How my Relationship Changed with my Firstborn after my Second Baby.
The child I said goodbye to on my way to the hospital with Cruz, was not the same child when I returned.
I knew things would change – logically they had to. For nine months, I worried how I could love another baby. I had visions that I might struggle with my attachment to the new baby. I anticipated that I would be so wrapped up in Phoenix and certainly there couldn’t be any more love to go around. And now, four months into becoming a mother of two, I can say a few things happened for me.
Firstly, I loved Cruz immediately and intensely – just like when Phoenix first entered my arms. There truly is so much room in your heart to love more children. Your heart just grows, although I can’t quite explain it. But the surprising thing that happened and what has been the hardest for me – is that my relationship with Phoenix changed in ways I never imagined. It is such a blessing that Cruz has entered our family, Phoenix has a little brother, and they’ll have each other for life.
But from the time I left for the hospital to the moment I saw Phoenix again, he looked and seemed different to me. My eyes saw him as enormous and strangely different. I saw him as a boy, not a baby anymore. For the first few weeks, it felt like I was holding a stranger in my arms and that I was getting to know Phoenix again too. It’s hardened us both. I realized it’s impossible to meet his needs all the time, while I’m taking care of Cruz. I realized that doing my best is all I can do. I realized that even though there is less time to go around, it’s more important than ever to take care of myself too.
Some days I’m nostalgic for the relationship we had before Cruz. Sometimes I find myself breathing in sweet baby Cruz and then snapping at Phoenix in my next breath. I wondered how I could love another person as much as Phoenix, but now I sit here and try and enjoy my toddler and it’s harder than I thought. I shoe him away. I have to hold him back from waking the baby up again. I can’t believe how instantly Phoenix became so annoying to me all the time. Loving him has felt like a conscious effort some days. And I miss having the energy and capacity to do all the fun stuff together, like when it was just us. Now Dad is taking him out all the time and Mummy isn’t fun anymore. For weeks it has felt equally like my heart breaks, accompanied with an enormous sense of relief every time I get time away from him.
Becoming a mother for the second time has had such a psychological impact on me that there have been moments where I’ve felt estranged from both Phoenix and Cruz. And it’s something that I never really realised could happen to me. Every night though, after I settle Cruz – I lay next to Phoenix while he falls asleep. And it feels like we are still just as close as we’ve always been. I’m not in a rush for him to fall asleep on his own. I stay a little while and study the changing features of his face. And hold his body, that seems so big now, beside me and feel grateful for our present, nostalgic about our past and excited for our future with Cruz in our lives too.
