Sense-making: Identifying reasons that an event might have unfolded the way it did or making connections that show why an event was meaningful. For example, one mother in our sample found meaning in her long labor, describing her baby as “very brave and tough” because she survived hours of pushing.

Benefit-finding: Pointing out silver linings or unexpected positive effects of a difficult experience. For example, after a difficult birth, one parent in our sample stated, “It was scary, but the nurses and the doctors were so nice to us.”

Change in identity: Describing how an event has transformed one’s sense of self. As a parent in our sample said, “I feel like my life has changed completely with the baby now here.”

Although couples told their story together, we tracked meaning-making separately for each partner. We also rated how much each partner participated in telling their story so we could adjust for their levels of engagement in sharing their birth narrative.

The couples in our sample were avid “meaning makers”: Almost all the participants made at least some meaning-making statements in their birth stories. Of the three categories of meaning-making, “change in identity” language surfaced least often, appearing in about 37% of the birth stories. Mothers tended to use more “sense-making” and “benefit-finding” language than fathers. And both members of a couple tended to use similar amounts of meaning-making language.

After we had coded all of the narratives, we next looked to see whether “meaning-making” predicted relationship satisfaction and parenting stress in our couples. The transition to parenthood can be a “crisis event” for the couple relationship and is often linked with declines in relationship quality.

But when mothers used more “sense-making” and “benefit-finding” language, they showed a smaller drop in their relationship satisfaction than moms who used less. Fathers who used more “sense-making” and “benefit-finding” language reported lower parenting stress at six months postpartum than dads who used less.

And partners of fathers who used more “change in identity” language also reported lower parenting stress later on, suggesting that dads who experience the transition to parenthood as transformative may be able to help mothers cope better with new parenthood. On the flip side, though, when mothers showed more meaning-making, their partners actually reported more parenting stress at six months postpartum. It may be that when mothers find the birth experience to be more personally meaningful, partners feel left out or pressured to step up their own parenting.

Overall, these results supported our initial hunch that meaning-making might be detectable in birth narratives and forecast parents’ psychological adjustment after birth. Greater meaning-making language seemed to benefit the couple relationship and largely buffer parenting stress.

This study was limited by a fairly small sample of cohabiting heterosexual parents. Nevertheless, it highlights the value of stories in shaping family transitions. For therapists working with new parents in the wake of a difficult birth, encouraging couples to seek meaning in their birth story may help ease their transition to parenthood. Journaling and storytelling exercises may help couples process their feelings about their childbirth experiences. After all, the birth of a baby is also the birth of a story – and that story is well worth telling.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

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Darby Saxbe receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.