“Within a quick 24-hours, I became a full-time-working-stay-at-home-full-time-home-schooling-mom. I had no idea how it was all going to happen. Hell, I’d be happy with a general idea or suggestion of how this all will play out! I know we will figure it out, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s going to be a lot of building the plane while we fly it. And I have to be okay with that.”
“A nurse said, ‘Do you want a picture?’ I abruptly said, ‘No.’ I was trying to erase the past 6 hours from my memory. I didn’t even know if my baby would survive. Why would I want a picture or anything that would make me feel attached to this little creature? Baby B was barely alive.”
“She would freak out when I left the room to go pee so I would just take her with me. This is why parents are so darn tired. And why it is even harder with social distancing. We may be isolated, but we’re never alone.”
“I am a nurse at a Portland area Hospital. I rely heavily on my family to watch my son while I work my 12-hour shifts. But I am also so much more. I am a single mother to a 9-year-old boy. I am a daughter to a mother who has had asthma her entire life. No more hugs, no more kisses. I am making a sacrifice.”
“One of the things he insisted on keeping were a couple boxes of masks. MASKS. Not just any mask, but military-grade, N-95 masks. His brother had given the masks to family members after saving them from a surplus sale at Camp Williams in Utah. There were thousands.”
“His teacher means the WORLD to him, the world. We had big plans for May 28th. Finn’s graduation from preschool and an adorable spring program that was planned. It’s all gone. He will never get to complete preschool. We had our kids at this school for 6 whole years and with one announcement, gone.”
“‘He’s breathing.’ That’s the first thing my husband, Myles, said to me as the doctor delivered our 1 lb. 14 oz. baby via emergency C-section at only 24 weeks. The nurses were running to his bed to manually pump breaths into his lungs. I went to the ER fully prepared to not hear his heartbeat. But every time I thought he was gone, there he was, his heart beating away.”
“I wanted another maternity leave. One without sore nipples, leaking breasts, crying babies, or daily trips to the NICU. I wanted ‘a pause’ on life. But then something changed. I took a breath and I began to see things through a new lens.”
“I’m not homeschooling. The younger two have their packets and are completing them when they feel like it. We aren’t getting up super early, and we’ve watched more TV then we probably should. Because the truth is, this situation is the pits. Pretty much anything goes about now.”
“Going to work feels a little like going to war. Knowing the hardship restaurants are experiencing, I got an idea. That night, I shared my ‘economic stimulus donuts’ with my coworkers.”
