Dear XYZ,

Through our classes and preparation for welcoming Y, I have a better understanding of what child-bearing, birthing, and nursing does to a person.

There’re also studies indicating that marriage satisfaction tends to drop after a couple becomes parents.

The process of having a child is a miracle, it gives life to a new being. That process requires the transformation of the mother. Her body expands and changes to grow a child in her belly. Her hormones change as a precursor to alter the chemistry of her body to perform animare, the highest form of biological alchemy. To bring something into existence, from seemingly nothing.

At the same time, these processes changes a person — their body, mind, and soul. And in the process, they take on a new identity, that of the mother.

I recall from the studies of researchers like Kahneman and Tversky about how humans are loss-averse; we tend to respond more emotionally to the possibility of loss as opposed to gain. Perhaps to some degree, we’re wired to see the glass half empty.

I’m so excited and joyful that I’ll be welcoming a child and a mother. I am, in my heart of hearts, also fearful of losing my wife; I worry that my closest relationship to the most significant person in my life will change.

(I’ll typically end something like this with some kind of soothing self-helpy type of response, but for today I wanted to hold space for this feeling, and leave it at that.)

xoxo,
K