I'm sure that in some cases a baby makes a couple step up to the plate, so to speak, (I have a shining example of that in a friend of mine) but a baby is not a tool to test the resolve of your relationship with.
One of the greatest pieces of advise my mom gave me was this: "Marriage doesn't change a relationship, but children do". I am glad that I heeded it and waited until this point in my life to have children.
I met John at 25--well, just shy of my 25th birthday. I was careening out of control. I had the rock and roll lifestyle, sans heroin. I didn't have a clue what I wanted from life, I had subjugated myself into the image I thought others around me wanted. I lived through people, not for people. I was unbelievably selfish as I think most 20-25 year olds are. I was getting set to move out of town, across the state on a whim. Just because I could and I didn't want to be where I was anymore. I didn't want to be myself anymore.
Did I mention that I'd also just left an incredibly failed marriage? One with no children and of that I am grateful because we would have been awful parents at that time in our collective life.
Not an auspicious beginning for John and I. But, as Liz Phair sang in her earthy-ethereal way:
...But something about just being with you
Slapped me right in the face, nearly broke me in two
It's a mark I've taken heart
And I know I will carry it with me for a long, long time...
What came next was four years of dating and soul-searching and coming to terms with who we were as a couple. For me, it was coming to terms with who I was and what I needed on my own in order to be able to give of myself completely. If you don't know yourself, you can not know or love deeply another. It just doesn't work. You become an empty shell in that relationship and eventually break.
I have to give credit to my sometimes long-suffering then boyfriend. He encouraged in me in ways no one had ever before. Do you know it was he who suggested I look into the restaurant business which lead to cooking school? He helped me develop a passion and a career out of something I didn't think I was good enough to do. He helped by encouraging, by cajoling, by challenging me to seek more from myself than I thought was there.
I knew he was the kind of man who would make a great dad.
We didn't wait long after being married to start our family, but at 29 (just shy of my 30th birthday) it was time. It was the right time. I had grown in ways that surprised me during the five years from when I met him to when we started our family. He had grown in ways that surprised him. We had all the trappings of being "adult": a home of our own, no debt save for the home, and good jobs (at least his). More than that, we had a desire to share ourselves in a deeper way. The prospect of "family" frightened us, more than once we re-thought our decision, but we knew we were--if not ready--then willing to make the commitment.
Maia has changed us in so many ways. We drove to San Francisco this weekend and while she slept in the back we took the winding back road to give her the opportunity to sleep more and chatted about how much she has changed us. Ten months into this parent thing and already we don't quite remember what it was like before Maia. She consumes us and at the same time brings a meaning to our lives that was missing. We feel part of something larger than our own small perception of things. We are enriched even as she demands every last moment from us.
She has also brought chaos into our once somewhat ordered lives. This is the struggle. It is so easy to let yourself fall into the "baby trap". She needs so much from me, it would be easy to ignore John and what he needs. It is easy to ignore myself and my needs. To balance being a parent, a mommy especially, and a partner is no small task. This is the splinter, the wedge, the shattering, an infant can cause on an unstable marriage. To forget about your partner and your relationship is to lose what makes you strong enough to be a parent in the first place.
Of course, Maia comes first these days. But we're working on making sure our relationship is a close second. It energizes us to spend time with each other, as grownups, as friends, as lovers still. I don't want to lose the part of me that needs my husband as more than just the "baby maker". He is still my world and that is precious. Maia didn't make him that way to me, either. She simply cemented our foundation and gave us another way to show the other how much we care.
She has changed us. We are blessed by her because we were blessed by having found each other first. She has changed us because now we have to work at what used to come easily. We have to be creative in the ways we grow our relationship. She has amplified all that is, at times, rough in our relationship but has also amplified all that works so very well for us.
I came to this place in a roundabout way. But the destination is one I would not change for the world.
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