I’m 9 months pregnant.
9 months ago we lived in a rented apartment.
9 months ago my toddler was hardly talking and in private gan.
9 months ago my older daughter was in pre-k.
9 months ago I had never heard of corona. I didn’t know the Hebrew word for mask and certainly had never considered anyone who wasn’t a surgeon wearing one. Concepts of national lockdowns and the government deciding where and when we could go places would have sounded like a dystopian novel. Limiting the number of people at weddings for health reasons wouldn’t have made any sense. Restricted air travel wouldn’t have crossed my mind.
Today we live in an apartment we bought.
Today my toddler talks in full sentences, sings Let It Go, pats my belly and tells me that’s her baby, and is in public nursery.
Today my older daughter is in kindergarten on the grounds of the elementary school.
Today I wear my mask to work daily (and anywhere else I go). I’ve survived one lockdown and started another. I’ve chosen to not attend a wedding for fear of exposure to corona. I’ve accepted that I have no idea when I’ll see my grandmother or my in-laws in person again. I’ve been briefly quarantined. Due to working in a geriatric hospital I have done close to 20 corona checks (all negative Bli Ayin Hara) and will do another 2 before I start my maternity leave. I have struggled to survive in this new world while suffering from anxiety and depression. I’ve put my children in masks. I’ve listened to my five-year-old tell me how she wishes corona never came here. I’ve watched, in awe, as my husband became superman and juggle being a stay-at-home dad and working from home while I continued to work at my “essential job”. I’ve watched in fear the changes that are happening to the world.
In the 9 months I’ve grown a new baby inside of me the world outside has completely changed. In ways I could never have predicted or imagined. Preparing for a birth always includes a lot of unknowns. When will the baby come? How will we manage juggling this new baby with all the other things in our lives? Who will she look like? What will her personality be like? Now I have a whole new set of questions. Will my daughters have Gan over my maternity leave? Will I be able to see my friend who is also on leave as we planned? How old will my baby be when my extended family (both in Israel and abroad) meet her? What sort of world am I bringing her into?
How do I end this blog post?
I have a lot of questions right now, I've had a lot of questions over the last six months. Most, if not all, of them remain unanswered. And so we continue taking it one day at time and hoping for things to get better. Sometime in the next month we will, Beezrat Hashem, add a new ray of sunshine to the equation. I hope more good things will come along with that.
