Parenting Through a Year of COVID

 It's been a year. 

I feel like this whole post could be just that one sentence, for all of us. 

A year ago, everything felt so uncertain. It felt like each of our next steps were like walking on a lake of thin ice, unsure where we would fall through. The world felt like it was falling apart faster than we could keep up, as we struggled to cling on to our sense of normalcy. A year ago, a business trip I was supposed to go on to Orlando, FL was cancelled at the last minute and I found myself unexpectedly staying at home instead. My job was uncertain in terms of if we would all start working from home or not. All of the stores, restaurants, everything began closing. We became worried as a family with big words like Quarantine being tossed around whenever, when was this supposed to start? We went to the warehouse clubs and bought a lot of food in bulk in these fears that we might be home to cook for a long, long time. What if society literally collapsed and this was the end of the world? Would we have to survive on what we have in this house right now? How will we survive? These crazy thoughts raced through our minds as I'm sure they did among millions of others around the world. But, what we thought was certain at the time was what everyone was saying would be a mandatory 2 week quarantine. Thats it. Lets just all stay at home for 2 weeks and then the world will be fixed. And here we are, one year later. Still quarantining...mostly. 

But thats not what this blog is about. You all already know that part, we've all lived it. What's unique about COVID is that we all have it in common. All countries, all continents, all races, all ethnicities, celebrities, citizens, non-citizens, doesn't matter. We are all affected in some way, no one is immune. COVID has leveled the playing field. In some areas more so than others. 

This post however is about how COVID has shaped our past year in my household with regards to parenting. Let's take another flashback to about Fall 2019- My husband and I were ready to start trying for a second child. We weren't actively tracking or anything, just casually trying. I went on a women's conference in January and that inspired me to start taking better care of my body after. I joined BeachBody in February 2020 and began losing weight. March 2020 rolls around, and now we're home more than we were before, I had more time to exercise and well, more time to try for a baby. We get a lot of jokes that this baby was a "Quarantinee baby" and maybe he is, but we also were actually trying to get pregnant prior. In fact, we decided together that if this cycle weren't successful that we would take a break because of how uncertain the world was, our financials, etc. But, come May 8th exactly, we found out that we had conceived around March 24th. Baby #2! 

However COVID had some serious plans on how this pregnancy was going to go, which was A LOT different from my first pregnancy. When I found out I was pregnant in May, there was not a single cell in my body that thought the pandemic would still be going on when I was due with the baby in January 2021. I didn't even think it was going to last into the SUMMER. But we took it one day at a time, with the rest of the world. And days became weeks, weeks became months. I began to realize as I entered into my second and third trimesters spent in quarantine, that literally none of my coworkers-not one- had even seen me pregnant. Only 3 friends had seen me pregnant, and very very few family members. Compared to my first pregnancy where coworkers would oodle over how big I was getting, family would want to feel baby kick, etc- this felt so much different. It barely even felt real. As I approached the end of my pregnancy in December 2020, I couldn't believe that I had basically had an entire pregnancy in quarantine. What did this mean for my delivery? I had previously felt sympathy for my friends who had delivered Spring- Summer 2020 delivering in COVID, and now here we were too. I couldn't believe it. 

The delivery was a lot different- I was only allowed to have my husband in the room the entire time, and he wasn't allowed to leave, even for food or to go to the car. We had to call security even to make an exception because our basement had a flood on Christmas Eve night and husband had to leave and come back to take us home Christmas Day. Crazy!! I also never thought I would be able to deliver a baby while wearing a mask- in fact I was dreading it- but when it came time to push, I barely even remember having the mask on. That was literally the least of my concerns! 

I'd say post partum has been one of the biggest differences in the 2 pregnancies thanks to COVID. With my first, friends and family were allowed to visit the hospital, and lots of friends and family came to visit us at home too once Abby was home. This time, only his grandparents and uncle had met him for pretty much his entire first two months of life. We don't know how much longer this will last, not being able to see family-- and part of me fears that no one will get to know my son until he's able to walk into the next family party. Everyone will miss these baby days and that is so sad. I try and compensate by taking lots of pictures and videos for my family to watch. 

 It also is so crazy that the last family gatherings we really had were for Christmas 2019. That means that my daughter Abby was *barely* even walking, and only saying a FEW words. Now she's practically a little adult and having full conversations! It is sad to me that our closest family and friends haven't been able to see her go through those exciting stages. It is sad that at the next family party one day, she will likely be shy in front of everyone because she won't remember them. I worry too how much COVID has changed who my daughter will become one day, and what she must think of the world, and how this has changed her permanently. In a world without COVID, she would have at least met other children at mommy & me classes, storytime sessions at the mall & library, music classes, etc., but for the past year, like so many other children, she's pretty much been raised with just my husband and I and her grandparents...and TV. In the time where it is so important to start socializing is when we were forced to completely stop. Now we are just starting to kind of come out of quarantine and she is very shy. We are doing a toddler gymnastics class and take her to the park on nice days, and when other children try and talk to her she kind of just stares at them or walks away. The only saving grace here is that most other kids her age will have been in the exact same boat. But what does that mean for her narrow generation of these kids from age 0-5 right now that are missing out on that core social development? How will that shape who they become in their personalities? Will they grow up thinking virtual school is normal? That talking to family on screens is normal? That its normal to stay in our house all the time? That its completely normal to wear masks? I often wonder when it is time to take our masks off, will our young children that have grown accustomed to it suddenly feel naked? Vulnerable? 

If you had told me last year in March that this was going to last until March 2021, I would never have believed you. And yet now who knows how much longer we have ahead of us even. Another year? Two? Three? I never thought our world could be so crippled by a virus, and I even come from healthcare. If you had described all this to me prior to last March, I woulda said you have a good idea for a plot to a movie. It's crazy how a lot of us mourn "the last fun thing" we did before we unexpectedly had to quarantine. Brian and I had a fun date night for Valentines 2020 before the shutdown. We also got to go to Florida in January 2020 and are so incredibly lucky and happy we did- despite not really having the finances for it- it was well worth it because that was our last vacation for a long, long time. It also feels so weird to me now to have a memory of being in an arena with thousands of other women. Anyone else think its weird seeing groups of people together in old TV shows or movies, commercials? 

COVID has also changed our resilience as parents, in good and bad ways... In good ways, its made us stronger in terms of staying home with our kids more, learning more about our kids, overcoming new challenges and learning from them, but also in bad ways. By that I mean that when the world returns to normal, frankly, we're going to be exhausted. Right now, after laying low and quarantining for a year, the thought of having jam packed weekends of birthdays, family parties, friends, and a week full of going to the office, restaurants, activities....sounds exhausting. Especially this time around with two children. When we had Abby we didn't know any different. Of course we were going to do all those things and bring her with us, thats what you do as people in this society. But frankly, with a newborn, its been kind of nice just staying home with him. Not having that pressure to go out and join the world is really been nice, as much as it is lonely. It's definitely a two-edged sword. 

Who knows what is in store for us as a family and for the world in the near future. After the year we all had in 2020, I think we've all become resistant to crazy and we are all just rolling with the punches. What life brings it will bring. If this last another year then so be it. 

I hope all of you are staying safe and healthy. I can't wait to start seeing you all again soon. 

Love, 

The New Motherboard. 

A Birth Story: Volume 2!

 Hello Readers!

So the day has come, baby #2 has arrived! I soooo had intentions of writing one final blog while pregnant, but, life had other plans! So everyone loves a good birth story, so here is mine! If birth stories aren't your thang, I suggest you skip this one. 

Last weekend, i.e. December 19th & 20th and into the beginning of the week, I was having a lot of contractions, but nothing regular. Sometimes 10 minutes apart, sometimes hours. I felt like labor was close but didn't want to get my hopes up, as I had thought the same thing with my first child and she was a week late. I was also 3 cm dilated already as of Friday December 18th! Another indication labor could be soon. We saw my OB Tuesday the 22nd and all agreed that due to babies bigger size and my dilation, I was a candidate for a scheduled induction December 30th. Okay, cool! 8 days to go, hah. Spoiler alert, baby had other plans. 

My week started out normal despite the contractions. I felt an overwhelming desire to finish the artwork I had planned to make for the nursery (our bodies are weird in somehow prepping us to nest like that just in time!). Other than that, I was working full time as normal, and in fact was up late Tuesday night studying for an exam for work scheduled to take the next day (the 23rd). 

I slept horribly overnight, partly attributed to my extraordinary hip pain, bathroom trips, back pain, anxiety for my exam the next day, the usual. Amongst the sounds of my husband getting ready for work I was in and out of sleep as I waited for the sounds of my toddler on the baby monitor. Then all the sudden I was jolted awake at 6:50 AM exactly  by what truly did feel like a 'pop'. They say thats what to expect when your water breaks, but I wasn't convinced yet. I did feel warm water, and started thinking....oh gosh. I sat up, and yep! Water was breaking! Water broke! Holy moley baby is coming TODAY! I ran to bathroom and texted my husband from the bathroom that it was time! The next hour was a rushed madhouse mixed with calling doctor, getting toddler out of crib and ready without alarming her, feeding her a snack, me eating a breakfast feast before labor, packing last minute things for labor and getting out the door...all while continuing to leak, a lot! Luckily also the contractions hadn't really started yet. 

We delivered our toddler to where she needed to go for our labor plan and got to the hospital by about 8:30 AM. Keep in mind, this was so far a completely different experience for me because my first child was a planned induction so things started off much smoother rather than water breaking. So they brought me back to triage and the doctor is all like, "so I hear you think your water broke", and I'm like, geez how many people do you guys get that think they broke it but didn't? But regardless I was like, uh- yep. He needed to confirm it and looked "down there" for about 2 seconds and was like, "Yep I've seen enough!" So admitted I was- you get to go straight pass GO. 

We were admitted by about 10 am or so. The beginning was smooth enough, just answering lots of questions (multiple times), me begging them for food (I was ALREADY starving despite my best efforts at a pre-labor feast), and them monitoring baby. Unfortunately however I was not making much dilation progress on my own after that and contractions were infrequent to their liking. So I had to start Pitocin, the fun drug that speeds up labor by telling your uterus to contract. I dreaded this because of the memories of the painful contractions it brought on with my first induction. I wasn't aware of the fact that you still may need Pitocin even if your water breaks on its own, so news to me! They started the pitocin around 12 pm, and I wanted to at least attempt to see what these contractions would feel like this time around even though I knew it was about a 0.0000534% chance I would make it far without an epidural. Sure enough, by about 2 pm I was knocking down the anesthesiologist's door to get that epidural STAT. It went a lot smoother this time because I was able to stay still with ease this time as contractions weren't AS painful YET. Plus I got a fun button that I could bolus more pain meds whenever I wanted- Rollin'! 

About 4 pm I thought for sure, boy by now I must be dilated- but nope- my body only went up to 5 cm since getting the epidural. Which, okay, great. Progress. The nurse said once I got over 5 the rest would speed up. Cool. They positioned me in all sorts of weird poses involving peanut shells and throne positions to try and convince baby to move down. I still was begging for food and trying to con anyone and everyone into slipping me some dark chocolate, but to no luck. I never realized how fast I would eat orange gelatin like it was the best food ever in my life. Couldn't say the same thing about chicken broth, though. 

At about 5:30 ish, the resident and nurse come in and are basically like "the monitor is showing your contractions are too close together, so we need to place some sort of device "up there" to get a more accurate picture" and I'm like, oh okay yeah whatever you need to do. Well she checks "up there first" and is immediately like- well- nevermind! We are ready to push! 

So in the blink of an eye we went from 2 people to 8 people (maybe more, I lost count especially with everyone in a mask). Even though I was at 10 cm, the baby apparently wasn't far down enough yet so I had to still sit up and "wait until I feel pressure" (and also wait for my OB to get there). I am the type of person that does better when prepped as much as possible for what to expect- and all the sudden when there are all these people in your room it just feels really scary! 

Basically once my OB arrived and everyone was in position, we did a "practice push" at 6:25 pm, and that suddenly turned into a whirlwind of "Wait, don't push!" because the head was coming out and the OB wasn't ready yet. She finished getting ready with all her gear and we did 3 more pushes and literally by 6:27, he was here!! 6 pushes and 2 minutes! He was 8 lbs, 3 oz and 20 inches ! Big baby for being 38 weeks gestation!

The rest was magical, lots of goo and skin to skin and ALL love. Everything was great with baby boy and we snuggled so much for about 2 hours minus the checks they had to do. 

The rest is boring- due to COVID my husband and I were pretty much trapped in our room until discharge. No visitors allowed was hard for us not being able to have our parents come by. Lots of TV was watched and baby snuggles! 

Overall what strikes me the most is how similar my two deliveries were. Even though my water broke with this one and I was induced with the other, besides that the timelines were remarkably the same. With my first, I arrived to the hospital at 7, pitocin started by 9, water broke (by them) by 12, epidural by 2, and pushed by 5:40 and she was out by 5:55! Our kids are only about 30 minutes apart, and both born on a Wednesday, and even just one day apart in the month! (my first born on the 22nd of the month!)

We officially came home Christmas Day and have been in a sleepless but also still magical time as a family. Look forward soon to my next blog of our newborn week 1 adventures! 

Thank you everyone for reading! 

With Love, 

The New Motherboard

Baby Prep, Refrigerators and COVID

 Well here we are, 32 weeks (almost 33) weeks pregnant with number 2. How is it even possible that this pregnancy feels like it truly has gone by so fast? I truly do try and pause often and just soak it all in. I don't think a third one is in our future (but you never know!) so I want to truly treasure these weeks. 

About 7.3 weeks to go, and we have... not much ready. But yet, I don't feel that nervous about it? Maybe a little but not much? It's like with the first baby prep, we had no idea what we were walking into and had no idea what we needed, so I felt a lot more anxious. I coped by making sure our nursery was ready well in advance. Well, this time around we have to shuffle some things around. We decided to move our oldest down the hall so she has more room to grow as she ages (didn't make sense really to give the little baby brother a bigger room than his older sister). So we are in the midst of remodeling that room down the hall for my daughter. Once that is done (almost), and she's moved in, we can forge ahead with final preparation on the nursery. We have zero furniture and I keep procrastinating on that. We have a crib someone luckily gave to us so we just have to match furniture to that and roll with it. It will get there! Plus, now we know that baby truly won't need the nursery anyway til he is 3-5 months old when he transitions out of the bassinet in our room. 

In addition to the bedroom remodeling, our kitchen refrigerator also is kicking the dust-- which you may think, ok, just buy a new fridge. And it surely COULD have been that simple EXCEPT the silly architects of this house thought it would be brilliant to box in the fridge with cabinets and countertop- leaving very limited and small room and choices for what fridge we can get next. So, another remodel we undergo. We (well, I supervised- hubby did), tore down the cabinets (no cabinets were harmed), leaving our dying fridge just kinda hanging out there awkwardly. All our stuff that was in those cabinets is is random boxes as if we are moving, making it super fun. AND THEN we find out when we start fridge shopping that apparently refrigerators are the hot thing right now and hard to come by because of COVID and manufacturing/shipping issues- so most are on backorder til the new year. Cool. We still bit the bullet and took a chance on one we found from Lowe's, so lets pray it actually comes when it is supposed to so we can start putting our kitchen back together! Something about pregnancies in this house and major remodels. With our first pregnancy, I broke our oven- so we had to replace our oven & microwave, plus the nursery remodel AND remodeling our dining room into a playroom- whew! So if we do ever get pregnant a third time, I guess that leaves the dishwasher and a few other rooms to choose from to remodel! 

Everyone always asks me if my daughter is ready for baby... It's so hard to say. I mean who is ready for baby? She is 2 and 3 months, and every single day she surprises me with something new she has learned. She is able to understand complex commands now, is demonstrating caring, nurturing, responsibility... She knows there is a baby boy inside of mommy but I don't think she's fully grasped the fact that there is a baby that will be arriving into her world soon. She recognizes the baby has a soul though, I think, for example today she sat on top of me and I groaned in protest and said "You sat on the baby!" and she said "Ooops, sorry baby!"  We are trying to prep her as much as possible for understanding the fact that there will be a baby crying, we will have to be quiet sometimes, mommy will be holding another baby and most importantly, breastfeeding the baby. Abby hasn't breastfed since 14 months (about a year ago), so I hope there aren't any jealousy issues- but we will handle that as it comes! So is she ready? I guess as ready as we are! It will be amazing to see their interactions with each other and to see how she is nurturing him. 

Besides all that, life is revving up in intensity but also slowing down. My work life is revving up in terms of I need to get all my projects in a stable enough spot to be able to hand them off, but also I don't want to pick up new projects either. I am earning a really important certification through work this fall- I have already passed through one big project and one exam- and have three more exams to go. In 7 weeks. No big lol. So my brain feels like it will explode most days at work, but then on the flipside, life is significantly changing again on a personal level, and not just because baby is coming. COVID is ramping up in intensity at an ALARMING level, with new cases in my state (Pennsylvania) ranging around 5,000 per day. It is worse now than it was in the beginning of COVID. Granted we know more about it now, are more prepared, AND we are testing more people thus more numbers- but I still am confident in saying we are seeing more cases than we did back in April. But yet the world still is turning here, stores are still open with not many protocols, restaurants are open for dine in still, schools are open, some aren't. But given the fact that I am now almost 33 weeks pregnant, my husband and I have decided to "hunker back down" as a family unit as much as we can. Which is hard. So hard. I compare it to a diet. We all went on a diet in the spring because we HAD to, but we were all in it together. Then in the summer things relaxed a little and we all had a few donuts (okay a lot), i.e. we went out to restaurants, the beach, family outings, etc... and we got lucky. But now our family has decided to go back on that diet which is so hard after binging on all the things, and not everyone is doing it. Its hard not to go out to eat when the restaurants are open, as opposed to when the restaurants were closed in the Spring and we had no choice anyway. But, we are coping and it is a little easier as it gets colder as there isn't much to do anyway. We have lots of food packed in our freezer and will be staying in as much as we can, besides necessary grocery shopping and doctor appointments. As a nurse and with my gut feeling, I don't think COVID is going away any time soon. It's proven to be way too aggressive of a virus. It blows my mind to think back to my mindset back in March 2020 when we all thought this would just be a few weeks. Then we all thought, ok- maybe just till Summer. Now it's truly settling in that we are looking more like years. We still mourn normalcy like having normal date nights and going to the movies, not worrying about germs all the time, going out to eat without feeling like we are doing something wrong, not having to mask...but slowly we are just going to adapt to this just being the new normal. Our daughter already thinks it is normal to check our temperature every day- If we forget she literally asks to do it, forehead AND ears lol. She will likely grow up with her first few years of life thinking its completely normal that everyone wears masks. It will be very interesting to see how this will change their generation, how it will change ours... I think this could be a time period that gets referred to. Similar to how we refer to "the Great Depression", we will refer to this set of years, yes years, as "COVID". 

Well, I could probably continue word vomiting out my thoughts, but its lunch time here and I have a hungry toddler! I hope to write again before baby comes! 

Thank you for reading, 

Love, the New MotherBoard

Holy Bananas! Third Trimester!

 Holy Bananas- I feel as if I have already let this second baby down by not blogging about him more! My last post was about the first trimester fun! This Tuesday I enter into the third at 28 weeks (although some sources say I already am at 27 weeks). 

I'd say for the first 20 weeks or so, until we found out the gender, it was an exact same pregnancy as my first. Same nausea, same headaches, same symptoms. But since finding out the gender (coincidence or not, dunno!) I am noticing more differences. More to come on that, BUT! For any blog readers that don't already know, we are having a baby boy! Turns out this makes us a "Millionaires family" which I had to look up when people told me- It means we have one of each, a boy and a girl--who knew? My husband is stoked to have a boy as am I! I hope he is 100% game for lots and lots of boy mommy snuggles, because I am! By the way, I wish the actual income came with term "Millionaires family" because, that would be awesome. Just saying. 

Anyway, as for differences in the pregnancies, the main differences are: 

1) His movements. I am convinced he might be a....tap dancer? Or a fish. Either one. He has distinct movements different than what I remember for my daughter. Although he definitely throws a good punch/kick at times, he also does this thing, where if I had to describe it, it would be a fishes fin saying Hi- like wiggling in the wind. I usually get that feeling in one spot at a time. I call him a tap dancer because there are other times it feels as if he is moving his whole body and dancing- all limbs moving at once-crazy fun! 

2) Cravings. With my daughter, I was addicted to Tropicana 50 Orange Juice, and organic gorilla munch cocoa puffs. This pregnancy, don't even mention OJ to me- I don't want it. This time around--bring me all the bagels. This craving has resulted in a few extra pounds lol. 

3) This next one is full of lots of girl gross stuff so if you aren't interested, skip to next paragraph: So as I approached ~26 weeks or so, I started having pain "down there" in the lower pelvic region. It literally felt like my bones were being squeezed- usually when I walked, or moved, really. But by 27 weeks the pain was nearly unbearable, and I was (barely) walking around my house like a 97 year old. I desperately spoke out to my OB in cries for help who referred me to Physical Therapy- who knew we have physical therapists trained in woman's health specifically? Turns out I have "symphysis pubis dysfunction" which is a fancy way of saying my pelvic bones are too relaxed (you would think this would mean less pain but no) and since it is my second baby and my body knows what to do, the pelvic bones are shifting around and preparing for birth. Cool. Luckily I got a special brace that is SUPER attractive that I get to wear around my butt- no really, super attractive because I even get to wear it OVER my pants-gathering tons of cool looks but I don't even care because it has made a 180 degree difference! As long as I have my super attractive belt on, my pain is minimal- like a 1/10, compared to a 8/10. Who knew?

I'd also like to give you this mental image of me with my super attractive belt. I also drew this with my finger on my computer, so don't judge my art skills. 

Dunno why I gave myself pigtails, but it felt right at the time. She also is shrugging, because she has no idea what's going on. Her smile is half smile (yay pain relief! but also half confused. But overall she's one heck of a badass, super attractive mama.

As we settle in for the soon to be holidays and get ready for baby number 2....wait, did I say get ready? Lol we are no where's near ready. Physically or mentally! My husband and I take turns on whose turn it is to completely freak out that we are bringing a second child in and all of the unknowns that come with it. But we are also super excited. But believe me when I say, besides a few clothes that we happen to have found while out and about, and all of the baby stuff we already have from baby #1, we have nothing else ready. I swear we were ready by now on my first pregnancy, but life was oh so good back then and I didn't even know. I was basically "just" working full time for my first. This time I am working full time, taking 2 classes per semester for my Masters (1 at a time thank God), and running after a toddler. During the school year, this gives me approximately 1-2 hours a WEEK of "free time" that isn't already dedicated to my daughter, housework, or homework. And you think I want to sort through baby stuff on that last 1-2 hours per week? No! It's NAP time during that time! God bless my husband for letting Mama take a good nap on a weekend!  But no really. Zero things are ready in the nursery. So cool. Another factor we are working on is Mission Move Daughter to New Room- A very involved mission. Our nursery, aka my daughters room now is right next to the Master Bedroom. The next closest room thats equivalent in size (maybe a little bigger) is further down the hallway. After much back and forth, we decided that although a significant struggle to achieve it, it is best for both kids if we move my daughter down the hallway and put the newborn in the nursery. So our project now is prepping my daughters NEW room so that we can move her first- then prep the nursery... Andddd we have ~ 12 weeks to go. 

I am also emotionally terrified on what it will be like bringing in number 2. I already am way prone to suffering from excess anxiety, and when children come into the mix, my anxiety just spirals out of control. I am not worried about caring for a baby again, I feel familiar enough with those steps of what worked and what didn't from my first child. What makes me nervous is all of the factors of caring for a baby and a toddler. The last thing I want to happen is for my daughter to think she has been cast aside for the newborn or that she is any less important. I want her to have as much mommy and daddy time as she has now, but I know it will be hard finding that balance. I worry about things like- how do I watch a toddler and a newborn? What if I am on the couch breastfeeding by myself and I hear my daughter say "uh oh" (she does this a lot) in another room? What if I finally get the baby to sleep but then my toddler wakes up? Or I get the toddler to sleep and the baby wakes up? What if I never sleep again??? I know. I get out of control. All I can tell myself to get me through is- one day at a time. I have no idea what the days will look like, but all I can do is one day at a time. I know there will be crazy days and days I question all my life choices, but there will also be so much love and snuggles and perfect moments too. My daughter is getting big enough now (she just turned 2 in August)- that I can give her simple tasks that will be a big help to Mama when baby is here, like "can you get the burp cloth", "can you give baby the binky", etc. As for my daughter, people ask me all the time if I think she has any idea what's coming. We have tried to prep her but I am not convinced she REALLY knows. If prompted, she will point to my stomach when asked where the baby is. She will say "baby boy" and will say the babies name, she will give it kisses through my stomach, says hi...but I think she just thinks a baby lives in my stomach all the sudden and that's probably it! We have seen little babies in public, or on TV, or in books, and have tried to explain that is what baby boy will be like, soon! And she kinda just looks at us. Soooo we will see! 

Well I couldn't not write about what its like to be pregnant and parent a child during a historic year- 2020- during a global pandemic. The world is such a weird place right now, especially being pregnant during this time. We found out we were pregnant on May 8. Literally since then (actually since March), I have seen no more than 5 of my coworkers. That is so weird! I am full time working remote, so although I get to talk to them all the time, I have lost that aspect of people seeing my bump, having hallway mama talk, etc. But then again I also don't miss random strangers on the elevator asking if I know what it is, what is it's name, etc. 

Going to the OB is also a different experience. Like many outpatient offices around my area, when I get to the office I have to "check in" from my car. The front desk staff then lets the clinical staff know I am here. Then I wait. The clinical staff then call me back and complete all the screenings, ask me all the questions, the fun stuff. They direct me to come up (in a mask of course) and we finish the rest of the visit as normal. I am blessed enough that in my part of the country/world (East Pennsylvania) my husband is allowed to join me for the ultrasounds. I cannot imagine and deeply feel for the mothers that have had to do that alone. 

Even when the world isn't in a pandemic, it is stressful being pregnant. Everything you do or every place you go, you wonder- Is this safe for me, for my baby? Now add in the huge unknown factor of a virus outbreak that you can't see but know it could seriously affect you and the unborn baby. Trying to find a balance of still trying to live our lives and let my toddler experience life but also keeping us all, especially baby and I protected, is super stressful! Every sneeze you hear, every cough, you cringe- wondering if you just exposed yourself to the virus, and having no idea if you do get the virus, what long term outcomes/consequences it will have on you and baby. There is no visible end in sight for this virus, as we approach month bajillion, and I know it will be a way different experience having a baby and first few months post partum during COVID. No more big family parties to see the newborn. No more taking newborn out in public (to the mall, restaurants, shopping) to 'get out of the house' (He is also born in January so the cold changes things too even in a non-pandemic world). It will certainly be different, but all we can do is hope. Hope for a vaccine. Hope for a change. Hope for better virus management. Hope for better days ahead. Luckily the kids are/will be young enough they won't remember this, but will be interesting to explain to them what life was like during this time, when they were oh so little. All we can do is love them and keep home life as normal as possible and keep things positive within our 4 walls and we will survive. This too shall pass. 

Well, I could keep writing about anything and everything, but I will stop here. Little daughter is currently shouting "mommy change pooey!" from her crib- post nap- her favorite time to poo. SO I better get on that! I thank you kindly for being interested enough to read this post, it means a lot to me. I am excited to be able to document these things that my children can also look back on in the future. 

With love, 

The New Motherboard.