[Python] Reading environment variables from more than one ".env" file in Python

I have environment variables that I need to get from two different files in order to keep user+pw outside of the git repo. I download the sensitive user+pass from another location and add it to .gitignore.

I am using

from os import getenv
from dotenv import load_dotenv

...
load_dotenv()
DB_HOST=getenv('DB_HOST') # from env file 1
DB_NAME=getenv('DB_NAME') # from env file 1
DB_USER=getenv('DB_USER') # from env file 2
DB_PASS=getenv('DB_PASS') # from env file 2


and I have the two ".env" files in the folder of the python script.

env_file.env contains:

DB_HOST=xyz
DB_NAME=abc


env_file_in_gitignore.env which needs to stay out of the git repo but is available by download using an sh script:

DB_USER=me
DB_PASS=eao


How to avoid the error:

TypeError: connect() argument 2 must be str, not None
connect() argument 2 must be str, not None


which is thrown since one of the two files are not used for the .env import?

How can I get environment variables from two different ".env" files, both stored in the working directory?

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