My Year of Pandemic Living: Becoming a Mother

I know they say you can’t truly prepare for parenthood but there certainly was no way to prepare to become a parent in the midst of a global pandemic. Yesterday my daughter turned 10 months old and it has been one whole year since our lives were turned upside down from the coronavirus.

*Night walking felt safer with fewer people around*

This has been the hardest, but best year of my life. My family is healthy and we are safe and secure. I am so incredibly grateful for that. I am very aware that is not the case for many people. I am okay. We are okay. But, from time to time I still find myself overwhelmed with sadness. We’ve collectively been living in a protracted grief and trauma cycle for an entire year. And although we made it the ‘new normal’, it is not in fact, normal. Yes, there is so much to be grateful for, but there has also been so much loss.

Lost milestones. Lost greetings. Lost goodbyes. Lost reunions. Lost celebrations. Lost experiences. Lost hugs. Lost joy. Far too many lost lives.

I was 31 weeks pregnant when the stay at home orders came down. I had been through a grueling year of fertility treatments and though I was overcome to finally be pregnant, my anxieties were already high when the pandemic hit.

This time was supposed to be filled with loved ones and support, and I was suddenly completely isolated. I missed out on a shower celebration with my friends, which selfishly, I really wanted. After going through IVF to get pregnant, it was hard to trust my own excitement, and I wanted to be around others who could feel it for me.

And I couldn’t stay home. Not really. I stopped working and my husband stopped going into the office, but I still had to walk myself to the doctors office, every week, just next to the hospital, alone. I could see the pop-up triage center erected outside of the emergency room from the window as I waited for my appointment. I heard constant sirens. I saw the freezer trucks. Nothing felt safe or certain.

Then there was the very real possibility that I may have to give birth alone. I tried to remind myself that I was strong and can do hard things, but I was also absolutely terrified. I checked our hospital’s ever changing policy, daily, until my due date. I was so lucky. My husband was by my side for all 24 hours of labor, but he also had to be. If he left the room he wouldn’t be allowed back in. We left the hospital after my daughter was alive for just one day.

No family and friends came to receive us. No one cooked us a meal or threw in a load of laundry. No one sat on our couch admiring our sweet baby that we had gone through so much to have. Don’t get me wrong, our friends and family showed up for us in every conceivable way they could, and I am so grateful for that, but I wanted desperately for them to meet my beautiful girl and be there with us. At the same time, I felt extremely protective of her, not wanting anyone to come near. It’s a terrible feeling, to view your loved ones as a threat.

My husband and I became a team like never before. We had to do EVERYTHING for each other and our baby. It was hard, but also extremely bonding. My husband’s return to work was in our living room, and while working from home with a newborn certainly brings challenges, it also means we have spent every day of her life so far, together. The price was high, but that is an unparalleled gift.

My pandemic baby will soon celebrate her first birthday and as the positive news of successful vaccines and cases on the decline keeps coming, I am more and more optimistic that milestone will be shared by friends and family. Returning to ‘normal’ mode of life feels remarkably within reach. I wanted to share this, not to complain about how hard this year was, but to acknowledge that even if the absolute worst things didn’t happen to you this past year, it was still difficult and sad and special and the biggest dichotomy of feelings ever. Reflecting on all of that can bring you down. We all have lived a pandemic year, and each of those stories are different, but important.

Tomorrow is the first day of spring and like so many others, I am ready to put this year behind me. But I don’t intend to forget. I know that ‘normal’ won’t happen instantaneously. It is going to take some time to re-learn how to be, while un-learning that ever present fear, but I’m ready to start trying and begin living ‘our year after our year of pandemic living’.