During pregnancy, your own body and psyche always get a little out of joint. But what if the whole world is unhinged around you?
Our third child is born in June. Exactly when, according to projections, the health system is at risk of collapse. "Just be glad that your little one is safe in your belly for a while," says my midwife. "June will be fatal," predicts my sister, who works in the hospital. "There is no danger for pregnant women," writes the press. "There is currently no data," says my gynecologist. I read reports about infected newborns, births without a partner and a pregnant woman in Bolzano, whose health only improved after an emergency operation. UFF.
While all these different impressions in my head dance with my hormones salsa, I am stuck with my children in the home office and try to work as best I can. There's no point in going crazy. Says my husband.
The thing with the lack of stability
But what my husband says, unfortunately, interests me very little in some moments. To be honest, I've rarely felt so insecure. My body gets out of joint, I will soon go on maternity leave from a very fulfilling working life and my everyday life will completely change. Digesting this is probably a little difficult for every pregnant woman – regardless of how much you wanted the child. What then helps are routines, a stable environment, joy for the future with the newborn, a little rest. So all the things that were possible before Corona and not now.
How I found my courage after a bad weekend
Last weekend I had my personal shutdown – even before Ms. Merkel came up with the idea. All you had to do was look at me and I howled. Everything in me was fear. To my baby. To my heart-sick parents. To my sister with a genetic defect. Around the world we know. How the birth will be and how I should protect my newborn from what's coming. It took two days of snot and water to cry before I thought of a sentence my grandmother once told me: "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you make of it." And I realized that I now had the chance to teach my children exactly this sentence. Yes, maybe even the child in my stomach. So to speak, as a vaccination against despair in life. Ever prenatal. Resilience via umbilical cord express.
The stomach does what the head says
It is no news that you can outsmart your own gut feeling and emotions quite well. For all new moms-to-be: Training this now is VERY clever. Because *** ATTENTION, SPOILER *** with children and without the usual seven hours of sleep, your nerves will be bare now and then even without corona. A good method: mantras. Just keep saying in your head how you handle things. Over and over again. It may be later: "Wax painter is sure to get out of his favorite blouse, so I don't get upset", today it is: "Corona won't spoil my anticipation for my child." What also helps me: just skip the thoughts about the birth and the time before and recall the other pictures: those little perfect fingers that hold on to you. The chuckling sound when your baby is drinking. How okay quarantine will feel when you can finally see your sweetheart. Or the conversation at the kitchen table in 30 years, during which you can say: "You have become such a strong person because the crisis of 2020 did not get us down, darling. You were born a fighter and will do anything in life!" How to do that … stay optimistic in tough times … you can never learn that early enough. Our children in the belly in times of Corona just stop before they were born. We will all emerge from these times as mom heroines. And our children? They will definitely be optimists!