The upcoming arrival of my brother and sister-in-law's first child has stirred up some complex emotions. I know that Rob shares some of my DNA, and he shares experiences growing up. His wife, Leigh, had a similar childhood; like Mark and me, that's part of the reason they were drawn together. So, I worry about autism and addiction and depression; all of which seem to be tied together and to run in families. Mark and I haven't told them about the addiction; he didn't feel comfortable sharing that. But both of us wanted to share enough that they would be able to come to us if anything does surface when the baby's birth starts putting a new level of pressure on them.
THE EMAIL:
[Mark] and I have been thinking about our own pregnancy and post-partum and kid raising experiences lately. And we've decided we want to throw something out here for you to keep in mind as time goes on -- hope you will take it in a "wow, that's so supportive" way rather than a "wow thanks for stressing us out with the big shitty downer" way...The last six years have been really, really, really hard. The kids are wonderful and we love them more than life -- they're even more wonderful than either of us imagined they would be and we love them even more than we thought we would (and we thought we'd love them quite a lot) -- and in a lot of ways having them has brought us closer and made us love and appreciate each other more. That's the fun part, which I know you'll experience and be thrilled by too. (I can't wait!)
But (you knew that "but" was coming) things are also way more stressful and way harder than we ever imagined they could be -- and this is the part I hope you don't have to deal with. You guys know some of it -- my not-so-fun pregnancies, [our son's] difficult infanthood, the lack of sleep, [our son's] diagnosis, my unexpected pregnancy with [our daughter]... In addition, I was pretty beat up physically after [our son's] birth (which impacted our, sorry TMI, sex life) and I had a variety of hormonally induced issues -- frequent, weird migraines, along with what was (in retrospect) probably undiagnosed post-partum depression after [our son's] birth, often taking the form of anxiety/panic attacks.
All of that put a huge amount of stress on us and on our marriage. A lot of crap we thought we'd dealt with came back to haunt us and a lot of crap we didn't even know was there came screaming out -- there were skeletons tumbling out of every freaking closet and staging big budget horror shows in every room of the house! We both had to face our own and each other's nasty demons and go through some pretty unimaginable stuff. We have come scary close on more than one occasion to going down the divorce road. But we have done a lot of work, individually and as a couple -- we are still working, and will be for the rest of our lives but we're in a good place now and stronger than we ever were before, both individually and as a couple -- which is a huge gift the kids have given us.
While some of it was just bad luck, some of it (like depression or some of those skeletons) have genetic or environmental roots (and we tend to be attracted to people from similar backgrounds). So, all this to say that *if* anything does end up hitting the fan, it is very likely that we have been there or someplace close -- no matter how shitty it is (seriously, if you ever end up thinking, "but I'm sure when they said shitty, they didn't mean *this* kind of shitty" trust us, it was that shitty and we really will get it) -- and we are happy to offer whatever help, understanding and support we can. So, there you have it -- hope you never need to take us up on it!
Mark said this message reminded him of all the reasons he loves me. Rob and Leigh responded by saying they hope they never need our help, but are glad to know we're here.
