Soon to be father: Coping with Covid-19
Rewind to November, 2019. Me and my fiance Christy (who was my girlfriend at the time) had just decided to take the next step in our relationship and buy our own house. For 2 years, we had been living together in a one bedroom apartment near my job in Weston, Florida. Little did we know, our lives were about to change in more ways than we could imagine. Our house buying process was a surprisingly painless one; we were moved and settled in to our new house on January 7th, 2020. Meanwhile in distant China, we had started to hear rumblings of a novel virus that was killing people on a mass scale and had the potential to create a global pandemic. “Don’t worry about it”, I told Christy. “The news is probably making it a bigger deal than it is, and besides, South Florida is a longggg way from China”. Needless to say, my unqualified opinion turned out to be extremely wrong.
A couple days after we moved in, we were showing off our new house to some of my family. We went out to grab some lunch with them at nearby Sawgrass Mills mall, right across the street. My grandfather, who was with us at the restaurant, wasn’t feeling well. While we were all concerned and keeping our attention on my grandfather, Christy was keeping quiet the fact that she had a bit of a sick feeling to her stomach. She wasn’t quite sure why just yet. My grandfather thankfully ended up being okay, but my family went their separate ways after lunch given that he was not feeling well (No, this had nothing to do with Covid!). On our way back to the house, with Christy in the passenger seat, she revealed to me that she felt “off”. She gets frequent stomach aches due to a condition named gastroparesis that she lives with; but she said this felt different. Cutting a very long story short, we ended up grabbing a pregnancy test on the way home and sure enough: It was positive!
So we were now new home owners who just found out we are going to be new parents by September. Words can’t express the excitement we felt for what promised to be an eventful and exciting year for us. Fast-forward a couple months into the year, the whispers of the novel virus in China named Covid-19 were no longer whispers. The virus was now ravaging other countries, making its way closer to home. Moving forward, it’s March and Christy was entering her second trimester. We started hearing about more and more cases in the U.S. on the West Coast of the country. Then, we heard of a couple cases on the west coast of Florida. Uh oh, now I’m worried! Before we knew what had hit us, Florida became the epicenter for Covid-19. Hundreds of people dying on a daily basis in our county alone. Yes, COUNTY, not country.
That is only the background of what I actually want to get across in this journal entry: The perspective of a soon to be father in the face of a global pandemic.
The first thing I can remember feeling is an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. There is already so much that has to go right for a healthy baby to form during early pregnancy, pandemic aside. In the beginning, there was little to no information about how this virus affects pregnant women or the developing fetus. There was really nothing we could do other than stay away from people in order to be more in control of the situation. That brings me to the next thing: Not being able to see our family in such an important time of our lives has been absolutely brutal. I often feel sorry that Christy is not able to experience the spoils of being pregnant with her first child. How everyone treats you like a princess when you’re growing a new life, how everyone lights up when they say “you got so much bigger from the last time I saw you!”.
It’s now August. We’re 1 month away from the due date. My sense of excitement has been clouded by worry. The pandemic is just as bad if not worse than it’s ever been. Hospitals are not allowing anyone other than myself to be present when Christy gives birth. That means she will not have her mother by her side as we had planned when her moms first grandchild is born. It means my mom will not be there to hug me when I am overwhelmed with emotion when I hold my baby for the first time. It means I will not be able to walk out and see both of our families in the waiting room and tell them all “everything went well, he’s beautiful”. These are all things most people get to be excited about leading up to birth. Instead, I worry about who from our family we are going to allow to even see the baby as an infant due to the risk of someone having the virus without knowing it. I worry about what kind of world my baby is going to be born into. I worry that this is not ending any time soon. I worry about catching the virus myself and not being able to see the birth of my child. I worry about my child being okay. I worry about Christy being okay. I worry that when we get married in 3 days, our family wont be at the courthouse to celebrate with us. In general, I worry.
With all that said, I realize that feeling sorry for myself is no way to live my life. I realize that worrying about things outside of my control does absolutely no good for me, the baby, Christy, or my family. I realize that every single person living right now has had to adapt to this thing and face their own struggles. Most of all, I realized during this pandemic that there is nobody in this world that I would rather be by my side doing this with than Christy. We’ve grown closer than we’ve ever been, and I can’t wait to raise our child together.