You have the concern of developmental issues. Is she learning as quickly as she should be? Because we are unable to give her the stimulation that she would get at daycare, especially while we’re both working full time? You worry about her constantly feeling that she’s having to battle between us being on our laptops and phones and thinking that that’s not giving her the attention, even though we’re trying to work at the same time.
We’re both in companies that are really essential. My husband’s in logistics and so they are transporting all of the goods needed: toilet paper, food, all of that. I work for an employment law firm where everyone’s concerned about their employees, how to navigate this new world we’re in and keep their employees on payroll, and if not, how to best go about that. But that then also lends to we’re working long hours. We’re super busy throughout the day.
We’re not able to send our daughter back to daycare where she would have normally been back, probably two months ago. They’ve been taking extreme precautions.They’re doing everything by the book and we would have felt comfortable sending her back if I wasn’t pregnant.
So because she’s home, it’s that whole other aspect of what we’re still working from home. We’ve been at this for six months, full time. More than 40 hours a week working and then having a two year old running around trying to keep her busy, keep her learning, keep her thriving, and all the while dealing with pregnancy symptoms.
The emotional journey has been the most taxing of everything. We are in California and both of our families are in Michigan. So the last time we’ve seen family was Thanksgiving. Now I can’t travel back to everyone. She can’t see her grandparents. My grandfather actually passed away and so we were able to go to the memorial. So it has affected all personal levels of our life.
It’s very likely that no one will be here when the baby is born. The last pregnancy, we had people in the house for four months straight, getting to know the baby, helping out. So we have very real concerns that we are going to be at this on our own even once the baby is born. Then you worry about when will my parents get to meet the baby? Will my sisters get to meet the baby? It’s all been very, very emotional due to that.
Then I think my daughter is also one of the more emotional aspects of it all. Prior to this, she was very outgoing. She loved being out. She loved people watching. Now she has anxietyi, when we go out where she hides behind me and she’s scared of people. Everyone has masks on so that’s also really scary for a two year old. But the emotional toll of knowing that that’s what she’s going through and that I can’t change that until this is over has been really, really hard.
We have a three bedroom house. I don’t have an office but my husband does have an office. We had construction going on for three months. We had a pipe burst and we had to demo our entire downstairs. So we were dealing with all of that all the while. But generally, my husband’s working at a desk. I’m at the dining room table, and then she’s just back and forth. It is a daily daily test, and I will say I am handling the majority of the back and forth and trying to my husband is on the phone all day. He is managing 20 people so his job is very much on the clock. He is six to three and my job is more flexible.
I work as the marketing director at a law firm. For all intents and purposes, we are fighting for women, families and people to be able to have that home work balance. Yet with everything today, our own employees are in a very difficult situation on all fronts. They are very, very, very understanding and very, very flexible. Especially with it being an employment firm. It’s a woman owned law firm. So they understand the needs of families and they understand that we were thrown into the fire here. Initially when this all began, they asked us to set up our hours when we thought we would be most responsive. So they know this block of time that I am, quote unquote available. But if I am not responsive right in the moment, it’s not gonna be a huge deal. Then I would just work later hours or on the weekends to make up for the time. It’s felt as though I’ve been working nonstop the last six months because I don’t have a set schedule and because I’m constantly trying to make up hours throughout the day where I dedicate to my daughter because I refuse to have it be eight to ten solid hours every single day where she gets zero attention. It’s a daily struggle of figuring out when I can fit work in and whether it means I’m gonna be up at night making up for that time or whether we can all work together in this.
She has no social interaction. She you know, I can’t she’s she’s not even two yet. I can’t put her in front of an iPad. I can’t put her in the corner and say, read this book. She needs interaction and she needs guidance. I’m very, very pro day care. I don’t pretend to know or have an educational background. I know the landmarks where she should be, but I don’t pretend to be an expert in that. I also know that she can get so much more stimulation from the social aspect of it. We’ve been looking for friends with like aged children in order to create some sort of bubble. But again, it all goes back to being pregnant and immunocompromised. And a lot of our friends have their kids back in daycare. So it’s really limited our capabilities, even just in our immediate circle of friends and support group where it’s kind of kicked us out. It’s made us even more isolated than everyone was already feeling.
One of my close friends in particular. She was pregnant at the same time as I was with my daughter and she had a daughter that is a month older. Now we’re both pregnant again. So we’ve leaned on each other throughout all of this because we do feel it’s such a unique situation. Pregnancy is taxing to begin with but with all of these other factors it feels like an impossible task.
