By Nicole Schoolfield 
While I was in the third trimester of my pregnancy with my first child, I had a true fear of when the baby would come. Not because I was nervous to have the baby, but because I was so happy with the relationship my husband and I had I was worried to change it.
Finding out we were pregnant completely rocked our relationship in the best way possible. Some people say babies show your cracks; a baby proved to be a mender of our differences.
We are two very different people, who love each other but show it in completely different ways. We spent a lot of the beginning of our relationship trying to pull one another to the other side. But it was as if the baby made us realize the importance of compromise. We both decided to meet in the middle, and this time it was effortless. If only we had done it years ago! But hence my dilemma. We were meeting in the middle, happily living and I had never felt so loved by my husband. I was happy in the happiest of happy I had been in a long time, and although I was excited for our new bundle of joy, I feared my husband’s love would shift from me to the baby, and the specialness I felt right then would be over.
I kept this to myself. I’d joke with my husband sometimes, but I didn’t tell my friends or even my sisters about my fear. It seemed so petty and insecure and immature. Although embarrassed about my thoughts, I did remember a conversation with a friend about that very subject. She told me she waited years to try to have a baby, and for a while wasn’t sure she wanted children at all. She revealed to me that she liked the way her marriage was, and she wasn’t sure she could handle her husband loving someone else more than her. At the time, I never thought it would be a worry for me. Being jealous of a baby? How ridiculous! But the fear kept creeping in. And I never stopped thinking about it until the day my son was born.
It was months after the birth of my son when a pregnant friend confessed to me that she was having the same fears. She told me she had never felt closer to her husband and didn’t want things to change. I happily told her that her fears are not crazy and I had the same reservations. But now I was able to tell her the truth about love after having a child.
The truth is when you have a child, it’s as if a whole other part of your heart, your soul, your being, opens up. A dormant section of your heart in the deepest part of you suddenly comes alive. There is so much love that flows through you, you can barely stand it. And you understand what it means to truly love someone else more than yourself.
And that love just adds to love you have with your husband. It doesn’t divide it. It can’t because that’s the opposite of true love. Love only multiplies.
More love than you have ever known will now be a reality. And as you and your partner share this absolute, all-encompassing, passionate love for the same little person, you only grow to love each other more. Because you share a love together like no one else in the love of your new child.
So my sweet first-time mommies sitting in the wings growing your babies: have no fear! I can honestly say, I feel my husband loves me more today than yesterday because we share this beautiful part of both of us in our son. Seeing our creation together is unifying, and it connects you in a deeper way than you have ever been connected before.
So let the fear wash away. Enjoy the extra kisses and hugs and back rubs and adoration that your husband gives you. Cherish it. Lock it away in your memory and heart, because it truly is one of the best times of your life. Don’t let the fear take the pleasure of this time from you. Because it will be OK. In fact, it will be better because there will be even more love to share soon.
Originally published on the author’s blog
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