Baby, it's the Covid era

I’ve been avoiding writing about having a baby in the Covid-era. Like most people, I’m so sick of Covid and all that it’s done to change our interior and exterior worlds. As the cases climb here in New Zealand, I’m feeling anxious. I wasn’t even sure how to express what it’s been like to be pregnant and have a baby, while Covid simmers away in the background and the case numbers rise. But I feel it’s important to record this experience and whether you have children or not, perhaps you’ll relate.

I remember sitting at work just after getting through a few weeks of morning sickness, as the managers talked about what we’d do if the delta variant took off and we went into another lockdown. It was July, 2021. Pfft, I thought. There can’t be another lockdown. At the same time, a niggly little voice said, what if Covid takes off again. It was an ever-present threat, but that threat had faded. After all, it had been over a year since we were in lockdown from March to May, 2020. We’d almost forgotten what it was like. “I can’t imagine having a baby in a full-blown lockdown,” I said to my workmates. “I wouldn’t be able to see my family, or friends, or meet new mothers.”

In August, we went into another lockdown. Thankfully Wellington’s lasted three weeks, but it was exhausting. I attended the 20 week scan by myself and called my husband and toddler on speaker phone as the sonographer showed us all what sex the baby was going to be. I tried to work, study and parent, and be pregnant (which takes a lot of energy!) in a 15 hour day and everything seemed to suffer. A couple of months later I found out I’d used up all my iron stores and that was also why I was feeling so tired, but I just thought it was the ordinary tiredness of being pregnant, along with the cognitive load of Covid: all the assessments we make about safety and risks, and the extra things we do each day that were unthinkable two years ago. Cognitive load is mentioned in this article, which has a good explanation about how our usual automated actions have been disrupted by this huge change in our world. There is a lot we do on autopilot, that we now have to think about, like wearing masks, hand-washing, scanning in, and keeping an eye on case numbers/watching the media.

As the due date approached, I kept hoping we would hold off on that full-blown swell of Covid cases until the baby was born. In January, we were in the hospital and onto the maternity ward: allowed only one visitor at a time and one support person who had to leave when the visitor arrived. Also, no other children, which meant my toddler couldn’t visit and spent three days away from us. It was hard not having him involved. He couldn’t come to any doctors appointments or scans throughout the pregnancy, either. It was a completely different experience to having him: he was held by his grandmothers in the hospital, the day after he was born. I could wander the wards, mask-free. This time around, it was just me and my husband and our newborn. This did have its advantages. The bubble of three felt comforting and like we had more time to get to know our baby. We didn’t need as much midwife or nurse support either, we just got on with it.

Once we were home, we had to make decisions about visitors, given Omicron was in Auckland and spreading its grubby tentacles throughout the country.

The anxiety I’d felt during pregnancy eased abit, and I was OK with going to cafes and art galleries. Both Grandmas visited, and took extra precautions like driving down rather than flying. We decided it was OK for friends to visit in the first few weeks, from 2 weeks onwards, because we knew we were on borrowed time with the Covid cases climbing.

We went to the Dowse in Petone and it was amazing to get out and look at some art

Now, there are thousands of cases daily. I’m back to feeling uncertainty and trepidation about what lies ahead. It does feel certain that we’ll get Covid. But when? And how will my unvaccinated children cope, including a newborn? How will my compromised immune system handle it all?

The fatigue of the last two years of the pandemic is very real. I hope you’re finding time to rest, especially if you’re a parent, because I know how worrying it is to have children in a pandemic and wonder if they’ll be OK. I also hope we can support each other through these uncertain times, and try not to let the divisive nature of protests and anti-vaxx sentiment get us down. This afternoon, I listened to some slow songs (not kid’s music, for once) and made a raspberry jam slice, while the toddler and baby were occupied (with Grandma, and asleep). It helped to reset my mind and help my body unwind, even if it was only for half an hour. It showed me how important it is to prioritise relaxation, take care of ourselves, and each other. If you’ve any ideas on short bursts of self-care (I’m thinking 20 minutes, and I know the effects of the Covid pandemic are far wider, and cannot be fixed by individual self-care alone…) feel free to leave a comment x