Keeping Your Marriage and Your Kids Alive

Hello and welcome back to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast, we address the truth about sex, intimacy, and lifelong love. And as you can hear, we have an extra special guest in the studio. It is our producer's precious baby girl, Raya and her parents. And we're gonna tell you why they're here.

Oh, my goodness, we're so excited. Eric McKayla and baby Raya. She is. Raya is, first off, the cutest baby I in the world.

So you have to watch this episode.

And yeah, if you're. This is a good one to check out on YouTube. She's precious and also the first baby we've ever had on the Naked Marriage podcast. So we've had the cute. The first and the cutest.

Yay.

Oh, my goodness. This is like this cuteness overload. Eric and Mikayla, wonderful couple. We're talking about seasons of marriage today and we're talking about the baby season, young kids, what it's like in that season of marriage. And we're so excited to have this conversation and hear what you guys are learning through this season. And Raea, you are precious. Precious.

You have lots to say.

She's staying up.

Yes.

Yes.

See the lights.

Yes. Wow. She is so darn cute.

We cannot wait to die.

We cannot, cannot wait.

Yes.

Let's dive into today's episode. We are so excited about today's episode. Eric Randall, who is the producer of this podcast, so normally he's the one making the magic happen from behind the board, now is out front and center with his lovely wife Mikayla. And of course, you just saw baby Raya, world's cutest baby.

Yes, true.

And we are so excited about this conversation because we are in, of course, as you guys know, seasons of marriage, talking about how does marriage look different in each season? And the young kids season, it's a great one, but it can also be complicated for the marriage in particular. Right, because all of a sudden you go from being husband and wife to also being mom and dad and all that goes with that and just the exhaustion and the, you know, it's a huge adjustment. I don't know if there's a bigger adjustment in all of life than going from not being a parent to being a parent, maybe even a bigger adjustment than when you first get married, you know? So first off, welcome. And second, like, just what's life look like for you guys? How has it been?

Good.

Life is good. I stay at home with Rhea most of the time, and it's such a blessing to see Just God's creation and how he designed a little life to form. And Eric is working at xo.

Yes.

No new information there. But yeah, we just are enjoying being parents, learning how to be parents. That's a new adjustment, just like you said. And really trying to do that in the best way for our marriage and to reflect Christ out to others.

I love that. What's been the. Oh, go ahead, Eric.

I was gonna say it definitely is a huge adjustment, though, because I had not changed a single diaper until Raya came along and was extremely uncomfortable holding a baby.

He's an expert now.

She told me one time, just make sure we were holding a friend's kid. And I'm sure they were nervous. She said, just hold the support, the head and the bottom. And so there's a picture of me holding a child. A child's head in one hand and the child's bottom in the other. A very literal. And the parents are, like, in the background probably. So, yeah, it was a big adjustment, but I've had a. Now you're a pro expert with me the whole time to show me the way. And so sweet.

I just want to point out you changing, like, the husband. Changing diapers is awesome. Like, more husbands. Take note. Dave was the same way.

I like to change some diapers.

Yes, it is a great way because there's so much on the wife, you know, after giving birth. I mean, there's just a lot that, you know, especially if you're nursing like that, you can't. He can't do that. You know, maybe give a bottle eventually, but. But changing diapers, guys. You guys can do that. And it's a huge help. And you can become like. Like, it's. You're never sexier than when you're changing your child's diaper for your wife. Like, like, and just serving in that way.

It's.

It's why we kept having kids is because we would. You have a baby. I got so good at changing diapers. Ashley couldn't stay away from me at that point because I was so sexy in her eyes. Is this diaper master that she just kept. Okay, you know, attacking me?

Let's have more babies.

I will keep changing all the diapers, changing all night.

He does a great job.

He does a great. I will say to brag on Eric for a second, like, you know, because we get to work. Work with him a lot. He's. He's amazing. He's a gift to this ministry. But when he is talking about. He's talking about you Mikayla, or when he's talking about Rhea, like just the glow that is on him, the. The pride, the joy. Like, you are just a glowing husband and father.

You are.

Yes, I can attest to that.

Yes. For sure.

And really, the two of you together, you're still glowing. I mean, you've got that newlywed glow even in the midst of having a baby. And that's quite a feat. No, I mean, that really is quite a feat. And, you know, and staying at home, we actually mentioned this in the previous episode. I stayed at home for a time with our kids at different points. And it is a hard. You know, it's beautiful and it's such a privilege, but it's hard, right? I mean, absolutely, it is. What have you found challenging the most that was maybe surprising to you kind of making that transition?

I think one thing is that I always look forward to being a mom and caring for my children. And I expected challenges with that, but I didn't expect there to be moments where I just really didn't enjoy it.

Yes.

And learning specifically how to enjoy the mundane, what feels like mundane anyways, was a really big challenge for me, especially with my first child, when all she's due is eating, feeding, and sleeping. And I'm doing the same thing over and over again. And I really had the question, okay, how do I find value in this? You know, when I'm just sitting there holding her every single day? And I really meditated on Psalm 34, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise will continually be in my mouth. And so I started praying that every single time I would change a diaper, every single time she would be sleeping in my arms. And so staying at home with her is an absolute blessing. But there are definitely things that you're processing that you're growing because when you have a child, you become a mom. And so it's not just like you're adjusting to. Okay, I'm Mikayla Randall, wife to Eric. It's okay now I'm a mom. What does that mean for me? And so kind of finding that identity within, staying with home with her and finding value in what I was doing was just kind of all a process, as is life.

Yes. No. And you just so eloquently, you know, spoke to that. I know that there's gonna be so many women watching this who can relate because. And even if you are a working mom, full time, working part time working, your identity as a mom is a real thing. And I wonder if, I mean, guys, as dads, I'm sure go through this too. But I know a lot of women, I think we internalize that. And I love that you pointed to Psalm 34. I think that that meditating on his Word because we know that that's where we need to go. Right. Instead of. I think for a lot of us, we can get kind of lost in TV shows or you know what I'm saying? Like, we can just kind of numb it. We numb the stuff we're feeling and we're just like, well, I guess this will just pass soon. And we kind of wish it away.

But it doesn't go away.

Exactly. But I think, you know, I. That you're like, no, no, let's meditate on his word. Let's find value in this. And it is. So before this program started, I actually was asking Mikayla, I said, you know, this year their baby's almost a year. And I'm like, it's gone by so fast. And she said, yeah, she's like, you know, I'm trying to hold on to those sweet moments. And you know, because sometimes it's slow in the hard moments, you know, it's like, oh gosh, this little hard bump we're going over. But then all the sweet moments seem to go by so fast. And so I just. You're so wise. Like, you're so wise beyond your years. And I know just that little snippet that you shared. I wish you had been able to speak into my ear. Like the 20 something Ashley trying to be a mom and just feeling like. Just feeling like I'm failing on all fronts. And I feel like a lot of mothers, we go through that. I think we're really hard on ourselves if we're not having all the feels all the time. But you like recognizing it and saying, turn to the Lord and know that this is valuable. Even changing a diaper, even, you know, just cleaning off spit up and just holding your sleeping baby. Which I will say after four kids, just, I miss that. Like, I miss that. I think it's really, it's so wise to be able to navigate it in the way that you are. So I commend you on that.

Thank you. Yeah, of course. I think there's something also with. I think especially trying to become a mom in a time where there's so much information accessible. Yes. You know, back in the times, you might try to do your best at something as a mom based off of the community that you lived within and other moms showing you the way. Whereas now as a mom or as a dad, Just as parents as a whole, you're trying to do the best for your child, and you might be doing your best, but a baby is a baby, and a baby's a person, and they have their own mind. And so it might not be working perfectly. You might not have the sweet sleep all the time, always happy kind of baby. And you can instantly look anywhere else on the Internet to find 5, 10 other different ways to where someone else is doing it differently. Oh, and their baby does that. And so I think I just came to this point where it was like, okay, I can look at all of the theories that people have, all the ways of parenting that people have, and try to do it their way, and it might work for one kid, it might work for a moment, but ultimately, if I'm trying to find my security and what other people say to do as a parent, I'm never going to have peace, and I have to go to the Lord on that. And so I think just having that perspective of going to the Word early on, when she's sleeping all the time, going to the Word whenever she's starting to throw temper tantrums, going to the Word whenever they're in activities or when they're going out of the house, like that never fails, right?

Absolutely. It never fails. You're so right when these other things sometimes. And not that there's something inherently bad about learning from others, but I get what you're saying in that when we're just constantly comparing, that does return void. You know what I'm saying? That is. I think it's said it's a thief of joy. And I mean, I fully believe that because even though we're not. We're not looking to that as a. As a means to compare ourselves necessarily, but it's easy to fall in that trap. And so going to the Word and saying like, you know, God, what have you called me to in this season with this child? And then taking it, you know, that. That's so wise.

Yeah, I'd love to hear about just how, as it relates to your marriage, how you guys have been so. Because clearly you have. You have such a strong marriage. And it's beautiful to see, but it takes a lot of intentionality to maintain that, especially through that transition of now. You have this other person who's completely dependent on you for everything. And so, yeah, they need your attention and your time, and you're happy to give it. But how do you still make time for each other? What does that look like?

In this season, we've had ups and downs in it for sure, in figuring out what a healthy rhythm is in doing it. I think early on you have high aspirations of like, oh yeah, we'll still get to do all this stuff and we'll have all this time. And then you realize that she goes to sleep at 7 and you have two hours before you're exhausted to squeeze in everything from the day, plus dinner, plus dishes, plus like if there's other things that you need to do. And so yeah, we've, we've done some different things and tried different things to kind of make sure that those rhythms are healthy. We've also had seasons already in this where we've kind of had a reflection time and been like, I feel like we're just kind of business partners and raising this child together. Especially we're trying to find a house earlier this year and that was chaos. And we're like trying to squeeze that into our nightly time too. And it's like, okay, well, we've looked at houses for an hour and then we watch TV for 30 minutes. But we haven't really gotten to talk at all. And so I think we've had to fight for being intentional in those times after she goes to sleep, which now she goes to sleep at like 6:30, which is awesome because we can get some time together. And Mikayla has some great ideas for us too, where now right after she goes sleep, the first thing we do is sit down and share repentance from our day of like, ways that we have sinned. And so that's really drawn us together even before we eat or anything like that. And so we get a time of spiritual intimacy together then, which has been really powerful, I think, for strengthening our marriage in this season. And then just being intentional about spending that time together. We took the TV out of the living room, which has actually been a huge help for us. We didn't realize it, but when we moved to our new apartment, we were like, let's not hang the TV up this time. And I don't think we realized how often we just kind of went to it. Not as like a way out of stuff, but it's just easy. And like, oh, we're eating dinner, let's turn the TV on. And then like you're four episodes deep into something and it's 9:30 and you're like, oh, okay, well, I guess we'll go to sleep now. We didn't really get to talk much today and so it's given us an opportunity to have a lot of good conversations and just invest Back into our marriage some time. And we don't have a lot of money in this season, so we don't do a ton of date nights, but we still try to make those times together important.

We do a lot of date nights, just not spending money.

Correct. Date nights in the house.

We've done picnics on our porch patio, and we've done game nights, and we go for walks.

That's true.

We go walk around Cabela's if the weather isn't great.

Look at all the stuffed animals and Cabela's.

It allows us to be very creative, and we have a very creative God.

Yes.

But I think one thing that all of the things that Eric said that we did that it points to is just communication.

Yeah.

Before we became parents, we walked through a season where we realized how poor at communication we were and being intimate and vulnerable with our words, with our emotions, with everything. And so I think because we walked through that challenging season before we stepped into parenthood, it allowed this transition to be a lot more intentional with all that we were saying, because we had checkpoints, we had check questions that we did.

Yeah.

And so even in times where we weren't getting a ton of time together, like when she was nursing every two hours and I was up in the middle of the night with her, I was exhausted to the point where I would go to bed when she went to bed, that didn't leave any time for the two of us. And I remember that was a really big challenge because I really wanted to prioritize Eric as my husband over child one or child two or child three or whatever it is. And that wasn't necessarily easy. When I physically could not keep my eyes awake. I remember breaking down to him being like, I want to choose you, but.

I need to sleep.

I was so tired. Such a drastic need. But the communication, me telling him that, Me telling him that my desire was there. And so I think just openly communicating with one another what our desires were, how our own brokenness was contributing to it. Not me blaming him or him blaming me. I think that has just made this transition a whole lot easier for us in means of everything, that's just really helped us continue loving each other. Well, I love that.

And it's so true about being that open. You know, we hear a lot of husbands in this season of raising young kids, and especially if they're going from zero children to that first baby, they, you know, a lot of husbands will write us and they'll say, I feel like I'm excited to be a dad. I know this is what we prayed for. We're so blessed to have this child. But I feel like in the process I lost my wife. And a lot of the wives are like, but I'm doing, like, I want to be there. I'm just so exhausted. And that's what you were talking about when you hit the nail right on the head. Cause it is hard to navigate that. But I think where a lot of people go wrong is they don't express that. They don't say it. They're like, you know, sometimes women will say, and I know they're just in a hard season. And they don't mean this to be as harsh as it sounds, but they'll be like, you're a grown man. Suck it up and know that eventually I can talk to you again. But I am tired and I'm nursing this baby. I mean, like, seriously, like, this is how they navigate. But it's not that the husband's trying to be whiny. It's just that it's such a change. And there's some things he can't do that only the mom can do in that season. And it can feel, you know, the husband can feel kind of like it's just the mother and the baby and he's kind of over here. And it can feel isolating. And so I just wanna tell, you know, wives and moms listening, that when your husband says that, it's not for him to be whiny or needy, it's because he does miss that connection. And I just wanna encourage you to do what Mikayla did and just be honest and say, listen, I'm just so physically taxed. Like, I am tired and I want to be there. I'm going to do whatever I can to talk to you, but I just want you to know I want to be more present. I'm literally like barely able to hold my eyes open. And I remember those days and it's. It is hard. And I think once you like what you all were talking about, once you get that 6:30 bedtime, man, that's like a milestone. It's like, oh, gosh.

Yeah. All of a sudden. Yeah.

Do you remember that?

I remember.

You feel like you're literally like a champion parrot. Like, where's the awards? We have made it. We made it to the 6:30 bedtime. We can actually have a conversation.

Oh, yeah.

Baby's all good. You know, it's a big. It's a big.

She's asleep. Ours is like, at 6:30, we're like, Raya, Are you sleepy?

Yeah.

You wanna go to bed?

You wanna go to bed? Are you sleepy? We're like, yeah. Are you sleepy? Yes.

Great.

You're sleepy?

Yes.

Like, okay.

I'd love for you to, as we're, you know, prepared, coming to the end of the time, to each, each share one piece of advice to that couple that's listening right now that maybe is about to become parents. Maybe they're pregnant, maybe they're in the process of looking ahead to starting their family. And what is one thing that you want them to know or maybe even one thing you wish you had known? If you could go back a year or two and just say, hey, this little nugget will help, will help you. Because we've got a lot of listeners and Those watching on YouTube, of course, that are in that season and they would love, love your advice because you're. You're in the trenches right now. So what would you share?

You want me to go first?

Sure.

I would say enjoy the spontaneity that you can have right now and just like, hey, let's go do this this weekend. Hey, let's go do this this weekend. Or hey, let's go out to eat here. I think we still have that and we have talked about fighting for that still. But it's a lot easier when you don't have a child in tow as well to do that. And so I think going and experiencing those things together before the child comes along is something that we miss. But I think also just preparing for, like you said, communication and those things. I think if you can do more of that before they're there, it makes that season a lot easier. What she was saying earlier.

Yeah.

That we walked through a tough season back when we were in Arkansas before Ray came, that we really feel like prepared us for this season. And without that, I'm not saying you have to walk through something hard to be ready to have parents, but. Or be parents. I'm just saying it's helpful to communicate those things before you're in the trenches because I think it's so much more difficult when the stress is on and the sleep is gone. And so I'm so thankful for the foundation that we had before we got into that time of just having conversations about what are our expectations for this, how can you help? How can I help? Obviously these things are going to change as she gets here and we realize it, but kind of like almost premarital counseling, but for a baby, pre baby counseling, I love it. I think is something that would be helpful to Start having intentional conversations about who's going to do this, who's going to do that, how are we going to. One of the things we talked about a lot even is like, how are we gonna discipline her and how are we going to do food and how are we gonna handle grandparents? And all of those things that just kind of can get thrown on you in the moment.

It is a lot.

I'd say having those conversations before the baby gets here would be something that we learned.

Yeah, that's really good, honey. I think one thing also that I would add to that is we both had the mindset going in, even to labor and delivery, that we wanted to see everything as a blessing and as positive as we can. Sure, there's challenges, but sometimes I think when we focus so much on the difficulty, it takes away the blessing from it. And so I think going into. Even if you're pre baby, then even going into labor and delivery, seeing the beauty of that process, the Lord designed a woman's body so strong to deliver a baby, and it really is an absolute miracle. I'm amazed by it. And so taking each step, when you have the child, okay, maybe you aren't getting enough sleep, then see the blessing that you're holding a child in your hands. I remember lying in bed nursing her in the middle of the night, and I personally thought it was best for him to sleep through the night. And if she went to the bathroom, then he'd go change the diaper. It was great. But if I'm nursing her, let him sleep and be thankful for that, because when he wakes up, then he can care for her for two hours when she's first awake, I can sleep. Exactly. And so I think instead of seeing that he can't nurse this baby, and I'm so frustrated, which could have really put bitterness within me and then been going against him when he's my teammate. Seeing it as, it's such a blessing that I have such a loving husband and a blessing of a child and moving forward into every single season, acknowledging the challenge because you can't just ignore it. Absolutely. But really trying to find the positive in it, because God gave children as a blessing, and it's a blessing to your marriage, and it's a blessing to you, and it can be a blessing to everyone that that child goes on to encounter after that. And so really, just becoming teammates and being positive and having that mindset together in the way that you communicate was really helpful.

Yeah. Because, you know, we always say on the Naked Marriage podcast, you know, you're going to win together or lose together. And how you win together, even in the midst of a 2am feeding with a poop diaper. Okay.

Yeah.

Is being teammates. It's not not looking at each other. Because that's going to happen, guys, in case it's not happening yet. It will happen. Be ready. And not only that'll be a blowout upper back or up his back and, and maybe even like you might. I mean there's a lot that happens with parents, you know, that you' like I'm gonna be so grossed out and you just get used to it and you guys work together. Cause like that's how you win together is that you're like seeing that good. And even in the messiness of it and just choosing to be, you know, in it together. I love that. And you guys are doing such a great job of that.

You are. Thanks. We're trying though.

Yes.

So we so appreciate both of you.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you for being here and sharing your wisdom. And guys, thank you for watching and listening and I know this conversation encouraged you. Eric and Mikayla had so much wisdom to share. So if you know anybody that is in this season, maybe they're preparing a family. They're pregnant, they're getting ready. Or maybe they've got young kids at home right now and like many couples, they're struggling with that transition. Share this episode with them. I think it could be an encouragement to them as all the resources@exomarriage.com will be as well. But guys, we just pray God's continued blessings on you and on precious Raya and on all that God has in store for your family. He's got such big plans for you guys. And thank you again for being here.

Yes, thank you.

We'll see you guys next time.