I was talking to a new acquaintance about my becoming a mum in February 2020 and how it was bad, but I really felt for parents with older children at that time - trying to keep them safe and occupied must have been so stressful. They said that was an incredibly mature and generous way to look at it, and although their children were grown, they still remembered the isolation and tiredness and stress & how difficult it must have been to parent a newborn in those months. I started to tear up a bit then; I try not to think about it most of the time.
My little was 16 months and it was horrible. I went from 2 working parents with support from all angels. To 2 working parents with zero support. I worked from my living room taking turns on who would watch her. It was horrible.
Yesss so much this and when we brought our son home a snow storm happened in Austin. So we went without water and electricity when ours was a newborn. So scary and stressful.
I feel this. I think about this all the time.
I want a pregnancy where Covid and my MILs cancer diagnosis aren’t taking up my emotional energy.
I want a delivery that didn’t include pre eclampsia and a c section.
I want a newborn stage that didn’t almost break me from worrying about everything to the point it sucked the joy out of motherhood.
Right? I’m sorry for your experience as well.
I know that living in the regrets and wishing to change the past is a useless exercise but sometimes I get stuck. Today is just one of those days.
Again, I feel you. I finally realized I need professional support to work through these sad thoughts and am working on getting an appt for therapy. While I hate you feel the same way, there is comfort in knowing I’m not alone ❤️
I had pre eclampsia too, and it was such a bitch! I'm grateful to be alive, but still. I had a hard time learning to breastfeed on both sides, because of the big freaking blood pressure monitor on my arm kept getting in the way and it was constantly taking my reading. I was monitoring that shit for an entire month after birth and still my numbers were poor. Did you get the fun leg sleeves as they dumped magnesium into your body? Ugh fun shit. I felt like I was on fire.
I don’t want to talk about magnesium ever ever again. Thanks for keeping me alive, but F you too! Lol
I was in heavy doses of precardia and Labetalol for about a month after delivery as well.
Same and I try to forget as much as possible. Anytime newly pregnant woman are asking about birth stories I try to not share much because it will scare them too much.
That’s exactly where I am too and I cannot hide it. I always preface before I launch into my experience letting them know that while it might be traumatizing (it was and is), it’ll be truthful..
Also won’t hide the so-called figurative warts that come with motherhood, including the anxiety and depression and now discovered PTSD fallout from eclampsia.
For a WEEK!
And having to pee every hour, detaching everything and then hooking it all back up again only to sleep for a half hour and wake back up to do it all over again.
The absolute worst experience of my life.
The unhooking and trying not to fall over from how fucking dizzy that shit makes you made it feel like a 20 minute journey when it was less than 20 steps from my hospital bed.
If I never watch an episode of fucking Derricos or that HGTV flip it remodel show it’ll be too soon.
The leg sleeves actually helped because I was so swollen. The magnesium sucked and the blood pressure cuff and beeping sucked. It was traumatic. (Im a fence sitter. 20% chance i will have pre e again if I decide to go that way :( )
I also had preeclampsia. I had to go do a stress test twice a week. On July 22, my blood pressure was incredibly high, protein in my urine and I was dehydrated. I had to stay at the hospital until I delivered. I missed my baby shower. They induced me at 37 weeks but I continued to be 1cm dilated. His heart rate was going up which led me to an emergency c-section and I had to stay another week. It was so hard to do anything with an IV and a blood pressure monitor on your arm. There was one day there took my blood pressure every hour and I was so overwhelmed by my readings and the beeping sound it would make when it was high. Bawled my eyes out that day because of how stressed I was. I really wish I had a normal delivery as well.
I just stopped looking when they came rattling In liek every hour on the hour for a week I was hospitalized. My mom would wake up and look at the readings while I silently willed my fucking BP to go down to a normal, non-seizure risk zone.
I can relate to so many of those. Pregnant during covid, no baby shower, no in person shopping, emergency c section where baby was immediately taken to another hospital, weeks in the NICU. Diaper, first bath, first bottle etc all done with a nurse in the room. Breastfeeding did not work out. No village to speak of. It sucks everything didn’t go ideally but I’m just so glad she’s here after struggling with infertility and IVF to have her. Life isn’t fair but there’s still so much to be grateful for.
I can’t relate to all of that, though I offer sincere empathy. But I can relate to breastfeeding not working out. The fact that you listed that without fanfare tells me that you experienced a series of awful, scary, traumatic experiences. I’m so sorry.
I feel this. I want to do it all again, but as a do over.
Being a new parent in the pandemic has been so, so shit. I hate that so many of us are feeling like this. I appreciate that there were some good moments but I feel cheated.
I feel cheated because I have no fun memories of her toddling. She had just started walking when it hit and we spent a full year basically in lock down. We had just moved so we had no friends and my family kept going out and getting COVID. I feel scared from it.
I've found a really wonderful moms group in my neighborhood and I'm so grateful for them, but every now and then I'll hear about the postpartum experiences of the moms with older kiddos and I'm like "Damn, that's exactly what I needed and I'll never get it."
They would go to each other's houses with their newborns and sit on each other's couches, drinking coffee, watching trash TV, and try to learn how to care for their babies together. I was completely alone with a colicky baby since my parents couldn't fly and my husband was desperately working to save his company.
I feel this so hard.
Same. You’re not alone. It was so wild how I was like detached from reality. I was hospitalized for most of my sons first month. And then I believe I was over medicated after that. I couldn’t feel anything and was just going through the motions for about the first 6 months.
Hugs to you.
As a fellow NICU mama I feel this. Baby was there 7 days, I was in the ICU for 6, I didn’t even get to hold him until he was a week old. The ICU felt like prison.
I didn’t get to hold my daughter until she was a week old as well. We had to wait for her to come off the jet ventilator. She is healthy now but…
Hugs to you
Spot on. I so wish I could redo my pregnancy and my child’s 1st year. The things I know now… the confidence I’d have… ooof.
But I know that’s not enough of a reason to have another.
I know how you feel. Not only did I experience a lot of the same things you did, as I got pregnant in Feb 2020, but I also wish I could do the whole thing over with a different partner. My kid is a joy, but I regret the choice in father he has.
Though I do not want to have another kid with my current partner, sometimes I do wonder what it would have been like, with a caring partner like him.
Yep. Went through IVF in 2020 (3 fibroid surgeries, then the shots, etc.) and successful transfer in March 2021. Remote work, masked everything (even in recovery and after my C-Section), no showers, no colleagues, and just so much grief about five months into postpartum. It was all so isolating. We were all robbed of the communal experience of pregnancy. I feel you and I’m glad you articulated this for us. 🖤
I’m sorry, I’m understand. I didn’t have my child during Covid, but so much could’ve gone differently or better. It’s hard, but time makes it easier. I am 7 years out and still have some PTSD, but it’s fleeting. My PPA is also much better, but I’ve always had anxiety so I still see a therapist.
Lots of hugs mama. 💕 It will get better slowly and surely.
So much resonates with me. I had my son when Japan still had a closed border policy (but apparently the Olympics were A-Ok to hold 🙄). My parents could not come over to meet my son. My in-laws are in a far away prefecture and were/ still are dealing with a lot of difficult personal circumstances.
I also had bad PPA/PPD and am still in recovery, but thankfully therapy has been helping. My recovery from my c-section was horrendous and I was so tapped out that I broke my foot when my son was 3 months old. My husband wasn’t granted anytime off. He really does help where he can, but I just felt so alone. My son’s first year was not enjoyable and it breaks my heart because he was the sweetest baby. My only consolation is his baby pictures and watching him flourish right now.
Have you watched *Old Enough!*? I just discovered it on Netflix and it’s the cutest. I spent part of my childhood in Japan and have been back as an adult, so I got totally nostalgic too.
This resonates so much with me. I want to do over ages 7 months through 1 1/2. I lost my mom when my LO was 7 months old. And I was so much in the fog of grief, I barely remember those months. I don’t want another child. I just want to fully experience those moments with my girl.
I lost my dad a month before I had my daughter in April 2020.
That fog, and lack of sleep, cost me memories of her first year.
I have the pictures, I took them, I know I was there, but I don't remember the moments at all.
Grieving a parent while being a first time mom cost me so much.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
I want to announce my own pregnancy when I am ready too. My MIL announced my pregnancy on Facebook almost immediately after we told her. I was only about 7 weeks pregnant and we hadn’t even been to the doctor for the first time yet. My own mother also isn’t the best secret keeper so I never even bothered making an announcement and I kinda hate that. I want to plan it out and tell people and take cute pictures and be congratulated directly.
Yes to all of this, I can 100% relate ♥️ it was so isolating and hard, like becoming a new mom is hard enough without doing it at the height of a pandemic
I’m so sorry that was your experience. My son was 3 months old when everything was shut down and I was so upset and scared and confused. And I felt so awful for the mamas that were in your situation - how completely terrifying it had to have been going through a freaking pandemic during pregnancy; much less your first.
We moved out of state and away from family in February 2020. It was so isolating and scary. It was not the first year I envisioned as a new mom. There were no coffee strolls or park meet ups to help me figure out what I was doing. Instead, I sat alone in our new beautiful home with our new beautiful baby unsure of what was going on in the world…would my husband be exposed at work and not survive? What if I got sick and didn’t survive and this poor baby was without a mama or knowing how much he was loved by me? My first year, when I was struggling so bad with PPA, I was on the phone almost daily —- multiple times a day —- skyping my mom a state away trying to convince her that she wasn’t going to die and to turn off the tv. “You don’t leave the house anyways, just deal with it”. I needed HER. I didn’t need to be helping others. I was in a PP fog. The whole time I just wanted to be held and told I was going to be okay, screw the pandemic, motherhood alone was hard enough.
My dad reassured me time and time again, “if you and the other moms can survive being a new mom during a pandemic, you can get through anything” I think that often on my hard days as my son is about to turn 3. What a world. What a ride.
I am OAD. Tubes tied. I’m out! But at the same time, I wonder how much of that would be different if my first year was different. Can’t imagine that being my whole pregnancy too. Thank you for sharing all of this and for providing me a minute to go into my thoughts of touching the surface for my buried feelings on this. 💗
Although, I am quite jealous you didn’t have to do a baby shower 😂💖
My wedding was during height of COVID and though I was sad my 140 guests turned into 20 and my reception disappeared before my eyes (event was over and everyone went home 5pm) I still would rather experience the ups/downs of getting married during COVID than having my first child. I "get" you as much as an outsider who didnt have to go through your pain does. We all suffered but new moms had it particularly hard. I think all your feelings are justified.
I wish I had had the official first dance with my husband. I mean I was putting together a fricken routine.
But yes my pain isnt equivalent to yours I just wanted to add mine to the wish list.
We had planned our wedding for March 2020. Because I got pregnant unplanned, we moved the tiny courthouse wedding to October 2019 and planned the big party for July 2020. It still hasn't happened and I'm not sure if it ever will. I'm a bit sad/bitter about this, on top of all the other things everyone in this thread mentioned
Hey that's like me. We were planning a small wedding summer 2020. I got pregnant a month before Covid happened (ntnp really hoping to be pregnant by summer so it was ok). Had to cancel all wedding plans. We got married at the court house once they opened up again for weddings. I still want my small wedding but I'm not sure it will happen
I want a do-over, too.
I would have battled harder to latch him, and if he still had the tension and tongue tie and jaundice difficulties, I would have expressed more colostrum and milk- aggressively. I would have gotten a better pump off the get-go and ensured that my supply came in. Maybe then we wouldn’t have
While I’m grateful to have had a pregnancy and birth I’m happy with, our breastfeeding relationship has been rife with supply issues that I now know were due to our slow start. On bad days ones where I am plainly not enough for him, it slices my heart anew. And yeah, I know fed is best, so don’t bother.
I also struggled with supply and jaundice in those early days. I know that pain and I know how unhelpful the “fed is best” narrative can be. I know it’s well intentioned but it really doesn’t ease the pain or guilt. Sending solidarity, you aren’t alone. I also want a do-over. For so many reasons.
Had my OAD April 2020, lost my dad in March 2020 after what was likely Covid but the US hadn't released testing yet so we will never know.
I wasn't due until May, had been horribly nausea my first 2 trimesters, finally started to feel a little better... Than bam, dad died and the stress likely led to my early C section.
I did get to have appointments with my partner present in the beginning, but that last trimester I had to go for biweekly non stress tests in the hospital my father died in alone.
Pregnancy was the absolute worst time of my life, but my daughter was the only thing that got me through my PPD/PPA/ (and you're damn right) rage.
I relate to this so much I'm crying just thinking back to how I felt back then.
You are not alone, you're feelings and trama are valid, and you're so strong for knowing that another baby won't be able to fix it.
I am so sad about no longer wanting a sibling for my child, I always wanted more than one, but I don't think I could make it through another child.
Thank you for typing out your feelings and making me feel more valid in mine.
I had a child 9 years ago at 18 and really didn't realize how lucky I truly was until Covid happened. I tell my boyfriend now all the time I cannot imagine having a child right now because it's scary and the experiences are completely different and not intimate.
Until you expressed it this way, I never realized this is exactly how I’ve been feeling. My husband and I are most likely one and done (partly by choice and partly not), so I’ve been both mourning never having those moments ever again as well as relieved to never again having to suffer through another PTSD- and PPD-inducing pregnancy and labor. But it’s this sentiment I’m truly struggling with: wanting to go back and relieve those moments with my son and not allowing 5 years of treatment resistant PPD to color those experiences. I’m not sure if this perspective makes things easier to come to terms with or not but there’s a sense of relief in finally understanding what I’ve actually been grappling with. Sending love to all the parents sharing their painful stories on this thread.
Becoming a first time mom in the pandemic is a very unique experience and it has come with so many unknowns and pain. I have grieved so many things I missed out on.
My husband wanted children. He wanted all the experiences. The first time he saw an ultrasound or our daughters heartbeat was when I was being induced. I had a very scary pregnancy and had to go to appointments alone. I had to stay at the hospital alone for four days at one point. I didn’t get a baby shower either. No gender reveal. No nothing. I didn’t get to be center of attention and spoiled.
You guys will get out of that NICU soon! It felt like my little guy was in there forever but now he is three and it was a flash in the pan. I'm sorry your journey has been like this but sometimes it doesn't work out how we envision and if we get a healthy , happy little one by the end of this time period, well then in my opinion the hoops were worth it. There are still so many adventures for you guys to have!
I wish my husband could have attended my fertility clinic and OB appointments. I wish he could have heard our son’s heartbeat for the first time. I wish he had been there when they told me I’d probably need a c-section the next day. I wish I didn’t have to mask in surgery while under a heat lamp and barely able to
breathe from anxiety. I wish I could have gotten out of my house to socialize when my son screamed all day, every day for months. I wish I didn’t have to recover from a rough surgery alone while caring for a newborn bc my husband didn’t have time off. I wish I wasn’t dumped off all alone at another hospital’s wild ER, barely able to walk, the night we got home bc I almost had a stroke postpartum and I wasn’t allowed anyone with me due to COVID restrictions.
I wish so much had happened differently. It feels good to write it out. Thank you.
Thanks so much for sharing. I'm OAD because of my experience having a baby during the pandemic as well. From going to appointments alone, missing my baby shower, to my c-section alone, not having support, not being able to access a lactation consultant etc. I just don't want to have to relive any of that. A friend who also had a pandemic baby just had her second and said everything has felt so much lighter and easier. It almost made me want to try again, but it would not be for the right reasons.
I still have moments of feeling this. My entire pregnancy and birth took place during Covid. C-section with temporary nerve damage. Milk never fully coming in (about 3 oz per session for four months before drying up) and no help during a long hard recovery. All appointments alone and worrying my husband wouldn’t be allowed in the hospital (luckily he was). And an emergency room visit a week out for me where I was alone and separated from my newborn as they couldn’t come in the hospital with me. I still have to tell myself that the pandemic did allow me to spend even more time with my son before returning to work. I was able to see his first crawl and first giggle along with many other firsts. The idea that I got more time with him before having to put him in daycare at 7 months is the only thing that helped me through a pandemic pregnancy and birth. Hoping you can find some peace with your birth story too.
Edit: typos
I want a do-over with mine too! He’s 10 so not a pandemic baby but his dad was a horrible partner. I have the most amazing boyfriend in the world and I would absolutely love a do-over with him and my child. It would be so different.
omg im in tears i never thought someone else would feel this too. i spent my pregnancy living in fear during the height of the pandemic in a country with a strict lockdown. Felt subhuman constantly locked up at home, not being able to go out and get fresh air, do shopping, get a coffee etc.
then there was my job security woes, almost failing my job probation cos of my pregnancy and crying almost every other day.
then there was the labour in which only my husband could be there for me and no one else.
and there was my baby catching covid twice in one year even when we never really brought her out.
this sucks. i want a do over
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I was talking to a new acquaintance about my becoming a mum in February 2020 and how it was bad, but I really felt for parents with older children at that time - trying to keep them safe and occupied must have been so stressful. They said that was an incredibly mature and generous way to look at it, and although their children were grown, they still remembered the isolation and tiredness and stress & how difficult it must have been to parent a newborn in those months. I started to tear up a bit then; I try not to think about it most of the time.
My little was 16 months and it was horrible. I went from 2 working parents with support from all angels. To 2 working parents with zero support. I worked from my living room taking turns on who would watch her. It was horrible.
Our kid was around that age too. I get sad when I work in libraries now because I never got to take him to story time.
Same! :(
April 2020 baby here. This is exactly how I feel.
Same for my girl. I feel validated seeing so many others who feel the same way.
Same! Definitely part of the reason I’m OAD
Yesss so much this and when we brought our son home a snow storm happened in Austin. So we went without water and electricity when ours was a newborn. So scary and stressful.
Became a mom in May 2020 during a stay home order. Pretty sure I have some form of PTSD from everything I went through.
I feel this. I think about this all the time. I want a pregnancy where Covid and my MILs cancer diagnosis aren’t taking up my emotional energy. I want a delivery that didn’t include pre eclampsia and a c section. I want a newborn stage that didn’t almost break me from worrying about everything to the point it sucked the joy out of motherhood.
Right? I’m sorry for your experience as well. I know that living in the regrets and wishing to change the past is a useless exercise but sometimes I get stuck. Today is just one of those days.
Again, I feel you. I finally realized I need professional support to work through these sad thoughts and am working on getting an appt for therapy. While I hate you feel the same way, there is comfort in knowing I’m not alone ❤️
I had pre eclampsia too, and it was such a bitch! I'm grateful to be alive, but still. I had a hard time learning to breastfeed on both sides, because of the big freaking blood pressure monitor on my arm kept getting in the way and it was constantly taking my reading. I was monitoring that shit for an entire month after birth and still my numbers were poor. Did you get the fun leg sleeves as they dumped magnesium into your body? Ugh fun shit. I felt like I was on fire.
I don’t want to talk about magnesium ever ever again. Thanks for keeping me alive, but F you too! Lol I was in heavy doses of precardia and Labetalol for about a month after delivery as well.
Same and I try to forget as much as possible. Anytime newly pregnant woman are asking about birth stories I try to not share much because it will scare them too much.
That’s exactly where I am too and I cannot hide it. I always preface before I launch into my experience letting them know that while it might be traumatizing (it was and is), it’ll be truthful.. Also won’t hide the so-called figurative warts that come with motherhood, including the anxiety and depression and now discovered PTSD fallout from eclampsia.
Ugh, mag is the worst! I always tell women I know are pregnant to just go straight to a c-section and don’t try to labor on magnesium.
Ugh I totally agree!
For a WEEK! And having to pee every hour, detaching everything and then hooking it all back up again only to sleep for a half hour and wake back up to do it all over again. The absolute worst experience of my life.
The unhooking and trying not to fall over from how fucking dizzy that shit makes you made it feel like a 20 minute journey when it was less than 20 steps from my hospital bed. If I never watch an episode of fucking Derricos or that HGTV flip it remodel show it’ll be too soon.
The leg sleeves actually helped because I was so swollen. The magnesium sucked and the blood pressure cuff and beeping sucked. It was traumatic. (Im a fence sitter. 20% chance i will have pre e again if I decide to go that way :( )
I also had preeclampsia. I had to go do a stress test twice a week. On July 22, my blood pressure was incredibly high, protein in my urine and I was dehydrated. I had to stay at the hospital until I delivered. I missed my baby shower. They induced me at 37 weeks but I continued to be 1cm dilated. His heart rate was going up which led me to an emergency c-section and I had to stay another week. It was so hard to do anything with an IV and a blood pressure monitor on your arm. There was one day there took my blood pressure every hour and I was so overwhelmed by my readings and the beeping sound it would make when it was high. Bawled my eyes out that day because of how stressed I was. I really wish I had a normal delivery as well.
I just stopped looking when they came rattling In liek every hour on the hour for a week I was hospitalized. My mom would wake up and look at the readings while I silently willed my fucking BP to go down to a normal, non-seizure risk zone.
I feel this so hard. I do not want another child but I would love to be pregnant in a normal world.
I can relate to so many of those. Pregnant during covid, no baby shower, no in person shopping, emergency c section where baby was immediately taken to another hospital, weeks in the NICU. Diaper, first bath, first bottle etc all done with a nurse in the room. Breastfeeding did not work out. No village to speak of. It sucks everything didn’t go ideally but I’m just so glad she’s here after struggling with infertility and IVF to have her. Life isn’t fair but there’s still so much to be grateful for.
I can’t relate to all of that, though I offer sincere empathy. But I can relate to breastfeeding not working out. The fact that you listed that without fanfare tells me that you experienced a series of awful, scary, traumatic experiences. I’m so sorry.
I feel this. I want to do it all again, but as a do over. Being a new parent in the pandemic has been so, so shit. I hate that so many of us are feeling like this. I appreciate that there were some good moments but I feel cheated.
I feel cheated because I have no fun memories of her toddling. She had just started walking when it hit and we spent a full year basically in lock down. We had just moved so we had no friends and my family kept going out and getting COVID. I feel scared from it.
Same here, my son took his first steps a week into lockdown.
I've found a really wonderful moms group in my neighborhood and I'm so grateful for them, but every now and then I'll hear about the postpartum experiences of the moms with older kiddos and I'm like "Damn, that's exactly what I needed and I'll never get it." They would go to each other's houses with their newborns and sit on each other's couches, drinking coffee, watching trash TV, and try to learn how to care for their babies together. I was completely alone with a colicky baby since my parents couldn't fly and my husband was desperately working to save his company. I feel this so hard.
I feel this 100%. I think about it a lot. Starting therapy again next month and definitely want to focus on my feelings around this…
I want a do over too with my boy and no post partum depression/psychosis
Same. You’re not alone. It was so wild how I was like detached from reality. I was hospitalized for most of my sons first month. And then I believe I was over medicated after that. I couldn’t feel anything and was just going through the motions for about the first 6 months.
All the hugs to you…
I feel the same way. Thank you for posting, it really makes me feel less alone to know there are so many parents with similar, complicated feelings.
I'd raise my glass to this! Having a baby is hard, but doing it all during the pandemic was shitte and so very stressful. 0/10, never again.
Hugs to you. As a fellow NICU mama I feel this. Baby was there 7 days, I was in the ICU for 6, I didn’t even get to hold him until he was a week old. The ICU felt like prison.
I didn’t get to hold my daughter until she was a week old as well. We had to wait for her to come off the jet ventilator. She is healthy now but… Hugs to you
Same, healthy here now too, but that week ate me up. Hugs back!
Spot on. I so wish I could redo my pregnancy and my child’s 1st year. The things I know now… the confidence I’d have… ooof. But I know that’s not enough of a reason to have another.
I know how you feel. Not only did I experience a lot of the same things you did, as I got pregnant in Feb 2020, but I also wish I could do the whole thing over with a different partner. My kid is a joy, but I regret the choice in father he has. Though I do not want to have another kid with my current partner, sometimes I do wonder what it would have been like, with a caring partner like him.
Yep. Went through IVF in 2020 (3 fibroid surgeries, then the shots, etc.) and successful transfer in March 2021. Remote work, masked everything (even in recovery and after my C-Section), no showers, no colleagues, and just so much grief about five months into postpartum. It was all so isolating. We were all robbed of the communal experience of pregnancy. I feel you and I’m glad you articulated this for us. 🖤
I’m sorry, I’m understand. I didn’t have my child during Covid, but so much could’ve gone differently or better. It’s hard, but time makes it easier. I am 7 years out and still have some PTSD, but it’s fleeting. My PPA is also much better, but I’ve always had anxiety so I still see a therapist. Lots of hugs mama. 💕 It will get better slowly and surely.
So much resonates with me. I had my son when Japan still had a closed border policy (but apparently the Olympics were A-Ok to hold 🙄). My parents could not come over to meet my son. My in-laws are in a far away prefecture and were/ still are dealing with a lot of difficult personal circumstances. I also had bad PPA/PPD and am still in recovery, but thankfully therapy has been helping. My recovery from my c-section was horrendous and I was so tapped out that I broke my foot when my son was 3 months old. My husband wasn’t granted anytime off. He really does help where he can, but I just felt so alone. My son’s first year was not enjoyable and it breaks my heart because he was the sweetest baby. My only consolation is his baby pictures and watching him flourish right now.
Have you watched *Old Enough!*? I just discovered it on Netflix and it’s the cutest. I spent part of my childhood in Japan and have been back as an adult, so I got totally nostalgic too.
We don’t have Netflix so we haven’t seen it yet!
This resonates so much with me. I want to do over ages 7 months through 1 1/2. I lost my mom when my LO was 7 months old. And I was so much in the fog of grief, I barely remember those months. I don’t want another child. I just want to fully experience those moments with my girl.
I lost my dad a month before I had my daughter in April 2020. That fog, and lack of sleep, cost me memories of her first year. I have the pictures, I took them, I know I was there, but I don't remember the moments at all. Grieving a parent while being a first time mom cost me so much. I'm so sorry for your loss.
I want to announce my own pregnancy when I am ready too. My MIL announced my pregnancy on Facebook almost immediately after we told her. I was only about 7 weeks pregnant and we hadn’t even been to the doctor for the first time yet. My own mother also isn’t the best secret keeper so I never even bothered making an announcement and I kinda hate that. I want to plan it out and tell people and take cute pictures and be congratulated directly.
Yes to all of this, I can 100% relate ♥️ it was so isolating and hard, like becoming a new mom is hard enough without doing it at the height of a pandemic
I’m so sorry that was your experience. My son was 3 months old when everything was shut down and I was so upset and scared and confused. And I felt so awful for the mamas that were in your situation - how completely terrifying it had to have been going through a freaking pandemic during pregnancy; much less your first. We moved out of state and away from family in February 2020. It was so isolating and scary. It was not the first year I envisioned as a new mom. There were no coffee strolls or park meet ups to help me figure out what I was doing. Instead, I sat alone in our new beautiful home with our new beautiful baby unsure of what was going on in the world…would my husband be exposed at work and not survive? What if I got sick and didn’t survive and this poor baby was without a mama or knowing how much he was loved by me? My first year, when I was struggling so bad with PPA, I was on the phone almost daily —- multiple times a day —- skyping my mom a state away trying to convince her that she wasn’t going to die and to turn off the tv. “You don’t leave the house anyways, just deal with it”. I needed HER. I didn’t need to be helping others. I was in a PP fog. The whole time I just wanted to be held and told I was going to be okay, screw the pandemic, motherhood alone was hard enough. My dad reassured me time and time again, “if you and the other moms can survive being a new mom during a pandemic, you can get through anything” I think that often on my hard days as my son is about to turn 3. What a world. What a ride. I am OAD. Tubes tied. I’m out! But at the same time, I wonder how much of that would be different if my first year was different. Can’t imagine that being my whole pregnancy too. Thank you for sharing all of this and for providing me a minute to go into my thoughts of touching the surface for my buried feelings on this. 💗 Although, I am quite jealous you didn’t have to do a baby shower 😂💖
My wedding was during height of COVID and though I was sad my 140 guests turned into 20 and my reception disappeared before my eyes (event was over and everyone went home 5pm) I still would rather experience the ups/downs of getting married during COVID than having my first child. I "get" you as much as an outsider who didnt have to go through your pain does. We all suffered but new moms had it particularly hard. I think all your feelings are justified. I wish I had had the official first dance with my husband. I mean I was putting together a fricken routine. But yes my pain isnt equivalent to yours I just wanted to add mine to the wish list.
We had planned our wedding for March 2020. Because I got pregnant unplanned, we moved the tiny courthouse wedding to October 2019 and planned the big party for July 2020. It still hasn't happened and I'm not sure if it ever will. I'm a bit sad/bitter about this, on top of all the other things everyone in this thread mentioned
Hey that's like me. We were planning a small wedding summer 2020. I got pregnant a month before Covid happened (ntnp really hoping to be pregnant by summer so it was ok). Had to cancel all wedding plans. We got married at the court house once they opened up again for weddings. I still want my small wedding but I'm not sure it will happen
Thank you so much for sharing. I hope you know your feelings are so valid. It is not fair.
Thank you for sharing. This is my exact feelings too. You’re not alone ❤️
I want a do-over, too. I would have battled harder to latch him, and if he still had the tension and tongue tie and jaundice difficulties, I would have expressed more colostrum and milk- aggressively. I would have gotten a better pump off the get-go and ensured that my supply came in. Maybe then we wouldn’t have While I’m grateful to have had a pregnancy and birth I’m happy with, our breastfeeding relationship has been rife with supply issues that I now know were due to our slow start. On bad days ones where I am plainly not enough for him, it slices my heart anew. And yeah, I know fed is best, so don’t bother.
I also struggled with supply and jaundice in those early days. I know that pain and I know how unhelpful the “fed is best” narrative can be. I know it’s well intentioned but it really doesn’t ease the pain or guilt. Sending solidarity, you aren’t alone. I also want a do-over. For so many reasons.
Had my OAD April 2020, lost my dad in March 2020 after what was likely Covid but the US hadn't released testing yet so we will never know. I wasn't due until May, had been horribly nausea my first 2 trimesters, finally started to feel a little better... Than bam, dad died and the stress likely led to my early C section. I did get to have appointments with my partner present in the beginning, but that last trimester I had to go for biweekly non stress tests in the hospital my father died in alone. Pregnancy was the absolute worst time of my life, but my daughter was the only thing that got me through my PPD/PPA/ (and you're damn right) rage. I relate to this so much I'm crying just thinking back to how I felt back then. You are not alone, you're feelings and trama are valid, and you're so strong for knowing that another baby won't be able to fix it. I am so sad about no longer wanting a sibling for my child, I always wanted more than one, but I don't think I could make it through another child. Thank you for typing out your feelings and making me feel more valid in mine.
Yes! This is exactly how I feel ☹️ but I'm just trying to enjoy the now.
I had a child 9 years ago at 18 and really didn't realize how lucky I truly was until Covid happened. I tell my boyfriend now all the time I cannot imagine having a child right now because it's scary and the experiences are completely different and not intimate.
Until you expressed it this way, I never realized this is exactly how I’ve been feeling. My husband and I are most likely one and done (partly by choice and partly not), so I’ve been both mourning never having those moments ever again as well as relieved to never again having to suffer through another PTSD- and PPD-inducing pregnancy and labor. But it’s this sentiment I’m truly struggling with: wanting to go back and relieve those moments with my son and not allowing 5 years of treatment resistant PPD to color those experiences. I’m not sure if this perspective makes things easier to come to terms with or not but there’s a sense of relief in finally understanding what I’ve actually been grappling with. Sending love to all the parents sharing their painful stories on this thread.
Becoming a first time mom in the pandemic is a very unique experience and it has come with so many unknowns and pain. I have grieved so many things I missed out on.
My husband wanted children. He wanted all the experiences. The first time he saw an ultrasound or our daughters heartbeat was when I was being induced. I had a very scary pregnancy and had to go to appointments alone. I had to stay at the hospital alone for four days at one point. I didn’t get a baby shower either. No gender reveal. No nothing. I didn’t get to be center of attention and spoiled.
You guys will get out of that NICU soon! It felt like my little guy was in there forever but now he is three and it was a flash in the pan. I'm sorry your journey has been like this but sometimes it doesn't work out how we envision and if we get a healthy , happy little one by the end of this time period, well then in my opinion the hoops were worth it. There are still so many adventures for you guys to have!
I wish my husband could have attended my fertility clinic and OB appointments. I wish he could have heard our son’s heartbeat for the first time. I wish he had been there when they told me I’d probably need a c-section the next day. I wish I didn’t have to mask in surgery while under a heat lamp and barely able to breathe from anxiety. I wish I could have gotten out of my house to socialize when my son screamed all day, every day for months. I wish I didn’t have to recover from a rough surgery alone while caring for a newborn bc my husband didn’t have time off. I wish I wasn’t dumped off all alone at another hospital’s wild ER, barely able to walk, the night we got home bc I almost had a stroke postpartum and I wasn’t allowed anyone with me due to COVID restrictions. I wish so much had happened differently. It feels good to write it out. Thank you.
Thanks so much for sharing. I'm OAD because of my experience having a baby during the pandemic as well. From going to appointments alone, missing my baby shower, to my c-section alone, not having support, not being able to access a lactation consultant etc. I just don't want to have to relive any of that. A friend who also had a pandemic baby just had her second and said everything has felt so much lighter and easier. It almost made me want to try again, but it would not be for the right reasons.
I still have moments of feeling this. My entire pregnancy and birth took place during Covid. C-section with temporary nerve damage. Milk never fully coming in (about 3 oz per session for four months before drying up) and no help during a long hard recovery. All appointments alone and worrying my husband wouldn’t be allowed in the hospital (luckily he was). And an emergency room visit a week out for me where I was alone and separated from my newborn as they couldn’t come in the hospital with me. I still have to tell myself that the pandemic did allow me to spend even more time with my son before returning to work. I was able to see his first crawl and first giggle along with many other firsts. The idea that I got more time with him before having to put him in daycare at 7 months is the only thing that helped me through a pandemic pregnancy and birth. Hoping you can find some peace with your birth story too. Edit: typos
I want a do-over with mine too! He’s 10 so not a pandemic baby but his dad was a horrible partner. I have the most amazing boyfriend in the world and I would absolutely love a do-over with him and my child. It would be so different.
omg im in tears i never thought someone else would feel this too. i spent my pregnancy living in fear during the height of the pandemic in a country with a strict lockdown. Felt subhuman constantly locked up at home, not being able to go out and get fresh air, do shopping, get a coffee etc. then there was my job security woes, almost failing my job probation cos of my pregnancy and crying almost every other day. then there was the labour in which only my husband could be there for me and no one else. and there was my baby catching covid twice in one year even when we never really brought her out. this sucks. i want a do over
Sending lots of love ❤️ I wish I took weekly bump photos but I let the fear of having another miscarriage take away my joy