Written April 2020
It’s been an interesting 2020 to say the least. The meme game is really present right now. One-liners are bubbling up like, “6-feet apart”, “the new normal”, “pets planned this”, “unprecedented times” and “social distancing (although I prefer the term physical distancing…#socialconnection)”. People are reassessing how they wash their hands and what door handles they touch (or don’t) in public. We’re all noticing when people cough, sneeze, or even breathe near us. No more shaking hands with people. More virtual meet ups. More quiet. Less traffic. What seems like a global shift has rocked the world.
While all this is going on, Jacob and I are expecting a baby boy to arrive within the next few weeks. (No…his name will not be Covido). We’re as prepared physically as we’ll ever be—car seat, crib, diapers. And emotionally, we joke that if our baby was born with a typical story, it wouldn’t be our lives. A global pandemic seems like just the right dose of irony for our baby’s birthday. With my mom as a nurse at a county hospital in the heart of the Bay Area, we are uniquely aware of the impact that the Coronavirus has played in the community we’re living in. And we’re confident that everything will work out as it should. A lot of friends and family have reached out in the most sincere concern for our health, especially now. Mom and Dad have been incredible support system team mates for us. They have helped us with groceries and most importantly: moral support. Thanks to Amazon, we’ve been able to order things that the baby may need when he arrives. Being 38+ weeks pregnant in the middle of a pandemic has definitely been a time of major slow down for me. In some ways, the Coronavirus literally forced me to slow down. Because there’s not a ton of data on how pregnancy may be impacted by COVID-19, we’ve been super cautious about how we spend our time. Other than our daily walk/bike ride/fresh air trip, we really haven’t been out much. I take that back….we did go OUT for a little date. Jacob drove me to downtown Los Gatos one night. We sat in the car in front of the town park. It was sweet. Quieter than ever before. Twinkle lights. Tons of stars. And just us.
We luckily escaped for a little trip just before things started getting wild with the pandemic. The photos were taken in Oahu, Hawaii. I was hesitant to do a maternity shoot, but after losing a baby last year, I convinced myself that capturing this joy would be something we’d like. And I am SO grateful we did.
So cheers to a new chapter in the middle of a global plot twist. I am looking forward to meeting our little guy so soon! I can't wait to ask him why he chose this wild month to join the party.
Photo Credit: Hayley Burke Photography (www.hayleyburke.com) (she's fabulous!)
