Finding Hope in Chaos

My daughter is asleep in bed, which of course means I have time to write. This is my outlet to dump out my brain before I go to sleep. I have read many different baby books, and I have read, "Babyproofing your marriage" to help improve the quality of my husband and my "new marriage". When I say new marriage, I mean rediscovering who were are in the midst of dealing with a new baby, financial difficulties, and finding what is fun again. When I was 21, and you asked me what I did for fun, I would respond going out. I enjoyed dancing, have some drinks and sleeping in the next morning. If you asked me a year ago, I would have said having a night without throwing up or feeling sick, that was my enjoyable evening. Now, I would say without a doubt my baby girl. She is the reason for all of my happiness, and I believe she will always bring me happiness for the rest of my life. My husband and I have been struggling trying to rediscover one another once again. Our lives have changed, and therefore so has our time together and how we treat one another. When stress pushes itself into your household and refuses to move, you discover arguments and feelings that you may have overlooked or ignored. My baby has changed my entire outlook on my life and helped me learn a new love. However, in the midst of the pregnancy and birth of our child, I find we have lost "us".
It is almost like everything has fallen apart and because of stress and being overwhelmed with responsibility, we have changed. What I enjoy at the moment is my down time, and doing fun things that still allow me to get enough sleep. We have both learned to co-exist if you may, with one another. We now are working to repair and meet each other again. It is extremely upsetting and overwhelming to have as much worry and stress as I feel I have in my life. I don't think I ever imagined or was told by any baby or pregnancy book, just how many things change in your life with the birth of your child. How can so much happiness be counteracted by so much stress and upset? I think men and women will never understand one another completely because we worry and think differently. I do feel that when a baby is born, after you get down a routine you have to then work on finding your marriage again (as if we haven't been through enough). The only way I find hope, is when I look at my baby and see all the love and growing she does each day. It gives me hope that although we all grow and change, we can still find our center once again. It is just overwhelming and hard to relearn each other. I wish they had written a book on how to prepare for the amount of change in your marriage. I have hope although I fear the chaos. Hope is the only way to cope and deal, and without it we drift away.