One Mom’s Story: Kim, on Becoming a Parent During COVID

Kim, as a first-time mom to March 2021 baby boy, experienced her pregnancy, birth, and postpartum during the height of COVID. She has been regularly attending After Baby Club meetings since her son was five months old. This story was written by Kim and edited and formatted by the Rooted Willow Community team. Photo credit for the above of Kim and her son to Jessica Snider Photography.

I found out I was pregnant a few months into the pandemic.

We had been trying to conceive for a while, so I was mostly in shock about the whole thing. I was, however, hyper aware of contracting COVID, since being pregnant put me at higher risk of getting sick and having complications. I was super diligent about keeping space and wearing masks, which was pretty hard to do in my line of work. Most of my friends didn’t know that pregnancy made me high risk, so a lot of people thought I was being “crazy” about the restrictions.

I’m not really the kind of person that likes to have the attention on myself, so initially I thought all the restrictions wouldn’t bother me too much. But the more my belly grew, the sadder and more aware I became about how the restrictions were affecting my pregnancy. My own mom only saw me pregnant a handful of times, and my best friend didn’t see me at all. I barely took any pictures because they didn’t happen naturally like they normally would. My weekly bump photos are pretty much all I have.

I also didn’t have a traditional baby shower. We had a Zoom shower, which was nice, but everyone who has been to any kind of Zoom party will tell you how weird it is. Even the nicest Zoom shower is awkward. I’d thought I didn’t want the “lame” baby shower games, opening gifts in front of people, and all of the attention on myself. But not having a “real” shower was something that I cried about many times.

I worked in retail management at the time, so my job changed a lot with the restrictions.

I was used to really spending time with customers and getting to know them, but with the restrictions (and my anxiety) I had to keep a distance and keep interactions short and to the point. Even behind the scenes we tried to limit time together in the office or break room. It was pretty lonely.

The farther along in pregnancy I got, the more emotional it was. I already felt sort of useless, since my job was fairly physical, and there was a lot that I couldn’t do while pregnant. But then on top of that I had to take more frequent breaks to sit and eat which kept other people out of the office. I felt like I wasn’t doing my job while also keeping other people from doing theirs.

My labor and birth with all the COVID restrictions was pretty true to what I expected.

I ended up being induced, so the day before the induction I had to go in to get a COVID test. It came back negative so I didn’t have to wear a mask at all for the entire stay. My husband had to wear a mask anytime someone else was in the room, so a lot of the early photos of my husband and son are with masks.

I was only allowed one support person, and we weren’t allowed to leave the room. So the food situation was pretty annoying. We brought snacks with us, but we couldn’t bring anything that needed refrigeration. For anything of real substance we had to DoorDash, which was frustrating and expensive.

Also since we couldn’t leave the room, I felt like I didn’t have anywhere to move. Even though I had a little space of my own, I felt pretty bed-bound. My son was posterior and I’m so certain that things would have gone differently had I been able to move around and walk (or lunge) the halls. This really affected how I look back on my birth. I have a lot of “what if’s” that I maybe wouldn’t have had if my labor hadn’t been affected by the COVID restrictions.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder years before pregnancy, so I had nearly a 100% chance of ending up with postpartum depression.

Just because you see it coming doesn’t mean you’ll know how to handle it when it hits you. For expectant parents who have depression or anxiety, there are about a million resources to prepare for what to expect, how medication can help, etc etc. If you have any other mental health diagnosis that can be exacerbated postpartum, you are hard-pressed to find a single article.

The cocktail of medications that had been working for me for years stood no chance against the postpartum hormones. And it can take months and months to find the right cocktail. Plus, it wasn’t just the initial after-birth hormonal fluctuation that threw me off: it was then also the hormones that go along with breastfeeding.

I was the farthest I could have been from stable, and it felt impossible to fix. I felt so defeated and powerless to it all, like I couldn’t control myself or my reactions to things. All over again, I had to accept the embarrassing truth that I am reliant on medication to function the way others can naturally. I truly felt like my husband and son would be better off without me. It was the lowest low I have ever felt, and hope to ever feel, in my life.

Photo credit to Jessica Snider Photography.

If I didn't feel so alone, things would have felt more manageable.

We moved to Maryland seven days before everything shut down. We didn’t have a chance to make any friends or find out what fun things were in the area. Both sets of our parents are within 75 miles but not close by any means. Life during COVID would have been lonely regardless. Couple that with parenting, especially in the early days, which can feel so lonely. I don’t think I have ever in my life felt as alone as I did when I had an infant.

My husband sort of forced me to go to the After Baby Club (the first ever meeting!!!) when my son was five months old. That really was a pivotal moment in my postpartum journey. Being with women – real women in the same room as you, not just randoms on the internet – was so beneficial. 

The anger and resentment that you’re so ashamed of (pretty rude of my husband to have friends, right?). Sharing their emotional feeding journey. Laughing about who does or doesn’t feel like a sexual being anymore. Having other women listen and understand made me feel like I had a community. I wasn’t alone. I wonder how different things would have been for me if I had felt that support right from the beginning.

My son is almost 18 months old, and reflecting back on this time in my life is still really emotional.

Being pregnant was wonderful for me. I had never felt more stable or normal in my life. I was so zen and found myself being an emotional sounding board for others, which is not at all my natural state. These are facts I remember about pregnancy, but I don’t actually remember it. The things I remember are like they’re from a third person point of view. I don’t know if it’s the mental illness, or biological, or hormonal, or a combination of the three. But knowing that I felt so incredible and not being able to remember how it actually felt is soul crushing.

My birth story is something I’m still working through. I think to the average person it would sound like a typical healthy birth. But, similarly to the pregnancy, I don’t really remember it at all. There was so much anxiety surrounding my induction, but I felt like I couldn’t show that vulnerability. I pushed it all down before I went to the hospital and disassociated for the entire experience. I could go on for ages about it, but in summary: I initially thought that I would want 3 kids, all just a few years apart. Today I’m about 80% sure I want a second, and about 100% sure that two is my cap.

Something I want to make aggressively clear, though, is that everyone has different feelings about everything.

I’m not saying any of this in a “pregnancy/birth/postpartum traumatized me” kind of way. It’s more like I am coming to peace with the fact that this has all been different than I had expected. I no longer want what I initially thought I wanted. For me, my experience was a combination of hormones, mental illness, medication, past trauma, certain relationships, etc. Everyone’s experience is different in a million different ways, for a million different reasons. It’s all valid.

Parenting is so incredible, and it also sucks.

You put your entire being into raising a functioning member of society. All of your time, energy, money — all for your kid to grow up and tell their therapist how you traumatized them. I’m joking. Sort of.

But in all seriousness, we can never do everything right. We’re going to mess something up along the way. It might be big, it might be small. But I think something important to remember for ourselves (and for other struggling parents) is that we are just out here trying our best. As humans, we make mistakes. We just need to apologize to our kids when we make those mistakes and hope that they understand and have empathy when they’re older.

The biggest and most important achievement I've made as a parent is that I'm still alive.

When I had a 3 month old, I had a hard time thinking of that as a possible outcome for myself.

A lot of people don’t share that experience, but if that’s where you are, just try to finish the day. Or the hour. Or the minute. Do whatever you can to keep going, because the best thing you can give your baby is yourself. Babies don’t need the perfect mom, they need *a* mom. Depression can feel so permanent, and you might feel like you’re being swallowed whole, but it will end eventually, and you’ll want to be there.

Parenting has taught me that two opposites can be true at once.

I’m not sure that pre-child me would even understand what I’m saying, but this is the biggest, most important thing that I have learned.

People often say things like “parenting is hard, but it’s fulfilling” when really we should be saying “parenting is hard AND it’s fulfilling.” One truth does not invalidate the other. Taking care of my son is a real chore, and he is so fun that it feels like he’s giving me a break from life sometimes. Parenting is easily the hardest thing I have ever done, and loving on my sweet babe is the easiest thing that I have ever done. I miss the old me, and I love who I have become.