still certainly not the normal.

Ten years ago, my daughter’s father told me he’d be ”laughed out of the office” if he asked for paternity leave. Not only did I suffer from postpartum depression and it’s so hard to live with PPD, just as hard as it is to live WITH someone who has it which added to the stress. I’d be crying and my daughter’s father would ask why and I’d sob, ”I..don’t”¦know.” (No wonder he didn’t want to come home from work.)

Of course, people tell you, there’s going to be an adjustment. But no one ACTUALLY tells you just how much of an adjustment there will be in your relationship. This time around, 10 years older and much wiser, I knew having a baby would be a huge adjustment I learned the first time. So I prepared, with a night nurse for a couple of months, taking a short vacation, doing all I could to make sure my relationship with my spouse remained as barfy-cheesy as it was at the beginning, making sure we went on “date nights” and got “alone time.”

I learned the first time around what sleep deprivation does to a relationship after having a baby. ”I went to the gym and I realized I forgot my spin shoes I was so tired and all I wanted was 45 minutes to work out,” you will moan (or yell) to your spouse and you will be pissed off because you actually finally made it to the gym. Your partner will either be sympathetic or will try to one up you.

”So you missed a spin class? I’m so tired I’m wearing two different patterns of socks! I have a meeting in an hour and can barely form a sentence!”

While driving, you will say things either like, ”Stop driving so fast. We have a baby!” Or you’ll be so tired, you’ll say, ”You just went through a stop sign.” And you were SO not a backseat driver before baby.

So I was not going to be a nag this time around. And, sorry, resentments do build up. What mother has not been at least slightly resentful when her spouse says, ”I’m going to go out tonight. It’s poker night.”

Before baby, your answer would not be, ”So I’m going to be stuck here alone again here tonight?”

Then there is the baby trade-off, where whomever goes off to the office comes home and the baby is practically dumped into their arms. ”I’ve been with him all day. It’s your turn.”

It IS a losing battle in some way. The partner who goes off to work doesn’t really seem to GET how hard/boring/exhausting it is to take care of a baby all day. While those who stay at home, envious of partners who get to speak to ADULTS all day, don’t really care that their spouses HAD TO USE THEIR BRAIN ALL DAY and are also exhausted and the last thing they want to do is bathe and put the baby to sleep.

When that baby starts screaming in the middle of the night, all I can say, is that you better have a plan or a trade-off in place, and keep the tit-for-tats to yourself. There is nothing worse than a stupid argument over who changed the last diaper.

The nicest thing spouses can do for each other during the first brutal year is get up with each other or make each other a cup of coffee in the morning. We somehow got through the first year, my fiance and me, without tit-for-tats, asking when are you going to be home, or hearing a bitter, ”I changed him last time. Your turn!” Bringing up that meatloaf for the first year and still wanting to be with my fiance after the life-changer that is a new baby, is reason to pop that bottle of champs we’ve been saving.

On the night of our son’s birthday, as the fiance and I were in bed, we looked at each other. I said, ”We did it! We made it! I don’t want to divorce you! Yay!” He knew what I was talking about, already having raised two children of his own.

”It’s because we acted like we were on the same team,” he said. We high-fived each.

”Oh, by the way,” I added. ”It’s your turn to get up with him tomorrow morning. I love you. But don’t worry. I’ll get up and make the coffee.” Golden. Happy Birthday to Holt. And Happy “You Made it Through the First Year” to US!

(photo: Dan Kosmayer / Shutterstock)