Mommy duties versus wife duties

I find myself torn between the two. Before we got married, J and I took 20-weeks of pre-marital classes. Our church requires two 10-week courses. Even though we weren't getting married at our home church, we thought it important to take the classes as a way to help us build our marriage and deal with the challenges of everyday life.

In the first year of our marriage, we weathered some challenging things but we came through just OK. Most of these challenging  stemmed from growing up in different backgrounds. The positive thing was always that even through it all, we never once doubted our love for each other or questioned why we got married. 

J was THE MOST supportive husband while I was pregnant! He would rub my back (not as long as I would like but still...) AND rub my feet. He carried the heavy stuff, did a lot more around the house and during our trip to Italy, he was ever more caring. Always making sure I was OK. 

During JOE's delivery, I was again impressed by how supportive J was. It truly melts my heart to recall the events of that day. He encouraged me, played my favorite christian music which he loaded on his iPOD for me. Got my ice and was there to clean up after a not so lady-like throw up session. Ick...I know :-).

Then along came JOE...

JOE is most definitely the apple of our eyes. We love her more than anything and with each passing day, we fall more in love with her. I didn't even know that was possible. 

But as anyone would tell you, being a mom is hard work and being a new mom can feel like twice the work! We are ALWAYS busy now and downtime often involves one of us taking care of the baby while the other rests. Exercising which used to be my favorite pastime now takes a backseat to sleep. 

Everyone says "it'll pass soon and you'll miss it". I really LOVE LOVE LOVE my little girl but sometimes, I wonder how the heck my parents did it with 6-kids and I wonder if I am nuts to want to have 3-kids.

I miss my one on one time with hubby but I also don't want anyone else watching JOE outside of her nanny until she is 12+ months. I know J misses our "us" time too and granted, its not just the 2 of us anymore. We're now a family of 3 so things are bound to be different.

For the moms out there, how did you cope with the transition? Has your relationship with your significant other changed or did it go back to being what it was after baby got a little older?

On another note, here's JOE with my parents during our visit to MA a couple of weekends ago. They just LOVE her and yes, JOE favors my mom :-).