Pandemic

World Breastfeeding Week 2021

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She gave me a gift. One last nurse.

My first child, Pidge, loved nursing. She wanted to nurse at every possible moment, and she never wanted to stop. Pidge nursed from both her Mama and me, so there was always plenty of milk. Weaning was a production. We were ready to stop, but we wanted to respect Pidge. Her last nurse was on the day of her third birthday.

Piper was different. She was born with a significant lip and tongue tie, and nursing was a challenge. Until she was six months old, she preferred expressed milk fed to her from a bottle. Then she returned to nursing. I was overjoyed. I was also busy and overwhelmed. Having a 3-year-old and a baby during a pandemic is hard. But Piper kept nursing.

Until one day, she didn’t.

I woke up one morning and realized that I couldn’t remember the last time Piper nursed. On the one hand, I was thankful for the reprieve and also thankful to avoid a difficult weaning. On the other hand, I was heartbroken. How could it be over? How could I have missed it? How is my baby not a baby anymore? I tried to focus on the positives and move on.

Then, about two weeks later, she gave me one final, beautiful moment. We were walking down the boardwalk after a delightful summer day on the beach. We were tired, but sun kissed and happy. I looked down at Piper. She smiled. She put her pudgy little fist in the air and opened and closed her fingers. The sign for milk. Tears welled up in my eyes. Thank you, Piper. Thank you. We sat on the bench together, gazing into each other’s eyes, nursing and cherishing our closeness.

Back to it.

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Piper will be 15 months tomorrow, which means that we have been struggling through COVID-19 for 15 months. That we are all still here with even a portion of our mental health is a miracle. This past year has been unbelievably difficult.

When I last wrote, my wife was going through a mental health crisis. Although the crisis has receded, the struggles continue. At one point, her ADHD diagnosis was a glimmer of hope. We knew what the issue was, so now we could fix it, right? Unfortunately, no. She tried medication after medication and nothing seemed to work. She became more anxious, more irritable. I became more despondent. Will nothing ever get better? She is working on it, and I am working on it. Sometimes it feels like we will get through it, and other times it feels like a treadmill.

In this time of darkness, our children have been bright spots. Pidge has come into her own, strongly advocating for her likes and clearly articulating her desires and needs. She is the femmest of femme, preferring all things pink and sparkly and girly. She asks us to refer to her as Lady. She started dance in the late fall, and fell in love. This June we had the pleasure of watching her perform three numbers in her very first recital. She was amazing! I played the role of Stage Mom, helping all the little ladybugs out onto the stage.

Piper has grown like a weed. She went from infant to toddler seemingly overnight. She is feisty and funny, resilient and confident. You would never know that she has spent her entire babyhood under lockdowns and shutdowns and fear and with everyone around her in masks. She is a firecracker and makes us smile every day.

More light: the vaccine. Vermont has now vaccinated 80% of its eligible population and I am hopeful that means that we’re pulling out of this. I feel cautious optimism, which I am thankful for. It would be easy, very very easy, to let myself get pulled down in the fear of additional strains and other people’s vaccine hesitancy. But I just can’t do that. Not now. I have to have some hope. Of course, that hope is tempered with reasonable risk mitigation. We are not dining indoors and I am careful where we travel with the children. But there comes a time that we need to balance physical needs with mental health needs, and our high vaccination rates and low infection rates make that possible.

As the vaccine has become available and more has opened up, we have been able to spend time with extended family. To be honest, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag. We had a very pleasant visit with my parents in Florida. It was nice to get into the sunshine and the pool. A few weeks ago, my wife’s parents came to visit. It was a surprisingly difficult visit, where all parties felt judged. We couldn’t pinpoint what the problem was, but we felt it. We felt it deeply. It was heartbreaking to have such a strained visit because we knew that we would not see them again for at least six months or more. And yet, we could change it.

I tried to process what went wrong in therapy because (hooray!) I finally have a therapist. I think what it boils down to is this: my wife and I have some serious childhood trauma. Some of it is religious trauma, and some of it stems from the culture in which we were raised – a culture that focuses on body image and shame and guilt. My wife and I have worked tirelessly to escape that history and to build a new life together, insulated from much of the harmfulness of our pasts. We have chosen to live in the least religious state in the nation, and the state with the least amount of materialism. We don’t discuss weight and calories. We try to protect ourselves and our children. Having my wife’s parents here felt somewhat like a security breach. Suddenly, that trauma came flooding back. Suddenly there were discussions about disliking bodies and avoiding calories and “fat.” There was yelling and “sternness” directed at the children. I felt terrified and defensive and protective for my children. I don’t know what to do. They aren’t going to change, but these interactions are just so triggering. I’m scared for myself and for my children. What will we do if my in-laws actually fulfill their goal of moving to the area?

Another new development: I’m pregnant! Our family is overjoyed. In an ideal world, we probably would have spaced out the kids a little more. But I’m getting old and I don’t want to be much older before I have another baby. My wife and I (and Pidge!) really want a big family. Of course, we are getting grief about it from our families. They told us we were being selfish. My wife’s grandmother and aunt refuse to acknowledge the pregnancy. It is hurtful. My parents are excited, and my wife’s parents are starting to get excited, too. They all got more excited when they found out that we are having a boy. I don’t know why that makes a difference to them, and to be honest, it felt a bit patriarchal. I am looking forward to having a son (until and unless he tells us that he is really our daughter, which of course we would support), but I am also a little intimidated by the idea. I feel like I don’t know or understand men or boys at all. My whole world is women. But, I’m sure I can figure it out and I’m sure that I’ll adore our little guy. He will be OUR little guy after all.

All that is to say, there has been a lot going on. And there have been so many feelings about it all that I’ve been a bit stifled in my ability to convey it all. This has led me to not write at all. But I don’t want that. I want to document this fleeting and impossible time of new parenthood. I want to get back to writing. Hopefully, this is my start.

Black Hole.

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She couldn’t get out of bed. She just couldn’t. From the other room, I could hear tears. Sometimes muffled, sometimes heavy, heaving sobs.

It had been a slow descent. Slow, then rapid. Ever since Piper was born, ever since the pandemic, ever since quarantine, my wife had been slowly falling apart. She was caring for both Pidge and Piper full-time while also trying to write her grad school thesis. She was emotionally worn and physically worn. I tried to assist with the kids, but between my two jobs, I had very little to offer. We needed help, and we had no one to help.

I reached out to my in-laws, but they couldn’t do it. I reached out to my parents, but they wouldn’t do it. I reached out to my sister who wanted to do it, but whose job didn’t let her. We. Had. No. One. And my wife couldn’t keep on.

When she was diagnosed with ADHD in July, we were surprised. But she’s not hyper. Isn’t ADHD the diagnosis that applies to those little boys who bounce off the walls? With a little research we learned that there is another type of ADHD, an inattentive type, that can be equally disruptive if not more so. Once we learned a little bit about it, it explained so much. It explained why my wife has consistently struggled with hyper-focus and then an inability to fulfill commitments. It explained her short-term memory glitches. It explained her periodic self-loathing. It explained my frustration with her apparent lack of tenacity, discipline, or will power.

We got excited. Maybe once we treated the ADHD, she would be able to function again. She went to the doctor. He told her that he really wanted to put her on one type of medication, but that our insurance would not cover it until she had tried a different type. He did not want to put her on the different type. But here in America, insurance is King, so we went with the different type.

It was terrible.

And my wife was devastated.        

Not only did she not feel better, she felt worse. Her heart palpitated. She was agitated. She couldn’t focus. She would have periods of productivity punctuated by big crashes or fits of rage. The hope she had was smashed, and she grew depressed. Very depressed.

She stopped being able to care for the kids. I attended Zoom meetings and phone conferences while bouncing Piper on my knee and exposing Pidge to way more screen time than I felt comfortable with. I was just trying to hold on. We feared that my wife would have to check in somewhere. And we still had no help.

We called the doctor again. He took her off the meds and put her on a new one for depression. It seems to be helping some. We are no longer in the black hole we were in, where nothing and everything surrounded us all at once. But we are still struggling.

We are trying to make it all work. It will work. It has to work.

But I don’t know how.

Overcompensating & Escapism

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Overcompensating and escapism have been the names of the game this summer. We are tired of being cooped up, tired of isolating, and tired of being house-bound. And yet, we are also unwilling to simply pretend that COVID-19 doesn’t exist like so many other Americans appear to be doing. It’s like people simply got bored of the pandemic and decided to return to business as usual. But business is not usual. Nothing about this situation is usual.

We want to give the girls a normal life, but we want to keep them safe. To that end, we have been seeking out mini-breaks that minimize risk but that are still fun. We created a family pod with our closest friends so that Pidge could at least have one other friend to play with. We are still overwhelmed, but we have been feeling pretty good about those decisions.

A month ago, we took a trip to the Maine coast. We watched as the little piping plovers darted about the sandy dunes and immediately thought that our second daughter should not be called Peach, but rather some derivation of piping plover. Piper? Pipes? Plove? She is so busy all the time!

Pidge enjoyed the waves of the Atlantic and the river estuary. We searched for shells, made a shell necklace, and swam in the pool. We wiped down every surface we came in contact with and used hand sanitizer non-stop. Every evening, we walked along the beach. Pidge ran naked, splashing and kicking in the giant puddles left behind as the tides receded. We snuggled and ate and breastfed in the sunset. On the third evening, fog crept in. It felt dystopian and weird, exactly how our time under COVID has felt. Parenting during a pandemic is the equivalent of doing essential work with no childcare, for no pay, and if you are lucky, doing it while also working a “real” job that runs concurrently. It is simultaneously impossible and indispensable. Every day I fight exhaustion from doing way, way too much. And yet, I would take it on tenfold if it meant keeping my little ones safe, protected, and feeling loved. I don’t want them to sense my overwhelm. I don’t want them to know my fear. I hope more than anything that this will be a passing moment in history; that someday we will tell the story of masked breastfeeding in the fog to our children as they listen, wide-eyed in disbelief. I hope more than anything that this is not a glimpse into their future. In the meantime, all I can do is my best—for public health, for my babies, and for myself.

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Big breath.

And more escapism.

We went camping. It was Pidge’s fourth trip and Piper’s first. We set up our amazing tent, cooked hot dogs and s’mores (all vegan, of course), hiked, and swam in Emerald Lake. Funny, although Pidge definitely liked her first s’more, she was overwhelmed by the sugar. She ate three quarters of it and then asked for vegetables instead! The dogs came with us, and a good time was had by all. Rain had been predicted, but it hardly rained at all! When it did, it was a torrential downpour in a sudden cloudburst – exciting and fun. Pidge kept telling Mama to hurry and feed the fire, which she gladly did despite getting soaked. On the last night, we tried to start the car but it wouldn’t turn over. We used our jumper cables but didn’t have enough power to get it going. Piper was screaming, I was trying to nurse her in the tent, and my wife was running around with Pidge, asking for help. A very nice family from Connecticut came over to help us. They fidgeted with the engine and hooked up jumper cables to their powerful truck. No one wore a mask. We were so thankful, but we were also terrified. Thankfully, no one got COVID (at least not that we know), but it is just so hard to have what would be helpful interactions turn into stress and anxiety.

We went to Cape Cod with our pod family. The girls had a blast running along the shoreline looking for crabs. We enjoyed the beach house, cooking together, and taking walks through the neighborhood and on the beach. We talked about moving to Canada.

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I took another camping trip with the girls while my wife stayed home to do her grad school work. She is currently attempting to write her thesis, all while parenting full-time as I work two jobs. Generally speaking, the camping trip went well. We arrived early evening and I was so proud of myself for getting the tent up with a toddler and a baby. Pidge tried to help with the tent stakes. She’s an amazing kid. That night, we had a fire and roasted hot dogs and ate s’mores. It’s becoming a camping tradition! We went to bed late, and around 3AM, Piper started piping. Loudly piping. At this point, Pidge was up as well. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the whole campground was up because Piper was LOUD. I ran everyone to the car to muffle the noise. Piper refused to breastfeed, so I started pumping. Pidge found popcorn in the glove box and started munching away as we listened to Putumayo’s Latin Playground on CD. What a memory! By then it was too late to go back to sleep, so we waited until it was suitably light enough to be officially up for the day and built a fire. We went on a morning walk and later took a hike to a large waterfall. We spent two nights at the campground and came home happy.

But,

We. Are. Exhausted.

I try to look on the bright side of everything. We are making memories and loving each other. But we are just so tired. And we can’t ask for help. And our overcompensating and escapism is beginning to cause more exhaustion but we are just so tired of being stuck – at home, and in this pandemic. We are tired of not seeing family. Pipes is almost five months old and none of our family members have met her.

 

And my wife’s grandma has COVID-19.