What a strange time it is in our world… While I’m glad that baby Evelyn came a little earlier than expected so we could try to avoid overpacked hospitals and an overwhelmed medical system, we are now isolated at home facing an unknown future and unknown consequences. Now, I’m a homebody by all means. I love being at home. I’ve been a stay at home mom with my 2.5 year old and we are very lucky to have a home and yard that we love. It’s not the being at home part that is difficult for us, it’s the heightened anxiety, the lack of connection, and the weight of the general unknown that surrounds us. Having a brand new baby is such an amazing milestone in one’s life but COVID-19 has thrown a wrench in what should be a celebratory time for our family and those who love us.
We all know a new mom is an anxious creature already. We can hardly sleep as we watch our babies every breath in their bassinet as they nap. We wash our hands excessively and make everyone be extra careful, quiet and clean. We constantly worry about our new tiny babies getting hurt or sick on a normal day. Add a highly contagious and potentially lethal virus outbreak to the mix, it’s a recipe for disaster. I wipe down the door knobs, cabinet pulls, fridge handles, toilet flushers, faucets, and counters every morning with disinfectant wipes. I wipe the dang soap pumps and the bottle that the wipes come from when I’m done. It’s all a little overboard, but I have this fear that I may get sick and they will separate me from my children. I know that this is unlikely, but I’m a little irrational at the moment; I gave birth five days ago. I’m allowed to be irrational.
New mommas are also emotionally fragile following child birth. Every Huggies commercial with the tiny little diapers makes me bawl. I’ve even found myself indulging in the hallmark women’s network movies which is so NOT me. The lack of connection to loved ones and friends has been very challenging. I consider myself to be a very independent person and while I like that we can really connect as a family without interruption, it’s hard to feel like we are all alone. I realize that everyone is preoccupied with their own anxieties right now, but people are just not reaching out! I have received ONE lovely phone message, a few emails, texts and social media messages, yet nothing compares to that face to face contact that humans naturally crave. My mom sent flowers which was very sweet as we needed that pop of color and love in the house. And our best friends gave us some goodies and a card, dropped off at the front gate to avoid contact. Not being able to share our new daughter with her own grandparents, aunties, cousins and friends is such a foreign thing. No gifts, no casseroles, no cards, no baked goods, no preoccupying big sister and showering her with the attention that she deserves, no warm hugs, no “here I’ll take her so you can rest.” I want so badly for people to smell her new baby smell before it fades away. I want them to see how amazing her big sister is doing with this transition. I want them to see that I washed my hair, shaved my legs, and put on my pre-pregnancy pants. But alas, we will have to wait, and we don’t even know for how long.
The hardest part of all of this for our family is the unknown. We have no idea how long this will go on for. A month ago, we all thought maybe a few weeks or a month, but now people are estimating end of summer at the earliest. Does that mean my sweet baby can’t meet her extended family for another 5 or 6 months?!? Is this gonna have any negative impact on her socially speaking? Is she going to be shy and untrustworthy with her own family who are strangers to her? So much can happen in that amount of time. Our good friends and family who work in the healthcare system could catch the virus. The family members that we have that are immunocompromised, elderly, or with underlying health conditions may get sick. We won’t know that we are out of the woods though, until we are out of the woods. And even then, we are at risk of a second wave if we rush to resume our normal lives too quickly. The new mom anxiety may taper as it naturally does, but the lack of much needed connection and continued unknown will linger on for who knows how long…
At the beginning off all this, many didn’t think it was a big deal, but it has had an enormous impact on all of our lives in such a short time. While it has taken away some of the traditional moments one would expect following a new baby, there are people all over the world losing their lives or loved ones so we obviously consider ourselves very lucky. Perhaps the silver lining is this will be one heck of a story for Evelyn when she grows up. Sadly, it may be a more regular phenomenon for the next generations if we don’t learn from our mistakes.
Annabel's Mom 