Back in October, Nathan and I eagerly awaited the results of an at-home pregnancy test. Hoping there would be two pink lines, but fully expecting that it may take us months upon months to get pregnant again. And there they were. Two perfectly visible pink lines. We smiled, I teared up with joy that we were going to be blessed to do this whole parenting thing again. And so our journey began toward baby #2.

There were the usual stressors of the first trimester: the utter exhaustion, nausea, uneven hormones. The eagerness of wanting everyone to know this special little secret we were keeping to ourselves, and at the same time wanting to hold on to that little secret for as long as we could. It was an uneventful first trimester, punctuated by an anniversary trip to New York in November and the most perfect Christmas morning sharing this awesome news with our family.

The second trimester began in January, and I dove head first into long hours at work, eagerly looking forward to the end of our “busy season” come March. Fridays at home with Harrison, welcoming spring, and walking through this season of life with my sister, who is due one week after me.

March came, and while the work eased up, and I got my time back with Harrison, the coronavirus derailed the spring and summer I had wished for before adding this new baby to our lives. We were all at home together from mid-March onward. Harrison yanked out of daycare, two full time working parents desperately trying to figure out the balance of work calls and videoconferencing that was now the new norm, keeping up with a toddler schedule and spending quality time playing and teaching Harrison, all while balancing that with a highly active 2 year old.

The pandemic has hit people and families so hard. And we all know that every family has had some suffering and loss. Some more than others. For the first few months, I clung to the hope that maybe things would be more normal by the time our due date would roll around. But it has presented challenges and decisions that we need to make and mentally prepare for given that our second little one is going to be born into this pandemic world.

I try to keep most of what I write about here light-hearted, focused on all of the good in life. But I feel compelled to also document for myself and my children what this time has really been like for us.

This pandemic world has brought anxiety that I never expected to face. I expected that I would worry about whether this new baby would be a good eater. Whether we would struggle with nursing, the way I did with Harrison. How he would sleep, and the integration of Harrison and his baby brother.

But instead, we grapple with decisions now about whether we unenroll Harrison from his daycare, a place where he has friends and loves so dearly, because it presents both a health risk to myself and the baby and a financial consequence as well for paying or a service that we aren’t using.

Discussions with my OB now surround the current policies for the hospital around COVID-19. Making plans for what our family is comfortable with if I were to test positive in the labor and delivery room for the virus. Plans to quarantine myself leading up to the due date to give us the best hope of not having COVID-19 the day this little one is born.

And we struggle with what our support system will look like after this baby is born. I think back to what those first few weeks were like with baby Harrison. The rollercoaster of hormones and baby blues that I grappled with seemingly every day. Struggling between the demands of a newborn and what was supposed to be the happiest moments of our lives as a new family, and just an overall cast of sadness that was unexplainable. I worry about what that looks like if I am the sole caretaker after my husband returns to work, of a newborn and a 2 year old for some length of time. Mostly a worry about the kind of mom I am for both of them, just trying to find a new balance.

Nobody has one sure fire answer. There are smart people making recommendations or ways to think about these decisions in very different ways. I’ve read more news stories than I probably should have. I see-saw between one day of feeling like everything is starting to look up to the next day, fearful and afraid of this world we are living in now.

Every last thing we do is with risk. It has always been that way: a balance of risk versus joy and mental health. And so, we’ve had to make hard decisions. About what is best for our family now. About what is best for our family at delivery. And I’m trying to not get too far ahead of myself in hopes down the road, as it seems like things change every week. Especially right now, it seems like we can only really make a short term decision about things.

We have all experienced some grief during this time at losses of things we were anticipating and looking forward to this spring and summer. I know I’m not alone in walking this road. These are hard decisions, and difficult times. Difficult times are what make the good times better. They show and develop the character of your soul. It will not be all in vain. But man, I’m sure ready to be at the other side of this mountain. I’m sure you all are too.