Becoming pregnant with my first baby was a blessing for my husband and I. I have always wanted to be a mother. Ever since I was a kid, whenever asked the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?" The answer was always, "a teacher" and "a mom". I accomplished being a teacher fairly quickly. Right out of high school, a good friend of mine encouraged me to apply for a job at a local preschool, when a piece of paper was passed around our college classroom. To be honest, I passed it straight on, and my friend is the one who put my name and number down. 15 years later, I am still at the same preschool, with my longest time away from my classroom being our honeymoon last year for 2 weeks. That was until the Pandemic. I love being a teacher, it is a way for me to care for and nurture children while molding them into responsible, caring, and honest beings all while playing and having fun. It is something that truly is my natural calling, I do not struggle with the responsibilities of my job, and I want to be inside the classroom, meeting all of the children's needs with my team of teachers. During this pandemic, I have lost my classroom, and at the beginning, I have lost a bit of myself, but I have found ways to recover, rewire, and redirect myself into teaching in a different way, connecting with people, especially myself, and focusing on my priorities as I transition into motherhood. Motherhood is something that I have always wanted to experience, I have been around it, through family, friends, and parents at the preschool. My own experience however is something that I have yearned for. The transition into motherhood especially, being able to take the little things for granted like binge-watching Netflix, nights on the town, and sleeping in. The experience of being pregnant, growing your little one in your womb for 9 months, sharing your body, your heart, your breath with someone other than yourself. Something so abstract to the physical world (until your belly starts to grow) yet being such a big part of your life and your choices from now until forever. Some women love being pregnant and they voice their thoughts on the topic with glowing faces, and beautiful pictures of them smiling and sharing their experience. Some women experience that pregnancy is hard for them, and not something that they expected and they also share pictures of a different light with their experiences loud and clear. For me, I am confused. I am confused about how I feel about pregnancy, as I do love growing life inside of me, and the thought that there is a piece of my husband and myself that made this beautiful daughter of ours, I am torn about how I feel. I have had to change too much of my routine, and life, through this transition during the pandemic, and I am not sure where to put my feelings. Toward the pandemic or my pregnancy. I feel sad sometimes, and lonely, my husband is still working, so I am alone most of the time, with nowhere to go and no one to see. He does work from home but is in his office 8 hours a day, so that leaves me finding new routines, hobbies, and preparing for baby to come. Being pregnant during a pandemic is something that curves my experience of being pregnant and my transition into motherhood. I am sad about the things, people, and routine I am missing during this time. Everything has changed, faster than I expected and with the pandemic lurking outside my door, I am scared of how it COULD affect the baby, my loved ones, and myself. It is an invisible worry that I have on top of the normal worries of pregnancy. I have never experienced this before, and my experience is tainted with the thought of these times ruining everything. I am trying not to be over-cautious, but also trying not to be under cautious at the same time. I want my family to be safe, and I want these last 7 weeks of pregnancy to be cherishable in the most it can be. I am worrying though, sometimes I just want to lay on the couch and binge-watch Netflix, or take a nap, or just scroll Facebook. Other times, I start big projects around the house, and when I am finished I think of another to start before the baby comes. I started this website during all of this, and this blog, and it does give me some sense of routine and purpose as I add content, and meaning to it each week. I am combining my life as a mentor, a teacher, and a soon to be mom to this virtual world of connectedness. I am finding my purpose again as I share my experiences, and curriculum tools through this pandemic and into the future. I am 8 months pregnant, I am a woman who has passion and drive to be all I can be even though this pandemic of the unknown. It is scary, my experience of my first pregnancy is scary, I am scared, I feel alone a lot, even though I'm connecting with my loved ones and my husband, it just isn't the same. From canceled baby showers, to no one allowed into the delivery room, or being able to meet our daughter when she is born, and truly months after that. This is lonely, this is how lonely feels, bringing something so precious into the world and finding new virtual ways to connect with others as you introduce her to it. I always thought I would be the person who hated when people would touch my growing belly, but I don't get that experience of loving or hating it, because no one can touch each other. No one can feel her kick, or move, or hug me, and I feel sad over this little things. Virtual connecting is just different, and for me it's not as meaningful, my love language involves affection, and that physical aspect of it has to be there. However, I am learning, and growing through this whole experience, with a growing belly and heartburn every single day. Our daughter and my husband and I will be strong warriors when this is all over. Hopefully, I can look back on this, and truly see the benefits that this has brought to my experience of being pregnant during the Pandemic. For now I will take it day by day, and take each day as a blessing while I keep my baby close inside me snuggled up where she is safe, and I stay safe inside my house and socially distanced away from others. This too shall pass, and in July we will have our little girl here, to give a whole new purpose to life. Pregnant during the pandemic, another chapter of my life, that will have an end, while another chapter begins. "1st-time experience of Motherhood during a Pandemic."
