Oh my goodness, what a Season this has been.  What a year this has been. A lot of us got close to the end of 2019 and began saying things like:  I am so done with 2019 and can’t wait for 2020 to begin.

I was one of them.  Exhausted from the politics, emotionally exhausted from seeing the suffering of others from natural disasters, and some friends and family who went through medical crises,,, I was done, done, done. No joke.. 2019 must end, and it can’t happen fast enough!

Now, I feel like the joke was on me.

Season #14 started January 6th, 2019.  Not even halfway through this season,  COVID-19 came barreling into all of our lives. At first, there were some whispers, than there were rumblings, than the voices got louder, and I don’t know about you, but in my world, all of a sudden, the world around me exploded… and then…. over the course of 3 days, life around us shut down. And by the third day – Life seemed to stand still.  I don’t know about you, but I realize now that I was in shock.

I went along with the program.  Shut things down.  Stopped visiting with moms in their home. Virtual consults have been part of my repertoire for many years already, however, were not nearly as common as in person consults. And quite frankly, not nearly as fun. Very shortly I began to miss my daily dose of babies. Going through baby withdrawal is no fun!  On the positive side, I could do more virtual consults in a day as there is no driving in between homes.  However, I do love driving.  Surrounding many of the highways and roads I drive on are beautiful mountain views. Besides,  I love visiting moms in their homes. But, just like everyone else, I have learned to adjust and made the best of it.

My 87 year old mother stopped all of the activities outside the house that gave her joy.  No more bingo.  No more Mah john, no more going to the movies and to dinner with friends and family.  No more meandering around Costco for half a day.  My mother became a shut-in overnight.  My 2 daughters had jobs that transitioned to working from home.  Both of my beautiful daughters are extroverted.  They love going to work each day.  Seeing all their friends and coworkers, sharing their lives, talking about what they cooked for dinner last night, what the next work projects are going to be, lunching with friends.  My husbands job took a few weeks more, but soon they transitioned to work from home status. While he does enjoy being at the office, he hates the drive and likes the short commute from bedroom to office, so he is actually quite happy working from home.  My son, who is a Dr. in Pennsylvania, continued working his usual shifts and has not deviated from his usual routine.  He is the only family member that continues the same daily routine.

All of a sudden, just like many of you, my usual life, with the usual degree of every day stress…. well, it just changed. Even though every day is different in my job, there is a routine to the flow.  Even though, I am a natural worrier, I have learned to keep it in check.

But now,

My worry hat was put on and it has not come off, even once.

Too hard to let my guard down when each day the news worsened.

My place of birth, NYC, became a nightmare for those living there and whether they liked it or not, became known for being the epi-center of the Pandemic on the East Coast of the United States.

The coronavirus pandemic has quickly expanded our vocabularies. We’ve learned new terms – like:

COVID – 19

social distancing

physical distancing

flattening the curve

stay home and stay safe

We’ve learned the differences between:

pandemic vs. epidemic

quarantine vs. isolation

and respirator vs ventilator

So much is confusing to me as it is new information.I am getting so wacky that even knowledge that I know I do have is confusing me. Case in point – I did know how to pronounce hydroxycloroquine before this Pandemic.Hearing it being mis-pronounced by so many commentators and reporters and even some doctors, It started to become a tongue twister to me. Do not even get me started with all the terms under the heading of testing – antibodies, contact tracing.   celebrities video-taping themselves getting  the cotton swabs up the nose – wanting to show us it was painless and that they survived.

What about our new language – While I easily picked up on all of these different terms,  I do have to say that I was stumped the first time I heard someone use Rona, as in:Yeah, I don’t know about you, but homeschooling my kids during the rona ends up in watching a lot of Frozen 2.

It seems we went from Coronavirus, to corona, to Rona.  Who knew???? Not sure who dreamed that one up but I figure it is the younger generation.

And  now… to come full circle.. what about this podcast?

Because I record the shows and batch them, and pre-record many of the openings, you hear my happy, positive and cheerful voice… Welcome to AAB, the host….I listened to some of the shows and I thoughtl….. the world around us is crumbling and I sound like I am happy as a pig in sugar honey ice tea.  What must my audience be thinking.  Well, I hope you were thinking… it’s not that she doesn’t care or is so far removed from reality….oh she must record these shows weeks or months ahead of time.

This is absolutely true…. and the news around the world was and still is so alarming that I  just knew I needed to keep in those recorded versions.  I mean, what was I going to do – let you hear in my voice how upset that I am over what is happening in the birthing and breastfeeding and mothering world.

I worked hard, along with many of my colleagues, years ago… to fight for the right to have our partners in the room when giving birth.  This evolved into learning about doulas role and fighting for them to be able to be in the birthing rooms.  Years ago, In my early days as a birth doula, I often did have to fight for my right to be in the room with a mom giving birth.  Along with thousands of others in the birthing field, we made a dent and then we made it the norm and it has been many years since that last time a mom had to make a choice between her partner or her doula being at her birth.

And, now horrors… moms had to not only begin to choose between partner and doula… sorry mom, only 1 other adult with you, there were many moms who at the height of COVID-19 had to say goodbye to their partners at the door as they dropped them off.  Never mind having their doula with them.  Some places were able to accommodate and FACEtime their doulas during their birth… but lets face it… just not the same.

More IBCLCs taking leave, so even less help with breastfeeding than there usually is.  Left alone and without help, surely some of you have figure out breastfeeding, some have had major struggles and persevered and come through the other side and too many others have stopped breastfeeding because of pain, low supply and an alarming lack of support.

Just as I was going to record this episode, I read another horrifying report coming out of the Ukraine. Dozens of babies born to Ukranian surrogate mothers are trapped in lock down and unable to join their adoptive parents abroad as the country’s borders remain closed. While I do not know of anyone personally who is going through this right now, I have worked intimately with many adoptive parents and surrogates.  Many either breastfed the baby for the first few weeks or month, others pumped for weeks or months for the baby they carried.  The intended and adoptive parents could be with the surrogate moms during the birth. Now, there are reports of 100 babies who are stranded in clinics across the Ukraine.

Now this actually does bring up the human rights issue regarding the ethics of commercial surrogacy which is legal in the Ukraine.  Here there are clinics with surrogates and babies sometimes goes to the highest bidders, which is basically human trafficking.  This is bad enough. Now we have all those babies abandoned and I cannot find out any information on how they are being cared for.

I have just highlighted a small slice of the unexpected consequences COVID has brought to the birthing and breastfeeding world. The damaging effects in every area of our lives is overwhelming.  Do ya see – I told you my worry hat was big and tall and wide.

Oy vey, I really don’t want to end this Season on a negative note.  And yet, this is our reality and I refuse to hide  my head in the sand, even though that is what I would like to do. I thought of just deleting this whole recording and come back and be Polly-ana, but this is one time I am just not going to do it.  In the face of all the difficult times, I am comfortable with letting you know that I am upset and fearful and very worried.  I also need to let you know that I do my best to allow myself the time for tears, as should you.  To say that we will ignore what is going on in the world around us and to stuff all those feeling down so deep.. well, that is not going to work to well because it will come out one way or the other ….and it won’t be pretty. So, call it for what it is.  have your pity party once a day if you need to,  but work hard to not stay in that place for too long.  We must also do our best to balance our lives so we remain in good emotional and physical health. We need to throw ourselves that lifejacket and we need to place that oxygen mask over our face… so that we can be strong and healthy to be there for the others in our lives.

So, now Here we are, at the end of another great Season  # 14, of the All About Breastfeeding podcast.

I hope that with Summer Break comes Summer Slumber.  I will tell you that for me, sleep typically comes easy, but staying asleep for too long does not.  I have more nightmares now that I have had in my whole life. I had been waking up with a lack of energy and a bit of despair for our future.   It seems that rather than waking up and wishing each other a good morning, we more often start off with – wow, I can’t believe this nightmare I had!!!

So, I have been working hard to change my mindset.  Whatever my first thoughts are, I am trying my best to shift them into something positive.  Hope is a word that comes to mind quite often.  I try and say this quote to myself when I wake up in the middle of the night –

Even in the darkest of times, there is light

and where there is light, there is hope.

And when you are feeling like things are so bad, you can barely find any shred of hope, perhaps you can adopt and say to yourself,  what I say to myself each morning –

Even A single thread of hope, is still a powerful thing.