Pregnant & post-partum in COVID: A therapist’s journey
There are already tons of posts out there about the specific difficulties and issues that come with being pregnant, delivering, and going through post-partum during this pandemic. I certainly don’t want to be repetitive, and I hope this won’t be. Rather, I want to come at this topic from the perspective of therapist who is going through this herself, to give a glimpse into what goes through my head during this time, given my professional knowledge and experience.
We therapists have been through a lot with this pandemic – trying our best to be there for our clients while experiencing many of the same problems, fears, and pain that the rest of the population is going through, all while being there emotionally for our families and ourselves at the same time. Everyone has their own trials in this, and there is no way to compare the pain of total isolation living on your own with the pain of supporting a large family in quarantine, or the fear of being immunocompromised with the fear of never getting to hug your parents again. I am in no way trying to put my own struggles up against others’, nor am I saying that my experience has been particularly unique or hard compared to anyone else’s. But it has been mine, and thus, it’s what I can write about. So, with all of that disclaiming aside, here goes.
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We found out we were expecting back in March. After about 6 months of feeling “ready” but still holding off, waiting until it felt like “just the right time” for our family, ensuring that our three sons seemed stable emotionally and that our marriage was in a strong enough place to handle a fourth, we finally pulled the trigger and began trying. We had heard about a virus across the oceans, but it still seemed so far away, certainly not anything that should impact our family planning. It happened quick, and a month later, there was that second line on the test. Joy!
10 days later, the state shut down the schools.
We were terrified. We had no clue how the virus could affect the pregnancy, no clue how we would weather my own physical illness during those early months while simultaneously caring for three boys ages 7-and-under at home with us, no clue how the epidemic would progress and whether we would be able to have any help along the way, no clue about anything. It was just plain scary. In the face of the unknown, we tried our best to think positive, to believe that G-d runs the show, to break the news to our families with a chuckle about best laid plans, and to be there for one another through anxiety, exhaustion, and nausea.
Those first couple of months were an interesting study in private vs. public spheres. We don’t generally tell anyone we’re expecting until we’re past the first trimester, and this time that secrecy only amplified the sense of isolation and loneliness of quarantine. While the world out there was falling apart and thousands were dying, we holed up in our family quarantine, knowing that new life was slowly but surely growing within. It was a comfort and a terror, all at once. We told people sooner than we normally do, just to feel some connection to others in our experience. We made our private world that much more public to stave off the disconnection. We tried to welcome some of the outside in, through zoom and facetime and other such apps, even as we kept a hard line of physical separation from others. We tried to celebrate our news with our loved ones; mostly, it just fell flat in translation over screens and through the noise of the rest of the news going on around us all. At least, that’s how it felt to me.
Through months of uncertainty, isolation, and fear, we both kept working, our kids kept kidding, and the baby kept growing. I went to prenatal appointments alone, sorely missing that moment when we both get to hear the heartbeat for the first time, or get to see the baby on the ultrasound screen, searching for blurry hints of our noses, lips, and chins. My belly grew bigger and bigger, which no one ever really got to see or comment on with a smile. It was sad to be alone and hard to move through those months with so much darkness around us, but I remained appreciative of what we had been given, knowing so many others who have difficulty getting pregnant at all. At least, I tried to.
As a therapist, I knew about the importance of my relationships during times of trauma, transition, and uncertainty. I tried my very best to nurture them as best I could; to stay on zoom with friends and family, to plan “date nights” at home with my husband, to give each of my kids personal attention. But I must admit, as the months wore on, none of this stuck. The zoom calls happened less and less often, the date nights disappeared into the sheer monotony of watching Netflix in exhaustion each evening, and the kids suffered from a tired pregnant mom who just wanted some peace and quiet rather than play yet another round of superheroes in the basement with them. Basically, I failed. Or, I felt like I did. The therapist in me knows exactly what I would say to a client in my place: “Of course you feel that way. It’s normal. It’s hard. It’s exhausting. No one can be perfect, and the imperfections themselves are gifts to your children, you’re teaching them resilience. Self care, self care, self care, SELF CARE, damnit!!!! I see you. I get you. You’re not a failure, you’re a human. Etc. etc. etc.” But does any of that work when you say it to yourself? It should; that’s what self-soothing is, after all, and a healthy mature adult needs to develop that skill in order to function. But it of course never works well enough to stave off the underlying feeling completely; there’s always that voice saying, “well, if you had pushed a bit harder…” If I had only pushed harder, I would’ve been a better mom, a better wife, a better person.
Throughout this time, we were blessed to have help; we went months without any backup at all at first, but eventually we were able to welcome back our sitter to help out with the kids, which made a huge difference and allowed us to actually get some real work (or sleep) accomplished. But then, when it came to planning for the birth, we were at a loss. Every other time we’ve relied on family and friends quite easily to watch the other kids for us while we went off to the hospital at a moment’s notice; we had our village, and we gratefully called upon it. This time, family was out of the question as they all live COVID-impossible flights away, and friends would be a much more complicated endeavor in terms of safety for all involved. We tried our best to figure out a plan, and some incredible neighbors and friends did come through for us in the end, jumping in to help with the kids at the last minute and giving us a sense of peace as we made our way to the hospital. They literally risked their own health and lives to support us. I will be forever grateful to them for that, even as I mourn not having the comfort of my own family around.
I won’t go into the details of labor and delivery; suffice it to say, it wasn’t the smoothest of experiences. All in all, I’m thankful my husband could be there with me, thankful I could go through (most of it) without having to keep my mask on, and thankful for a healthy and happy baby at the end. No visitors at the hospital: another tough one. No kids allowed to come and meet their baby sister, no grandparents to come hold their first granddaughter. I was overjoyed to have my baby, and I felt guilty for feeling any sadness at all over these lacks; but there it was. I was sad. And ashamed for the sad.
Homecoming was really nice; getting to see my sons again after a couple of days away, and see their joy in welcoming home their new sister was one of the best moments of this entire experience. Unfortunately, it was quickly followed by the hardest part of all: post-partum in COVID.
Post-partum in COVID means no one to come and gush over your newborn with you. Post-partum in COVID means your mom can’t be there to hold you when you’re feeling the baby blues. Post-partum in COVID means you can’t show anyone the milestones, the outfits, the latest thing the baby started doing today. It means taking endless photos to send off to family and friends, followed by the endless fear and shame of being judged for over-sharing, or coming across as annoying or too baby-focused while the world has more important things to tend to, like elections and insurrections and new presidents. Post-partum in COVID means that the exhaustion and pain of recovery must be weathered all alone, just me and my husband, my incredible, selfless, strong, resilient, overworked and underappreciated partner in life who would go to the ends of the Earth and to the limits of his own physical and emotional strength to provide for me and our family. No one else is here to take some of the burden, pick up some of the slack. Life still goes on with a new baby in the house; kids need to get off to school (thankfully ours was still in-person, though it’s been on and off, with weeks at a time of everyone at home at once,) and meals still need to be shopped for and cooked and served and cleaned up, and work still needs to get done, all on only a few hours of sleep and an infant crying to be fed every couple of hours. And honestly, most of that work was and still is being done by my husband. I’ll never be able to thank him enough for everything he does. And the guilt over that is hard, too. Seeing him so tired and overwhelmed, knowing it’s because I can’t do as much as he can right now, is painful. And I’m sure he can’t help but feel some resentment, even as he knows it’s not my fault. As a couple’s therapist, I know this dynamic well. And I know that communicating about it is essential, so we try to do that as often as we can. But it’s never enough. And the tension ebbs and flows between us as the weeks bear on.
Post-partum in COVID means appreciating the strength of my marriage and everything my partner does for me, more than ever before.
Post-partum in COVID means crying alone in the shower so that your family doesn’t have to deal with your whining about loneliness yet again. It means missing out on celebrating and connecting with others over one of life’s greatest joys. It means feeling guilt and shame for your sadness because others are suffering more. It means missing your parents and siblings more than ever before. It means their missing out on moments with your infant that they can never get back. It means accepting help from wherever it is offered, even as you hold your breath (literally) in fear of spreading the virus further all due to your own selfishness and desire for support. It means pinching yourself to remind yourself how good you have it, to snap out of the sadness and back into reality, to look at your baby and recognize the miracle of life in these times filled with so much death.
So here we are, two months out. We are so very blessed. Our family is functioning, and we have the privilege and means to have paid help in our home thanks to our incredibly generous and loving parents. They’ve found a way to be here for us, even across the miles, and it has made such a difference.
I realize how incredibly privileged I am. I know that countless others are going through this without any help at all, without friends or family to support them even from afar, without a partner, without even their health. Thousands have died, or are sustaining long-term complications from the virus. Millions can’t conceive or carry a baby to term, regardless of the pandemic. I have no right to complain about any of this. And yet, here I am, writing it down, publishing it even. Like I said at the outset, I know that we can never compare struggles, and that each person’s difficulties are legitimate and valid and real. I know that, and I tell my clients that all the time.
Still, part of me has a hard time believing my struggles are legitimate. It just feels so petty and small compared to what others are facing. So perhaps that’s part of why I’m writing this. To give a small voice to those struggles that feel too small to express, yet are painful enough to cause damage if left unspoken. To make space for other women to do the same. To let everyone know that therapists struggle with the same things you do, that even as we know the “right” way to approach these difficulties, we still fail, often. And that’s ok. We’re all ok. We’re all going to be ok.
