Wow. I am grateful to all the parents who wrote and shared. I had my third during the pandemic. Reading everyone's comments has me feeling deep empathy for all the variations of challenging experiences made much more challenging by the pandemic.
All of this hit really hard. Especially the one about having no "witnesses" to becoming a parent. The first time I went into a grocery store with my baby (he was near toddler age by then), I felt weepy. "Wow, this is what normal parenting is like." To be seen in public—wrangling groceries with your child in the cart. Never knew I'd relish feeling like a harried middle-aged mom!
Thank you for this, it feels so validating to hear others’ similar stories and feelings. My September 2020 baby, conceived using an egg donor after 6+ years of infertility, is the light of my life and I’m so incredibly grateful for all the extra time I’ve gotten to spend with him over the last 20 months. That, and having no hospital visitors when he was born, are the greatest silver linings of this whole first-time-mom-during-a-pandemic experience. But I also truly grieve that I had to spend almost my entire pregnancy in isolation and the first 8 or so months of motherhood without much support and without him meeting important people (thank god for my parents who isolated in order to help us regularly). And I’m so bitter that my maternity leave was spent almost entirely inside my house, and that our first 20 months and counting have been so filled with fear and anxiety and him not being able to explore the world in the way he “should” be able to. We can’t afford to have another child (he was our only embryo!) but I often think about the experiences and connections I missed out on and wish we could have another to know what that’s like. That said, I’m sure I would have had a much more stressful and unhealthy pregnancy if I had to maintain my “before times” work/social/family demands…and I certainly wouldn’t have gotten to be there for all his milestones to date, thanks to pandemic-induced remote work. I just wish a pandemic wasn’t WHY I had these silver linings. Why can’t there be a world where we can have it all?!
I wanted to write in but couldn't find the time. My kid was born October 2019 and I still consider her a covid baby BECAUSE I didn't really see anyone while I was on mat leave and very anxious anyway then I was about to go back to work when covid hit and I had to quit my job and stay home because they wouldn't let me work remotely and there was no childcare to be found. I have a lot of feelings about this. I'm furious at my employer, sad, traumatized, and scared to go back. I still feel like I missed out on all the magic. I'm jealous of people deciding to have kids now because I'm like do you know the hell we have been through?! And yet I get it. I'm still trying to entertain a toddler in a small apartment while my husband works from home all day. I want to understand which parts are covid trauma and which parts are just the shock of becoming a mom (an unintentional stay at home mom, at that). Sorry my my bad phone writing. Toddler sleeping on me.
Wow. I am grateful to all the parents who wrote and shared. I had my third during the pandemic. Reading everyone's comments has me feeling deep empathy for all the variations of challenging experiences made much more challenging by the pandemic.
All of this hit really hard. Especially the one about having no "witnesses" to becoming a parent. The first time I went into a grocery store with my baby (he was near toddler age by then), I felt weepy. "Wow, this is what normal parenting is like." To be seen in public—wrangling groceries with your child in the cart. Never knew I'd relish feeling like a harried middle-aged mom!
Thank you for this, it feels so validating to hear others’ similar stories and feelings. My September 2020 baby, conceived using an egg donor after 6+ years of infertility, is the light of my life and I’m so incredibly grateful for all the extra time I’ve gotten to spend with him over the last 20 months. That, and having no hospital visitors when he was born, are the greatest silver linings of this whole first-time-mom-during-a-pandemic experience. But I also truly grieve that I had to spend almost my entire pregnancy in isolation and the first 8 or so months of motherhood without much support and without him meeting important people (thank god for my parents who isolated in order to help us regularly). And I’m so bitter that my maternity leave was spent almost entirely inside my house, and that our first 20 months and counting have been so filled with fear and anxiety and him not being able to explore the world in the way he “should” be able to. We can’t afford to have another child (he was our only embryo!) but I often think about the experiences and connections I missed out on and wish we could have another to know what that’s like. That said, I’m sure I would have had a much more stressful and unhealthy pregnancy if I had to maintain my “before times” work/social/family demands…and I certainly wouldn’t have gotten to be there for all his milestones to date, thanks to pandemic-induced remote work. I just wish a pandemic wasn’t WHY I had these silver linings. Why can’t there be a world where we can have it all?!
I wanted to write in but couldn't find the time. My kid was born October 2019 and I still consider her a covid baby BECAUSE I didn't really see anyone while I was on mat leave and very anxious anyway then I was about to go back to work when covid hit and I had to quit my job and stay home because they wouldn't let me work remotely and there was no childcare to be found. I have a lot of feelings about this. I'm furious at my employer, sad, traumatized, and scared to go back. I still feel like I missed out on all the magic. I'm jealous of people deciding to have kids now because I'm like do you know the hell we have been through?! And yet I get it. I'm still trying to entertain a toddler in a small apartment while my husband works from home all day. I want to understand which parts are covid trauma and which parts are just the shock of becoming a mom (an unintentional stay at home mom, at that). Sorry my my bad phone writing. Toddler sleeping on me.