Getting that first baby is usually one of the most joyful moments in a married couple’s life and a sort of anti-climax to their relationship.
However for some, this joy may turn to irritation, distance between the couple, a husband’s feelings of neglect and sometimes even separation and infidelity, a short while later.
This may be because the unexpected responsibility and time consuming requirements by a newborn could be overwhelming for the couple and their relationship. Here are two women’s different experiences after that first birth and an expert’s advice.
“The birth of my son saw the death of my love towards my husband,” says Alice who could not give us her full names for fear of embarrassment.
Alice, a mother of six-month-old Adrian, had barely been married for a year when she conceived. “I now regret the decision of conceiving immediately, because motherhood has taken a different direction in my life,’ she says.
She adds that they were so much in love while dating: “We dated for four years and all this time getting pregnant never crossed our minds. I accidentally got pregnant and had to move in with my fiancé. While pregnant, I continued giving him unconditional love. However, all this changed when the baby came,” she says
After the baby came, the new mom became too pre-occupied with him such that she forgot everyone.
“The baby spends the entire night crying and by the time he sleeps, I am too tired to even think about my husband or any other person for that matter. As a result, my husband thinks I have deliberately neglected him. This has indeed brought heated exchanges between the two of us."
Alice has had to deprive herself of sleep for several months because of the baby’s endless cries. This has made her irritable.
She talked to her son’s pediatrician, who initially told her that her baby had colic that would cease at four months. This, however, has not been the case.
The constant cries of her baby coupled with household chores have now made Alice forget her romantic side of life.
“Making love to my husband is the last thing on my mind,” she says.
“This has made him come home late in the evening’s saying he gets bored at home. As much as Alice would love to save her marriage she feels it is quite difficult because her husband does not understand that after the baby came things changed — I no longer feel sexier as I did before.
She says that her lack of romance is due to the fact that her breasts are always full of milk, she has excess body weight, and her tummy is still bulging.
“All these are making me feel absolutely different,’ she says.
Alice resigned from her job after the baby came because she didn’t know how well she would balance motherhood with work.
“I respect women who have managed to balance career and family. This is something that should not be taken for granted,” she says.
Sheilla Ceaser, mother of one-year-old Elliot Ceaser agrees that indeed, the birth of a child brings changes to one’s feelings and can easily turn away a man from his wife if there is no understanding between them.
When she got married to Eric two years ago, she was confident of her beauty as she only weighed 68kgs and would even model for her husband in a lingerie in the privacy of their bedroom.
But when she conceived she knew of the changes her hormones were going through and thought she would return to her normal self once the baby arrived.
However, her expectations have remained a dream. The 27-year-old mother weighs 87Kg from her previous weight of 68Kg and even regular visits to the gym have not helped.
“My body is full of stretch marks and my tummy is bulging. I no longer look as attractive as I used to, even though my husband says I am still the cute woman he met three years ago. My night clothes have changed from the short, laced night dresses to long gowns, which help conceal the stretch marks on my body,” she says
But her husband disagrees with her, saying being romantic is an attribute that should not be compared with physical appearance.
To him, it’s the way a woman behaves and cares for her husband that makes her tick.
“Being sexy or romantic is an attribute of the heart and not dressing or body structure. I knew the moment she gives birth her body would change and I appreciate her the way she is and above all, as the mother of my bouncing baby boy,” he says.
Mrs Ceasar says that after the birth of their son, their gynecologist had told them that they could resume their normal sex life after six weeks but they had to wait until 3 months.
“Six weeks to me was a very short time. I went to see the doctor after eight weeks and I would still feel the stitches. My episiotomy had not healed even after the doctor checked on me and said that I had healed.
"What I did not understand was the doctor telling me that the earlier I started preparing my mind psychologically for sex, the better. I thank God for my husband because for the three months we stayed without intimacy he never complained to me”.
Mrs Ceasar says that during antenatal clinics, women should be educated on sex after delivery and not just being told that it is safe to go back to your normal sex life after six weeks.
She says taking care of a baby can be overwhelming, but she thanks God for her husband who has been of great help in caring for the baby.
“Our relationship has changed for the better. Babies come with a lot of responsibilities. Decisions made between us have to be inclusive of the baby too,” she says.
She notes that a child brings happiness to a family and gives the parents a reason to work hard to offer him the best while bringing him up.
Eric says that he has never felt jealous of his wife’s pre-occupation with the child as he also enjoys his time whenever he is attending to him.
Mrs Ceasar says their different backgrounds has meant different approaches to parenting, but even this has not affected their relationship after the birth of their child as they have learnt to be flexible and accommodative of each other’s tastes.
Marriage counsellors agree that the birth of a child in a family always impacts on the relationship between spouses and the future of many relationships depend on the way the changes are handled.
Mr Solomon Karare, a Marriage and Family Therapist at the Kenya Institute of Professional Counselling, advises couples to attend pre-marital counselling before taking the big step of tying the knot, to be able to deal with issues such as birth of children.
He says children come with added responsibilities, which if not well planned for can bring a drift in a relationship.
“Changes are expected but the question should be how the couple will decide to handle the changes.” .
In pre-marital counselling couples are able to discuss a lot of issues like finance, attraction point, religion ad reproduction health which includes the issue of children.
Other issues that are discussed are sexuality, relatives and friends. He says that lack of prior preparation by a couple for family life cycle is among the problems that affect couples.
Children, he says, are foreign objects in a relationship and that is why sometimes men tend to feel as if the wives are spending much of the time with the babies than them.
“A couple may be used to being the two of them, a man feels favoured most of the time but he should be able to understand that after a baby comes, some of the things the wife used to do for him are bound to change.
"It is not African for a man to take care of a baby, because he might argue that he never saw his father changing them nappies or bathing them and unless as a woman you help him understand that it is good because of bounding a man might not be in a position to know that he is hurting you,” he says.
Karare admits that even though it is advisable for women to go back to their intimacy after six weeks, it is normal for a woman to go up to six months because of postpartum stress.
The problem arises in a relationship when the wife begins to view the husband as the source of all the pain she went through when in labour.
It’s also possible for women to go back to their usual life six weeks after the baby delivery and all this will depend on how they related before they got married.
But the therapist says if the pregnancy was the cause of the marriage then it becomes tricky because the parents tend to wrongly blame their problems on the baby.
He advises that a couple needs to understand what happens before and after birth to avoid drifts between them. The fears majority of women tend to have about sex is conceiving again or not being ready psychologically for sex because of what they experienced during labour.
On physical changes he says the issue of a woman getting back to her usual size and shape should not prevent them from getting intimate as long as she is psychologically and physically fit.
“If you keep telling yourself that you are no longer sexy and your husband is not complaining about it then that will affect your relationship,” he says.
What about women who use the baby as an excuse, leading to a strain in relationships? He advises that even before the baby comes a couple should discuss the sleeping pattern, whether the baby will be sleeping on your bed or on its own.
“Most women have the tendency of putting the baby to sleep in the middle of the two making a man feel as if he has been short-changed,” he says.
