corona virus – Motherhood after IVF

February 5th- Dorothea turns 3! life is normal, we head to Warwick play village to celebrate Dots 3rd Birthday- a delightful Birthday party at home is planned.

All her overexcited, bouncy toddler friends arrive at home for an afternoon of cheesy tunes, bubbles, water-beads, cake and dinosaurs. The lounge is Decorated with an awesome array of balloons and the most delicious, artististic cake is delivered-if only the rest of 2020 was as stunning.

After an exciting few hours: playing and dancing with friends is over: Dot is left exhausted, full of excitement of a new range of low cost cost but massively appreciated gifts; oh and more bubbles. We even managed a post Birthday family trip to Peppa pig world.

In retrospect- reviewing my diary entries on week beginning February 10th brings me to tears- hope and dreams of the year ahead are clear. Dot starts nursery, the car is booked into the garage for service (how very mundane) an theres a note in my diary to cancel the NHS pension for a few months and ‘order a new baby; meaning book into the fertility clinic to commence a FET. A couple of months prior to this we had already arranged repeat blood tests to start the process.

Although in February it was clear international virus concerns may affect us- at this point it still felt a million miles away. So Mummy continued in her NHS nursing role and life was ‘normal’ – albeit a side eye on the international news.; we certainly felt plans for holidays and expanding our family were realistic.

March brought increasing stresses at work for an immunocompromised Mummy- life became very obsessed with the risks of everyday work and life. The biological treatments and medications Mummy took daily weighed so much more on the mind than they ever had in privous months or years. What were described as rare risk factors, suddenly felt as serious risks upon our safety and family life.

An an immunocompromised nurse; working life quickly became comparable with a warzone; returning home meant undressing in the garden, and showering before i could even kiss my family hello/goodnight. Fearing for my own, and my families mortality became a daily concern- sleep was sparse and anxiety was high.

It couldn’t have been much fun for Dorothea living through February/March of 2020- unknowing there was about to be a pandemic; we planned for Dot to commence pre-school shortly after her 3rd Birthday. We carefully reviewed our local options options, and opted for a preschool which had good reviews, and would also support a slow and progressive integration into preschool life. In the weeks running up to her 3rd birthday, we both supported her in her ‘settling in sessions’, involving both Mummy and Daddy and her grandparents too.

Obviously after 3 years of the comfort of home this brought tears and anxiety; but after a few sessions Dorothea settled well, and developed a fledging relationship with her ‘key workers’ Erin and Emily. Even to this day (in September) Dorothea often says she dreams about the lovely ‘Erin and Emily’ and will ask us to ‘role play’ nursery pretending to be them.

Dorothea had only been in preschool, one day a week, for a few weeks, when i received my letter from the government that described me as ‘extremely vulnerable’ and advised me to shield for 12 weeks. This meant my immediate confinement to home, Daddys return fron the office, to ‘working at home’, and us pulling Dorothea from preschool for the immedaite future.

This was hard; we would all be restricted to life within our home/garden for the next few months. Meaning no visits or childcare from Dots loving grandparents, no trips shopping, or out for meals or visits with friends. Luckily in the first few weeks, the weather was on our side- we enjoyed the ‘holiday vibe’, with family meals, garden play and unseasonal sunshine. Following this my workplace arranged a role for me- meaning I quickly had to learn the life of a ‘ working from home Mum.’

I promptly discovered i could get the family up, dressed and an activity planned ( to entertain Dot) ready to start interviewing nurses for the COVID workforce by 9 am – work life was ‘odd’, sometimes in Pjs- apologising to candidates that they may hear a toddler in the background!

The role of recruiting nurses to the frontline was satisfying; ever grateful that those with a ‘duty to care’ were willing to do a role that i could no longer fulfil – discussing their willingness to step forward to help the country battle a ‘war’, and their eagerness to return to a role which they may have left to answer a different calling. I will never forget those conversations with those nurses which had served in wars, or previous pandemics, or returned from retirement; as they felt it was there duty. Its with a degree of guilt i will always regret not joining them in this unprecedented battle.

After a couple of months my role was no longer required. So i no longer had to explain the difference to Dorothea of a ‘work day’ and a ‘non work day’. Even now Dot will role play ‘interviews’- after months of hearing Mummy do these calls or video calls. Its actually really cute, hearing her interviewing her dolls, or teddies- she really did get a unique view of life during that time.

After my ‘recruitment role’ was no longer required, my laptop was returned to the trust and i felt useless, no form of ‘working from home’ was discussed\available and i felt pushed out and unwanted.

Lucky for me a had an excitable and inquisitive toddler in my face at 7.30 each morning. I’m not sure what i would have done without her: she gave me a reason to get my (increasingly soft) arse out of bed. The battle of lockdown for me was a truly mental one; i went from being a sociable being, in an important role (conversing with 40+ people a day), to being isolated at home: with my (busy- business owning husband) and a chatty 3 year old for company!

The purpose of this blog is to explore Dorotheas experience during 2020- so i don’t want to talk too much about me and my ‘shielding’- but having an understand of that predicament clearly helps to understand how ‘growing up’ in 2020 was so different for her.

For me its feels very easy to think about the negatives; but this extended time together did help us achieve /appreciate so much! Things we achieved in 2020;

Potty training ( see blog)
sleep training (see blog)
Dorothea seemed to develop emotionally in a massive way- so much parental involvement surely cannot be a bad thing
A huge improvement in our marital relationship/ reduction of arguments etc. ( IMO. impossible not to when you spend 24/7 together for 4 months- theres either a homocide- or you get on! – insert laughing emoji)

Things that didn’t happen in 2020:

i purchased so much paint; thinking id have time to improve the house! didn’t happen- just seems impossible with a toddler constantly attached to your leg
we thought we’d save money! Actually relying on the safer option of ‘home deliveries’- means you spend more- after all Aldi don’t do home delivery
Time to get fit/healthy- erm, well- cant really explain this one. After fits and starts of activity i’ve gained huge amounts of weight/fat- alcohol has unfortunately helped me de-stress and gain rest/sleep (this is not ideal- and something i aim to change)
We thought Dorothea would now be settled in pre-school; the fact that i have extended ‘shielding’ means it would make no sense to send Dot to pre-school (ie. increasing risks to her numerous contacts)

So it’s October 5th- shielding has been paused (extended due to me working in Leicester) and I have 2 weeks annual leave and then I return to work.

We’ll need to get Dot into some sort of routine; workout if and when we’ll get her back in pre-school- and what I want to do long term regarding my job role with COVID hanging over our heads.

Words by @chameleoninhighheels

In one of my blog posts I talked about life after lockdown and how I am enjoying the absence of FOMO (fear of missing out).

Feedback from readers was confirming that I was not the only one feeling relief that I did not have to keep up with the Jones’s anymore or feel bouts of inadequacy because my social life sucks and I can’t be bothered to hit the nightlife because a) I am so tired ALL THE TIME and want to be in bed well before midnight; b) I can’t drink anymore since having kids, and a sniff of half a glass of wine sends me to sleep (cheap date) and c) I feel highly anxious and apprehensive in large crowds and gatherings, which is not a reason to be explored in today’s post, but nevertheless a valid reason.

I am OK with being at home, obeying the rules and working hard to make the best out of this abysmal situation, some days better than others. I exercise daily, I make sure we live in the garden if it’s nice and I put so much veg in our dinners that I am sure we may be sprouting some bell peppers and broccoli out of our ears any time soon.

Leaving the house may no longer be a spontaneous event, but it is a right I have not passed on once since lockdown started. I do raise an eyebrow when I see people making up their own rules as they go along, loosely interpreting social distancing with “it’s in the open air, it won’t hurt” whilst standing far too close. But I am not terrified, I am not scared, I don’t feel anxious about leaving the house.

I am a teacher and before lockdown I was surrounded by hundreds of students every day – in minuscule classrooms, where even the students at one stage pointed out that the 2-metre rule was a joke when they sat no further than 15cm apart from one another (no kidding). I saw a minimum of a third of students in all my classes go off sick or self-isolate and I watched one of my colleagues frantically disinfecting our staff room after another colleague coughed when making her coffee (said colleague was ill the next day).

Despite this, I came out seemingly unscathed. No symptoms, although I am fully aware that I could have been a carrier. But – the Corona Virus didn’t make me ill whilst working in a relatively risky environment although I feel a lot calmer since the school shut down. Don’t misquote or misunderstand me please: I don’t feel invincible or superhuman. I know the dangers and have made sure I did not go anywhere apart from a walk or run for the first two weeks in lockdown, making sure I wouldn’t pass on anything I had picked up at school. What I am saying is that I am not scared to leave the house. I am fine with it. And, until I spoke to two of my peers, I thought most people would be “just fine” with leaving the house, too.

As it turns out, not everyone is. FOGO, or fear of going out is real and it is all-encompassing and exhausting.

One of my readers opened my eyes to something I had not experienced. She revealed that going out made her fear awkward social situations when the path wasn’t wide enough to stay the prescribed 2 metres apart or feeling that she was in someone’s way. She also noticed that, although lots of people are being friendly and greeting each other, there is a more serious side to interacting with strangers – a stare rather than a smile or a stern look whilst passing. “I guess it’s people’s fear coming out.”, she opines. I recall my own experience from a few days ago when I went shopping and some customers walked past me no further than 50cm away because they couldn’t wait a few seconds behind me. I remember briefly feeling panicked because I thought: ‘That’s breaking the rules!’ (I am German. I love rules). Then, slightly bemused yet also slightly bewildered I muttered under my breath how great it was that Covid-19 only attacks from front and back – don’t worry about breathing on me from the left or right, its inbuild virus navigation system won’t know how to attack me from the side – I considered briefly to start wearing a scarf round my face, to protect myself from such idiocy (if anything, I don’t have to witness it…).

My friend, however, can’t find any bemusement in such careless behaviour. Trips to the supermarket these days are a systematic cleaning operation thereafter, with everything, from shopping bags being disinfected, to clothes washed, to her partner being ordered to shower, to any possible surface being scrubbed within an inch of its life. To many of us the virus is invisible and therefore we may even forget about it. To my friend, it is everywhere, lingering in the air she breathes, in the should-be-safe-comfort of her home, on her food, the floor in her home, on herself.

For another reader FOGO takes on a different perspective, that of coping with past traumas of infections during pregnancy and having to go through the hell of watching her newborn getting infected. I get choked up when she tells me her story and gives me an insight into what life with an all-surrounding fear of infection feels like during Covid-19.

Whilst she is not always terrified of going out and sometimes wants nothing more than to leave the house, her fears are more complex than that: “The silly part is that if you ask me whether or not I’m worried that the girls will catch Corona Virus or if it’ll make them really poorly then I’d say I’m not worried really, because it isn’t tending to harm children, but it’s having the idea rammed down our throat that we constantly need to clean everything. I know that’s perfectly reasonable and for a good reason at the minute, but it’s terrifying when your mind already works that way.

Plus there’s all this talk of statistics and which surfaces germs can live on and how long for etc., etc., which plays right into my anxieties.” To cope with this, my reader relies on keeping herself busy, and, BC (before Covid), was glad to go out as much as possible. Now she can’t. “In short”, she tells me, “the Corona Virus has done two things: Validated my crippling fear of germs, contamination and the need to clean everything and it also made me feel that I am very much trapped inside four walls with my own horrific thoughts. So there is [the fear of not having] the option [to go] out for any length of time to distract myself and [also] FOGO because of all the ‘what ifs’”.

Opening conversations with two fellow women has underlined what I already anticipated: Life in lockdown may, on the surface, be the same for us all. The same rules apply to all of us and none of us will be going anywhere anytime soon. However, this exceptional new way of life is also highlighting that we are all so different. This experience forms and shapes all of us individually – none of us can have the same experience. Our past is unique, our fears, or mental health all vary and so what feels good for one is the worst possibility for another.

Therefore, so I believe, the most important lesson we can learn from this is to be kind to ourselves. Whichever way we get through this day by day is up to you, not prescribed by your mate who posts 500 activities on social media (that is no criticism, but comparison is also highly dangerous at this stage). Kindness and understanding of others’ fears and ways to cope is also a must. Don’t try and fix. Just listen and accept. No one is crazy. We are different. All our feelings matter. The aim is to get through this in one piece. Mentally, physically and spiritually. Whatever gets you through, whatever you have to do: Do it. And don’t forget to breathe.

@chameleoninhighheels Insta

Tag: corona virus

I am 3- Toddler life in Covid 2020