Dear Husband

Do you know how alone your roll overs and cover tugs up to your ears to be sure to muffle the baby cries make me feel?

Do you see how hard I work to get my body upright and moving once it’s ripped from its slumber?

Do you know how raw my nipples are from being a human comfort device and a food source through cluster feeds and growth spurts?

Do you know how helpful it would be to have your hand reach out and rub my tired back on the 12th wake up of the night to say, “I know how hard you’re working. I see you. I’m here.”?

When the world is dark and silent and sleepy is when the weight and loneliness is the loudest.

I know you leave the house to go to a job that supports our sweet family, and it is important for you to be somewhat rested so that you can be safe. But dear husband, I go to work too. To a job that doesn’t respect the numbers on a clock. To a job that requires snuggles, soothing, entertaining, creating... a job that requires pouring, pouring, pouring from my tired, emptying cup.

Do you know these things?

Maybe not. So here it is, dear husband. I am tired, yet I somehow manage to rip my body from these warm covers and soothe our child through silent sobs of my own. I somehow put one foot in front of another when our toddler awakes and wants nothing but my love and attention after another night of battling our infant. I somehow give my body to our baby time and time again despite feeling like there’s nothing left for me to give.

With you sleeping next to me dear husband, I am the most alone I have ever been. Your sighs, tightening of the covers and rolls to get as far away from the screams I am constantly met with hurt me more than I’d like to admit. Can you see that through your slumbering eyes, dear husband? Do you know? Can you feel my sadness, my tiredness, my empty cup weighing down the bed next to you?

I love you to pieces, dear husband. And I know there is not a lot you can do in this season of “newborn,” after all you don’t have the leaky boobs, despite my pleas to make it so to anyone that might be listening in the dark.

I love you. And I need you. I need you to show up for me in the dark when the world closes it’s eyes. When no one else sees the already invisible me behind the shiny, fresh, sweet newborn, I need you to see me. Really see me.

I need you to lend pieces of your strength to me. I need you to tell me I’m a good mom when the crying envelops both baby and me. Because most days, most nights, I don’t think I am cut out for this path we’re on.

And sometimes, I need you to rock and hold me the way I rock and hold our child.

I need you to see me, dear husband, like I’ve never needed before.