Quarantine Pregnancy
Hey Babes,
As I round out the last couple days of my second pregnancy, I’m reflecting on a questions I hear frequently:
How is this pregnancy different from the first?
While this question is probably most interesting just to me, I have learned some things throughout Baby Sister’s gestation that I think are useful takeaways.
In many ways, my two pregnancies aren’t all that different - morning sickness that lasts all day, an early penchant for pizza and grapefruits and a later obsession with watermelon, strawberries, and ice cream, and a genetic blood clot condition that means I give myself shots every day and, lately, twice a day, of blood thinners that sting and bruise but are actually a pretty easy way to save our lives. I’ve gained the exact same amount of weight in about the same amount of time but carry it very differently - with Diego, I didn’t really show much for the longest time but then became squishy and round all over, while with Baby Sister I feel like it was obvious about 5 minutes after conception but aside from a double chin I’m less puffy with no swelling.
37 weeks of pregnancy, 7 of lockdown, and I have to say, I’ve been pretty amazed at the fortuitous state of things in our life right now. I never would have slowed down this much under normal circumstances, and the past nearly two months have been full of so much of what I love and have missed for so long. But this beautiful time is bookended by a considerable amount of fear and uncertainty, from panicked packing when we decided the best thing for Diego and Baby Sister would be to leave our Brooklyn home and drive to my recently retired mother’s new house in South Carolina to wondering what’s to become of our jobs on the other side of this thing. We’re lucky, and yes, privileged to be where we are, and since neither of us grew up knowing anyone with leisure time to spare, we appreciate it for the gift that it is. And it has been truly a gift, to be surrounded in family, a warm southern spring, trees and nature and space for Diego to grow and thrive, to have been able to teach and stay connected to my movement community in NYC and everywhere, to have been able to really reconnect with my mover/teacher self through daily barre classes and feel the immense benefits. It’s confusing, and occasionally middle-of-the-night frightening, because it’s very hard to make the right decisions when you’re in limbo, and the beautiful life we’re living right now isn’t our real life. We have prepared for war in times of peace, but savings run out, babies grow, and neither of us have any guarantees for work prospects, nor have we seen a dime of unemployment yet. So there’s more uncertainty than usual when bringing a new baby into the world, because I won’t understand her world. My 38 years have been full of moving in roomfuls of sweaty people, of concerts and movies and shows, busy bars and crowded subway cars, friends and friends and friends, travels to enchanting places, living daily life with a sense of freedom and spontaneity, connecting with people and sharing their energy. Meanwhile, as happy as he is, Diego hasn’t so much as spoken to another child in 7 weeks, or traveled farther from home than the stroller can roll. I don’t know when either of them will go to school, play tag with their friends, see a movie, or go to a birthday party.
Tone switch.
There’s a lot I’m learning and even loving about being pregnant in the time of COVID-19. Doing barre every day has taken me out of pain, has strengthened and energized me in amazing ways. I had more pelvic floor trouble earlier in my pregnancy than I do now, more pain and even leaking. It’s more clear to me than ever that I basically get the most sick or injured when under stress, that I manifest stress physically in my body, be it from the tendency of stress to weaken the immune system or processes I don’t understand. But as I’ve settled in here, for one reason or another, my chronic pelvic girdle pain has all but subsided, and the creepy cold I had in quarantine (I virtually NEVER get sick, y’all) vanished the day I after actually got a COVID test. I love that it’s warm and sunny and the watermelons are in season here. I love the pregnancy hormones apparent in my skin, that I’ve had virtually no swelling and only wear flip flops because it’s too hard and completely unnecessary to tie shoes. I love the feeling of slowing down, of having buckets of patience and attention for my toddler because I’m not running from thing to thing. I love my little family enjoying these last few weeks of 3 together, and I love that Diego loves it so much. My pregnancy symptoms are largely the same as they were with Diego - all day morning sickness like a hangover that never lifts, heartburn from drinking water, feeling sprightly and craving movement half the day and large and slow for the other half - but this pregnancy is different in that I’ve had virtually zero back pain (thank you, Pilates) and more PGP (thank you, residual trauma from previous birth) that has luckily not stuck around,
