In light of coronavirus, I’ve kept my kids home from school for the next little while because the district is allowing excused absences and I think I’m doing what is best for my family and our Seattle community too. It’s not because I’m afraid of catching coronavirus – for two forty-ish parents and two 11-ish kids, this virus is not expected to be that severe. But I’m taking all precautions about getting it because I’m scared that if I catch it, even if I don’t know I catch it, I could give it to someone in a vulnerable group and ultimately that could be problematic for our already-stressed healthcare system. And when people talk about numbers on the news, it might seem like they’re just numbers but I imagine that those numbers represent my grandma or my mom or dad or any of my family members over 60 years old and I’ll do anything to keep those loved ones safe. And I’d rather be thankful that I overreacted and tried my best than live with what I didn’t do. And I know first-hand how social distancing and quarantining feels a little because that is what I had to do the year I became a new mom.
I didn’t even have a real nine month pregnancy. Not that you should expect or be entitled to a certain kind of pregnancy but every soon-to-be mom movie that I watched started out with baby showers, a cute baby bump and then a happy baby coming home. But nothing in life is guaranteed or certain and we’re learning this in the world as Italy just shut its borders completely in a really short period of time.
After we found out we were having twins, my ‘fairytale’ pregnancy ended up with an emergency at my 26 week appointment and I was sent straight to bedrest in the hospital for nearly 7 weeks. It’s such a long time that even NASA tried to pay people for a two month study to see how it affects the human body for astronauts. If this were in the time of iPhones and instagram I might not have noticed the 7 weeks pass by-but I played bejeweled on my flip phone and ordered my nursery on the internet and that was still okay. And even though it was terrifying at times, the thought that I was trying to do something to protect my yet unborn kids was enough to help me overcome anxiety, claustrophobia and massive panic attacks. I was lucky- my health insurance covered $999,750 of our million dollar hospital bill.
But even social distancing or even maybe quarantining during coronavirus seems like you are able to get out of bed and walk around your house if you can or need to so 14 days of this doesn’t sound horrible if it saves a bunch of lives.
Once the babies came we spent more time in the NICU. And this is where the current state of washing hands EVERYWHERE would have been so welcome. We could not get sick while our kids were in the hospital. If we did we would not be allowed to see them and this probably would have killed me because the pregnancy almost did that too. Somehow I was one of those people that almost died giving birth, but I didn’t, and that’s probably all of that story that you need or want to know. But the more I knew I had to wash my hands the more I could see where people did not: we shake hands at galas and go straight to dinner, we come into our houses touching doorknobs and don’t head for the sink (and don’t get me started on not taking off shoes) and yes, we see many people going straight from the toilet in a restroom and immediately to a buffet. Researchers in London estimate that a million lives a year could be saved if we simply all washed our hands.
We started our lives as new twin parents who could not get sick at any cost, with one of us working in a hospital and one of us visiting a hospital multiple times daily and we had to still do real life. We went to restaurants and appointments making sure to hand sanitize and wash our hands despite no one else in the world seeming to need to. We were the over-protective annoying people who squirted Purell into your hands as you walked into our house or asked you to put on a clean covering over clothes that had been in the outdoor world before coming near us or our babies in the safety of our bubble home. If we knew friends and family members had been near people who had been sick (our radar needed to run deep) we rescheduled visits or kept a mandatory 6 feet distance. We didn’t go to big gatherings because we were scared there might be germs.
It was admittedly uncomfortable for the people around us who told us “all kids get colds, they’ll be okay” or for strangers who chased our double stroller train as we zoomed by trying to catch up and pinch our babies cheeks. We normal-lifed as much as we could while trying our best not to get sick. And when we made it through cold season the only people who really knew what we went through to stay healthy were us, the hubby and I.
Of course if I could have a do-over I wish I could have brought my guys into the world in a different way. But that’s not what we got. Just like now, when I would so much rather be booking ALL the trips to far-off places for Spring break we are bunkering down at home. We hope that all the things we gave up in those special early days of babies might have contributed to where we are now, but there is no proof. I left the hospital with two baby boys and we managed to stay healthy through cold and flu season. I also saw a new mom say goodbye to one of her twin babies in the NICU while I came to visit my guys one day. I saw the team rush in and a curtain envelope them before I left. And I know she probably did all that she could too.
The stories of coronavirus at the Life Care Center in Kirkland on the news jolted me back to helpless new mom me seeing that other mom, that other version of me, mourn her baby. I remember how I realized then how unfair life could be, that no matter how hard you try to hang on to it, you don’t always get the outcomes that you want. The longer I’ve lived I’ve learned to realize that so much of life is left to uncertainty and chance and we will not be able to show proof that the things we did amounted to anything of significance.
I learned that despite this you still try. You still hope for that one little chance that even when things seem dire you do everything you can in your power to try.
So maybe I’m over-reacting about the coronavirus. But a lot of my family is over 60 years old. And my husband and my loved ones work in hospitals. I’d rather over-react and be thankful that I did then run oncoming into whatever we’re running into wondering if I could have tried harder or if I could have done more. And this time my kids are here with me, watching me and I need to show them too. And I need to make sure to teach them that they need to wash their hands.
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
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