FOCUS ON
THE FAMILY
First-Time Expectant Parents
by Suzanne Gosselin
“Everything’s going to change.”
People seemed delighted to tell us this
when they found out we were expecting
for the first time. To my husband, Kevin,
and me, these words seemed more like
an ominous warning than a wondrous
prediction The idea of such life-altering
change stirred up resistance in my
spirit. I knew things would change a
little, of course, but certainly everything
wouldn’t change.
One thing I was confident would not
change was my relationship with Kevin.
He and I met in a fairy-tale fashion one
Sunday evening (as he made my latte
at Starbucks), and our courtship and
marriage swiftly followed suit.
We both love children and were
hoping to have a family, so six months
into marriage, when we learned a
baby would be joining us, we were
overjoyed. We were also still solidly in
the honeymoon phase. Though we
had heard stories about how a baby
changes things, I stubbornly refused to
believe that pregnancy and the birth
of a child would disturb our “perfect”
marriage.
While not every couple starts H