Since I asked, I guess I should answer too:

We suffered from post-natal depression, which I can assure is no joke. This was pretty intense for at least six months (after which we went on a prolonged holiday to our family which caused a lot of relieve), however lingered for probably 2 years and even now had aftereffects.

We are both expats, so we didn’t have family to support, which in retrospect I would say makes things a lot harder.

I think the relationship is now very focused on the kid and we have to make plans for time together, like @ghosthand@lemmy.ml said, which is sometimes difficult.

In terms of perspective on myself:

I rediscovered in my kid a lot of things about myself I simply forgot. Both, good and bad. It also provided me with an enormous amount of perspective on what is important and why. I believe that being a parent made me a lot more compassionate towards others and myself. I was, and probably still am, pretty involved in work, however any successes or frustrations at work are fully mediated by my kid simply wanting to play and hang out with me.

To me having kids has been the most intense of experiences. And without sounding like a cliche, I’d like to say that it is for sure the most rewarding one, no matter how difficult at times. I’d compare it to being totally in love and infatuated with a psychopath on a bad day, and literally hanging out on the beach (which we did today) on a good one :D

No kids here… but good question.

Having three children leaves us very little free time for the both of us to hang out. We have to plan that together time or it puts a strain on our relationship.

I realized that I was good at relating to children after my second was born. So I switched careers and got into early childhood education.