Category Archives: covid-19

I miss the person I was in 2019.

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A little over seven months ago, I was one month out from grieving the death of my mother, petrified that I’d never bond with my babies, hoping that over the next three weeks something would click and I’d suddenly feel connected to the lives inside of me. You see, the complicated way we had to conceive impacted my ability to attach to my unborn babies. I was perpetually afraid something would go wrong and awaiting the inevitable ultrasound where one or both little heartbeats were lost. Covid-19 complicated matters even further, as I feared contracting the illness and/or having to give birth without my husband.

As much of a planner as I am, I’ve never been one for birth plans. My only real goal for what would happen in the delivery room was that all three of us would get through safely and without complication. I’ll enter my disclaimer here and state that I truly don’t care what other women do, but coming from a line of many nurses, childbirth has always been a medical procedure for me. I didn’t care about the music playing or the lighting or having a positive energy. I had a preference for who delivered my babies, who was in the room, and who visited after the fact. Call that a birth plan if you like, but that’s as specific as I was willing to get over something I knew I ultimately could not control. Fertility treatments just strengthened that conviction, as did a high risk twin pregnancy.

When you’re going through IVF, a lot of people look at your vagina. I’ve always been a bodily private person, but I was forced to set that aside for a full year, starting with IVF monitoring appointments in July of 2020. By the time I found myself facing a second egg retrieval, I did not care about modesty. When asked if a resident could view the procedure, I answered that they could live stream it if they could get me pregnant. In the end, there were six people in the room when my children were conceived and my husband wasn’t one of them. God and science were in their conception. God and science would be in their birth. I didn’t need it to be magical. On the contrary, I knew it would be painful, gross, and awkward. When the doctor and I discussed arrangements, I jokingly informed her that I had 28 different birth plans, one for each phase of the lunar cycle.

This feeling was, of course, exacerbated by my status as “high risk.” After exhausting amounts of research and a refusal by my doctor to insist on one or the other, I ultimately decided to schedule a C-section, but keep my mind open to a vaginal delivery if things worked out perfectly for me to have one with twins. They… did not.

Here’s a trigger warning (ends with Fozzie Bear) for references to childbirth that require a trigger warning…

June 18, 2021 was a Friday. I had my standard bi-weekly doctor’s appointment, where the doctor talked to me about how I was feeling, verified that she thought I would be able to make it to the date of my scheduled C-section, July 14, and sent a nurse in to check my vitals. When the nurse informed me that my blood pressure was high and sent me to Labor and Delivery for monitoring, I was sure this was the moment when everything would go south, particularly since she told me I might need to stay over night. I was hooked to fetal monitors and blood pressure cuffs, given a steroid shot for the babies’ lung development, and had just started to worry, when the nurses told me I could go home. My blood pressure was a little high and we’d need to keep an eye on it. I was fine, though, and would just need to come back the next day for monitoring and the other shot in my steroid course. That appointment was far less scary, with Jake by my side. My blood pressure was briefly monitored, a shot was administered, and I was sent on my way with assurances that those babies would stay put for another three and half weeks.

I spent the weekend doing chores and felt good and strong… until Monday morning, when I headed to my high-risk ultrasound at a different hospital. I’d previously been out of breath, but had assumed it was a combination of twin pregnancy, asthma, and wearing a mask at work. Monday was different, though. I was short of breath, exhausted, and my heart was racing. I didn’t think I’d make it from my car into the doctor’s office. I assumed I was getting a cold or a sinus infection, but when the tech had trouble differentiating the babies’ heartbeats, I struggled to lie on my back, because I couldn’t stop coughing. The doctor arrived and asked how I felt, to which I responded I felt like I was coming down with a cold. He assured me that I could use over-the-counter medication, so I stopped by Wal-Mart and stocked up. I didn’t want to use sick leave for the rest of the day and was determined to return to work, but since I was scheduled to do a virtual program alone at one of the satellite branches after telework ended, I decided that just this one time, no one would be the wiser (nor would my managers have cared) if I worked from home for the day. So, I watched a couple of webinars and oversaw some teenagers as they played DnD, refusing to cancel, because I knew it might be one of the last times I got to play with them. I visited the chiropractor that evening, hoping to ease my back pain and took it easy.

The next day, I woke feeling utterly miserable and called in sick to work. My back still hurt and I felt like I hadn’t slept in weeks, both of which I blamed on being 14 months pregnant with what I could only assume were Godzilla and Kong, if their movements were any indication. I tried to sleep on the couch, but couldn’t stop coughing. I knew it wasn’t Covid-19, because it wasn’t a dry cough and I had no other related symptoms. My stars I felt awful, though, so I decided a hot shower might help… like ten times.

I now realize that I was growing delirious, as I took shower after shower, hoping to ease the tightness in my back along with my coughing. As my skin grew chapped, I doused my legs in baby powder, too foggy to clean up the mess. Had Jake been home, I’m certain he’d have noticed something wasn’t right and taken me to the hospital, but as it was, he only came home for lunch and wondered about the mess. When he got home for the day, however, I told him how poorly I felt and that my heart raced every time I stood up. I asked if he’d call the hospital and we were told to come to the emergency room, just to be safe. I remember telling Jake that we’d forgotten my hospital bag and asking him to turn around.

Jake: “We won’t need the bag.”
Me: “We’re gonna need the bag.”

Spoiler alert: we needed the bag.

When Jake and I arrived at the ER, where I told them I couldn’t breathe, the first thing they did was put a mask on my face. They wouldn’t test me for Covid-19, because I’d been vaccinated. Many of the nurses weren’t wearing masks, because they weren’t required to behind counters I can only assume were made of medical grade magic, but it was vitally important that the fully vaccinated massively pregnant woman who couldn’t breathe wear one “for the safety of everyone in this hospital.” I was immediately seated on an ER bed and told to lie back… a position I couldn’t maintain, because I would immediately start coughing. After a couple of hours of trying to be accommodating, I flat-out refused to lie back and sat with Jake in front of me, waving the nurse off and telling her he was there if I fell.

Much of the night following our 6:00 arrival at the ER has blurred in my memory. I was taken for a CT scan, after having an IV put in my arm, without warning that it would vibrate due to the magnets. I remember lying there, terrified because I was instructed to hold my breath and I thought I’d cough up a lung, but also because I feared the IV had been left in by mistake and would be pulled out. I wasn’t allowed water, in case I had to deliver that night and I have never been so thirsty in my life. I received an echocardiogram and was told my doctor was on her way, with reinforcements to deliver our babies in an emergency C-section.

Me: “I’m scared.”
Jake: “It’ll be okay.”
Me: “What if I don’t love them?”

In hindsight, the fact that I was most worried about properly loving my daughters, as opposed to my own health in this moment, was proof that I needn’t have worried about it as I was rushed to the delivery room. Another mask was put on my face, this time over an oxygen mask, so I thought I’d be okay, until I realized I still couldn’t breathe. I vaguely remember hearing the nurses say they’d forgotten to turn the oxygen on, so at least that mystery was solved.

I remember even less of what happened from there. I was briefly held in a labor and delivery room, where I was asked to change into a gown. Once again, all modesty was thrown out of the window as I stripped the XXXL Summer Reading t-shirt and maternity shorts from my massive body in a room full of nurses, who began to freely discuss whether or not I needed to be shaved. I was wheeled to an operating room, where a kind anesthesiologist did his best to calm me, as I panicked over having to lie on my back for the surgery. I have had a lot of surgeries in my life, y’all. A C-section was never really something I feared… until I thought I might drown while I was fully aware of everything that was happening. In fact, when the doctor warned me that he’d have to insert a breathing tube if I couldn’t calm down, I begged him to do just that. I only vaguely remember the spinal block as I coughed and coughed, with the anesthesiologist reassuring me that breathing would be easier once it had taken effect.

While I could breathe more easily than before, that wasn’t saying much. I lie on the table shaking from the adrenaline with an oxygen mask over my face as I coughed as best I could, numb from the waist down. I vaguely remember hearing a baby cry as my sweet Violet was brought into the world. A nurse brought Scarlett to me, so I could see her, but I was much too concerned with my own discomfort for much to register. If I’d known I wouldn’t see my girls for two more days, I might have cherished that moment a little more.

I was then rushed to the ICU, shocked that this was where they’d put me. It was only over the next few days that I would learn that I had been diagnosed with “substantial pneumonia” and perinatal cardiomyopathy, a pregnancy-induced heart condition that impacts .00001% of women in the U.S. My lungs were full of fluid. I was technically in heart failure. I’d lost over half the blood in my body, with only five units left. After two back-to-back rounds of IVF during a global pandemic, I almost died giving birth. Although I couldn’t have predicted how, the disaster I had so greatly feared had come to pass.

Over the next four days, I was given three blood transfusions and a mile long list of medications, as a team of doctors worked to regulate my heart, build up my blood supply, cure my pneumonia, and treat my surgical incision. Say what you want about the American healthcare system, but that hospital saved my life. It was the most terrifying and dehumanizing thing I’ve ever experienced, as nurses cleaned the blood from between my legs, rolled me over to give me sponge baths, and helped me use the bathroom, all while providing a constant infusion of medication and antibiotics.

I spent the first two days in darkness, since the pain medication gave me crippling headaches and caused me to relentlessly scratch my face due to the itching. While I’m not sure I was present enough to realize my girls weren’t with me that first day, the depression began to set in on day two, when I woke screaming that they’d taken my babies, that I hadn’t even gotten to hold them. Jake, who had not left my side, sleeping in the uncomfortable recliner, tried to soothe me and assure me they were alright. Still, I barely spoke, was uninterested in conversation, reading, listening to music or audiobooks, or any form of entertainment or socialization as I feared for my health and yearned to hold my girls. I finally my chance, when the nurses assembled a security team to bring them down for a visit and I was able to snuggle my precious babies for a few moments, before admitting that I was too sick to do so much longer.

On day four, I was released to labor and deliver, on the insistence of the ICU staff that they weren’t doing anything for me that couldn’t be done on another floor. One nurse adamantly insisted that I needed to be with my babies and I eagerly waited all day to be transferred, so I could have my girls in the room. The first thing I did when I arrived in the same room I’d briefly visited before my C-section, was to take a shower supervised and assisted by Jake. I desperately wanted to feel human again, but didn’t quite accomplish it over the next three days, constantly interrupted by a stream of nurses and doctors running tests and administering antibiotics… but I had my girls.

I’d love to report that all was well, once my family was united, but alas, it was not. The first night with our girls, we were plagued with absolutely useless nurses in a ward with no nursery, despite the fact that I was literally instructed not to get out of bed. We weren’t informed that the girls should be double-swaddled, when they were only brought to us in one, nor were we told that this was due to the fact that the thermostat was broken in our room and would suddenly drop to the low 60s. After being administered Benadryl via IV, I woke several hours later to Violet screeching and Jake exhaustedly snoring away. Not knowing if Jake was just sleeping through the crying or if he just didn’t understand that such small babies cannot be ignored when they cry, I left him alone and tended to her myself. The only reason a nurse came to assist was because my heart rate sky rocketed and the company that was monitoring it called to let them know that I was going to pass out.

When the nurse arrived, she scolded me for letting the babies get too cold, as I lay there crying and in pain, feeling like a failure of a mother when I couldn’t even get out of bed to care for my own children. She spent a good five minutes lecturing me on how hard all of this was on my husband and how we couldn’t do this by ourselves. Later, I reported her sexist diatribe and discouraging warnings that proved completely untrue, but in that moment, I was devastated. It was 3:00 a.m., after I’d finally gotten to be with my babies and I had failed them. They’d gotten so cold, they had to be put under the warmer. I had no mother and no idea what I was doing and now I was suffering from heart complications and was literally unable to do it by myself. In that moment, I felt so lost and alone and that nurse can go kick rocks.

The next day was better, with a competent nurse, who actually told us the girls were on a schedule… which no one had even mentioned… and stressed the importance of keeping it. She showed us how to feed and burp and swaddle our not-quite-five-pound babies, leaving us much better prepared for the night, since the girls would be officially discharged, even though I couldn’t leave yet. At this point, I desperately wanted to be home with my babies, but it would be another two days before we could leave. By the time I was discharged, I was on the verge of a mental breakdown for fear they’d make me stay. Jake was even prepared to tell the doctor he thought it would be worse for me if I had to stay another night. After one full week in the hospital, though, I finally got to go home with my baby girls and it was the greatest day of motherhood I’d experienced so far.

… end trigger warning.

I’d like to say that life was smooth sailing from this point forward, but my health issues persisted for some time. In fact, I spent the first few months of my girls’ lives fearing I wouldn’t get to see them grow up, as I waited to see how my heart was recovering. In November, I received the news that my heart was back to normal, but that if there was another pregnancy, it would be high-risk, with a 20% chance of similar troubles. My girls were six months old before I finally felt strong enough to walk around the neighborhood or put their double stroller in the hatchback, without struggling. Physically, I would say I’m 95% recovered and that I feel almost normal.

I don’t only keep this blog for my readers, as grateful as I am to have them, but for my own sense of nostalgia and record keeping, as well. It’s taken me a long time to share my “birth story.” As Valentine’s Day nears, though, Jake and I are closing in on two years since February 13, 2020, the day we received the news that we’d have to pursue IVF if we ever wanted a family. My girls just turned seven months old and I’m starting to realize that, while I have mostly recovered my physical strength, emotionally, I’m no longer the same person I was before Covid-19.

When Jake and I started infertility treatments, I remember telling him that I wasn’t sure if I had the emotional fortitude to go through something so heart wrenching as pandemic IVF and come out the same person. Well, I’m nothing if not self aware, because it seems I was right. I’m not as strong as I once was and I don’t think that’s just because I’m getting older and cry more over news stories or sad TV shows, as other women report after 30. I’m beginning to realize that before Covid-19, I was… tougher. I had mettle and grit and I didn’t give myself enough credit for that. I was more capable of rationalizing away illegitimate worries and trains of thought. I didn’t get as upset over the things other people thought and said. I took life more in stride and had a lot greater sense of emotional control.

I’m not a complete basket case, today, but I am generally a more anxious person. I struggle to be away from my girls, more than is normal, to the extent that being around extended family stresses me out as they pass them back and forth. I worry about them irrationally at times, having gone so far as to begin to hyperventilate because Scarlett had a fever one night. I’m sure this is one of the reasons I couldn’t adjust to being back at work, though the other was that work itself had fundamentally changed for the worse. I’m more sensitive, more easily frustrated, and just less emotionally stable than I used to be and that… ticks me off. I know, I know, I’ve been through a lot, but I was supposed to bounce back, as I did in my teens when my mother became abusive and again in my early twenties when I miscarried and lost a baby I loved and left a terrifying marriage.

I graduated college despite my terrible homelife after getting married at 19. I once got drunk on Christmas Eve and threw out everything I owned, because I wanted a fresh start after said horrific marriage. I lost 100 pounds and had an epic rom-com worthy glow-up in my early twenties. I met strangers online and attended Match.com meetups alone, hoping to have another chance at my happily ever after. I held two jobs through grad school and worked my way up in my library system. I lived alone for years and took care of everything on my own, with little help from anyone else. I was a manager for a year and moved to a new city to be a teen librarian. I kicked butt, y’all.

I also spent six weeks at home, at the beginning of the pandemic, thinking my career was gone, along with any hope of having a family. I lay in bed in a catatonic state for days. I drank too much and didn’t sleep at all. I started cutting myself again and finally applied for a medical card. My mother had taken me to several awful therapists and dosed me with 250 mg of Wellbutrin a day in high school, in an effort to make me more manageable. After that experience, marijuana was the only help I’d consider. I was suddenly able to sleep and my anxiety and depression eased. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped and I was no longer self-harming. I could see past the present state of my life and the rest of the world and have hope it would improve.

I spent a month taking massive amounts of drugs to get pregnant, only to realize that it had been a complete and utter failure. All those shots and all that money was for nothing. $15,000 was gone, but just days after the negative test, I called and put down a deposit on a second round of IVF. I spent the ice storm of 2020 praying we wouldn’t lose power, when a thousand dollars of medication had to be refrigerated. I spent election day in surgery alone, for the second time in just a few months. Throughout all of this, I knew that a single fever would cancel my cycle and forfeit our money, ending our chances to become parents any time soon and possibly at all.

Even after I got pregnant, it seemed like the hits just kept on coming. Just after the first of the year, I had to make the decision to put down my Jude, the dog who had seen me through every heartbreaking moment prior. He was my best friend for thirteen years and I had to kill him. Then, my mother was put on a ventilator after contracting Covid-19 and never fully recovered. She had several strokes and died of a heart attack the day after Mother’s Day, when I was seven months pregnant with my twins.

I hadn’t seen my mother in four and a half years and I will never forgive myself for not putting up with her psychotic behavior for just a few years longer, for ignoring the text message asking me to get lunch six months earlier, for throwing away the last birthday card she ever sent me. I said goodbye to her alone, massively pregnant, while Jake waited in the lobby due to Covid-19 restrictions. I forced the nurse to set aside all platitudes and attempts to comfort me and tell it to me straight, that she was going to die. I wrote her obituary myself, but never got to attend a funeral, since her sleezy husband refused to give her one, even though my grandmother offered to pay.

The word “trauma” has become grossly overused, but ‘m afraid the last two years have just been too much for me. I worry that I’ll never be the person I was prior to 2020. I wish I’d been prouder of her accomplishments and strength. I wish I’d been nicer to myself. Perhaps, as before, I’ll recover… slowly. I wasn’t exactly a bastion of mental health when I was sleeping with a .357 in my bed at 25. It’s entirely possible that I’m looking at my previous recoveries through rose-colored glasses. I’m sure there are posts on this nearly ten-year-old blog proving it. Maybe I’ll have that 2019 strength once again, but for now, I feel as if something inside of me has broken and I’m not entirely sure it will ever fully heal.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this. I’m hardly the person who’s struggled the most through the pandemic, but the last two years have been rough. They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I’m not sure if that’s true. I don’t feel stronger, but perhaps in time, I will. I know that this struggle has taught me not to take my family for granted, to be patient and loving with my girls, to consider how I’ll look back on my decisions and how I spent my time one day… and maybe that is stronger in a way, but I really miss who I was in 2019.

Year Four: When I Fell in Love All Over Again

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Every year, for the past four, I’ve written a blog post around my wedding anniversary and only last year did it veer from that main subject on my Belle of Infertility page.

Year 1: What ACTUALLY Worked for Us in the First Year – “That’s my final claim to success in our first year of marriage: we checked in with each other on how we saw the second year, the third year, the fourth, because we’ve got a lot of years ahead of us and the plans are bound to change a hundred times… but it’s made it a lot less earth shattering to no longer be doing my rewrite alone, to be on the same page as my apocalypse buddy.”

Year 2: Two Vitally Important Years – “We both have pretty big personalities and, therefore, may have a lifetime of brawls ahead of us… but we’ll never have to worry that we haven’t met our match.”

Year 3: Coping (Belle of Infertility) – “I overcame so much and now I have to be Infertility Girl?!?! As if that’s not enough, my options are now postponed indefinitely due to a global pandemic?!?!“

This year, officially two days into my third trimester with two baby girls, I look back on the last year and… zetus lapetus it had some highs and lows.

One year ago today, on our third anniversary, Jake and I got the call informing us of an IVF start date of July 18th after months of tears (mine) over the postponement of all elective procedures. By that time this year, those tears will have turned to ones of pure exhaustion as we try to figure out this baby thing… twice.

We spent our fourth year of marriage in lockdown, only leaving the house for work, grocery shopping, and occasional walks around the neighborhood, or the park if we were feeling particularly daring. We focused our energy and finances on fixing up our house… and making some very expensive babies, which I suppose means we also left the house for a lot of doctor’s appointments.

Pandemic IVF was certainly the most difficult trial of our marriage so far. While for me, 2020 made the top three on the list of the worst years of my life, I’m certain it ranked as number one for Jake. Regardless, it made us closer. During a time when the rest of the world seemed to be rethinking their marriages, ours seem to grow stronger. Jake has always been something of a hardass. I joke that I married Red Foreman of That 70’s Show. When we watched The Boys on Amazon, I realized that I found it deeply attractive that Butcher was such an asshole to everyone he met, but had such a soft spot for his wife and treated her with such tenderness.

Me: “Huh. I find it really hot that Butcher is such a dick to everyone but his wife. What does that say about you? What does that say about me?”

Jake helped his parents run a sprawling cattle ranch his whole life. His first job entailed working grueling hours in a grain elevator at 16. After that, he worked rodeos with his uncle. He drove a truck before entering the oil field, as a fluid engineer. He’s a manual laborer and a supervisor. Soft… isn’t really his thing. He’s not great with empathy and if you’d asked me how he’d handle my mental state in 2020, two years ago, I’m not sure what I’d have said… because 2020 was the year I completely fell apart… several times.

The last time I was as poorly off as I was in 2020, learning that I might not be able to have children and would have to go through IVF during an unprecedented global pandemic, I was divorcing Joffrey Baratheon at 23-years-old. There were a few days last year when I didn’t even get out of bed. I didn’t watch TV or read. I stared at the wall and thought about a future without a family, about the resentment that might grow between Jake and I, about losing him because of it, about being all alone. I thought about my parents and how different things could have been if they’d waited until their 30s to have kids, when they were stable in their careers and their finances and had had their fun during their twenties. I thought about how much I love my husband and how much fun we have together and how much healthier my outlook on romance would have been had I seen that in my parents. I thought about all that we had built together and not being able to share it with anyone.

When I was able to be more productive and positive, going on long walks, reading, binging Netflix shows, and taking on craft projects, I still didn’t eat for long stretches and rarely slept. At one point, I averaged an hour a night. I tried drinking to sleep and that… went badly. After my second or third drunken breakdown, I asked Jake what he thought of my getting a medical marijuana card for the anxiety, since I was unwilling to take any sort of medication after being prescribed 250 mg of Wellbutrin from ages 13-18, because my mother couldn’t handle me. It was something of an investment, but he agreed it was worth a try and I could finally sleep. Even when suffering from depression, THC gummies render you too lethargic to do anything about it and that helped me through the summer… through the failed pregnancy test that followed our first $15,000 IVF cycle, through the dread of the second cycle two months later.

… and all the while, Jake was there, when the pandemic meant no one else could be, whether they wanted to or not. In another year, my step-mother would have loved to take me shopping, my dad would have made me laugh with crass jokes over lunch, my step-siblings would have come to a cookout. All of this would have distracted me from our fertility troubles, but in 2020, not only was I heartbroken that I’d potentially never have a family of my own, I was isolated from everyone but Jake… and he was surprisingly up to the task. When necessary, he sat by my side on the bed and read articles on his phone, while I lay unresponsive. He took care of me when that Whiskey Sleep Therapy idea failed so miserably. He went for walks with me when I felt well enough, laughed with me, grabbed curbside takeout, watched movies and shows, helped me with household projects, and played board games with me when I was up to it, always ready and willing to hold me while I cried when the tides suddenly turned. He never made me feel bad for feeling bad and he was always willing to have a good time when I was able. My relentless hardass husband, who’s never been stellar with empathy, was absolutely my rock through 2020.

For my part, I’d love to acknowledge the strength it took to survive the trials of the last year. and I’m sure I would were it anyone else, but I will forever fear turning into my mother, a weak and pitiful woman, who loves being weak and pitiful. Needing Jake as much as I did often made me feel worse, like I was draining him and was too much of a burden. He hadn’t signed on for a wife who crumbled so thoroughly and seeing how strong he was through it all made me feel pathetic. Self-loathing added to my heartache and I often worried that 2020, as a whole, would scar me so badly that there wouldn’t be much of a wife or mother left.

Jake reinforced none of these ideas, though. He comforted me and supported me and encouraged me all year and through both IVF rounds. He kept track of my medications and administered subcutaneous shots and intramuscular shots, well over 100 by the end of the year. He sat in the car during doctor’s appointments and surgeries. He drove me to my monitoring visits during an ice storm. He celebrated with me at 4:00 a.m., when I got a positive pregnancy test and waited in the car during my ultrasound to find out if we were having one baby or two. He rejoiced over the premature news that we were having two boys and once again, over two girls, when the blood test came back. He fought with me over names and painted the baby’s room five times over Valentine’s Day, because the pink I chose was lighter than the beige that was there. He’s built shelves and hung curtains and redone the closet and assured me more than once that I will not be my mother.

Our fourth year of marriage was not an easy one, but it did, indeed make us stronger. In 2020, I saw something in Jake I’d never seen before, a tenderness and compassion I never saw my father hold for my mother and I honestly didn’t expect to see so soon. It may have been a tough year, but it made me fall in love with my hardass husband all over again.

I’ve forgotten how to apply makeup.

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The pandemic hit at an all time low for me. Jake and I had just found out that we were going to have to go through IVF over the summer and I… wasn’t handling it well.

… more than once, I called in late, because I couldn’t pull it together.

Even during the month before Covid-19 hit my state, the only reason I bothered to dress nicely and do my hair and makeup, was that it made me feel more capable and put together, at a time when I desperately needed it. So, when the library closed for an indeterminate amount of time, my sole goal, in regards to appearance, was to maintain my weight and basic hygiene. During those six weeks, my daily uniform consisted of athletic shorts, tank tops, and ponytails… not even cute, perky ponytails, but the Founding Father kind that’s worn at the base of the neck.

Indeed, I did look like a young Mr. Feeny for most of 2020.

When the library reopened, I felt little motivation to achieve more than the bare minimum summer dress code of denim capris and t-shirts… and a mask. Whereas I might have considered applying concealer and mascara before, I saw no point while revealing barely an inch between bangs and mask. Makeup is expensive and we were about to spend tens of thousands of dollars on fertility treatments. Furthermore, customers weren’t even allowed in the building and Jake was just happy that I could get out of bed in the morning. Who was I trying to impress?

I began my first IVF cycle in July and was far more concerned with taking my temperature thirteen times a day than I was with not wearing Crocs to the doctor’s office. Makeup was literally the furthest thing from my mind, at this point in time, and it sort of became habit. Even a year later, no one can see my face, unless it’s during a Zoom call from home, and that usually means a remote program or staff meeting. My teens don’t give two figs how I look, as long as I entertain them with elaborate D&D battles, and my coworkers see me in all my barefaced glory every day, when I’m allowed to remove my mask at my workstation. When customers are allowed in the building, all they can see is eyes.

Humans, circa 2020

Sure, I apply some concealer, when I look especially exhausted… because it has been an exhausting year, but I never see anyone outside of basic grocery shopping and Amazon returns. Jake and I literally entered a restaurant less than five times last year. Date nights consisted of s’mores in the backyard and Netflix. We didn’t even see our families more than once or twice. Halloween came with an ice storm and record-breaking power outages. I didn’t even get to wear a costume, because a) I had an ultrasound and didn’t want to receive bad news while dressed like Darkwing Duck and b) everyone had hunkered down in preparation for the storm, so the library was even more empty than usual, on a pandemic Saturday. Thanksgiving consisted of sweet potato pancakes and turkey sausage with my grandparents on Black Friday, all of us in jammies. New Year’s was just the two of us at home. Christmas was close family only. We were even snowed in on Valentine’s Day and spent the time painting the babies’ room, sewing quilts, and making stuffed waffles.

Now, here I am, fully vaccinated in a state where anyone who wants one can get their Covid-19 vaccine, able to enter the world again and y’all… I’ve forgotten how to apply makeup.

Not having taught myself to use eyeliner until 23, I’ve always been something of a minimalist, when it comes to makeup, only truly investing in decent products in preparation for my wedding at 29. Before that, all of my makeup was from the drugstore and I was fine with it. I’ll never forget marveling over how Jake could choose me, when I met his friends’ wives, who took two hours to get ready for Wal-Mart, when every bit of Maybelline and Revlon I owned was in my purse.

Even now, I only wear Bare Minerals foundation and eyeshadow, buy my mascara and eyeliner in black or brown at Sephora, and almost never wear lipstick. I have clear skin, easy hair, and I’m cheap. I’ve just never felt the desire to spend the time or money on perfecting tips from YouTube tutorials; and although I married a cowboy, who’s used to women with big hair and glitzy jewelry and bright eyeshadow, fortunately for me, he prefers the low maintenance look, along with the attitude and budget that comes with it.

All that being said, I do like to dress in feminine clothing, despite my inability to tell you any trendy brand names or styles. Years after the cancellation of The New Girl, I still tend toward Jessica Day style dresses, long hair, and bangs… though I do cut them myself. Now that I spend my mornings nursing pregnancy headaches, instead of screaming on the bathroom floor, I once again have the energy to dress up in cheap Amazon maternity dresses and accessorize with the jewelry I’ve accumulated over the last 15 years. I even straighten my hair, the one style technique I’ve mastered… before donning my mask.

Now, here we are, able to see our vaccinated friends and family once again, sans masks, according to CDC guidelines. In fact, this weekend, Jake and I are visiting the family ranch for the first time, since we begged for money for fertility treatments last March. I look like a tabloid snapshot of myself! This ranch is located in the land of big hair, turquoise, and people who haven’t been wearing masks for the last year, and I don’t even know how to look human anymore.

I must admit that, after all the ways that Covid-19 has kicked our collective butts, this threw me for a loop. I’ve been alternately praying for normalcy and breaking down because we’ll never see it again, so it never occurred to me how awkward readjusting to it would be, when Earth began to reopen. I have to say, though, it’s a good problem to have and maybe it means there’s an end in sight, if we can start to worry about dressing appropriately and forgetting how to wear makeup.

Thirty Thousand Dollars Worth of Babies

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It’s the big reveal, y’all, the reason 2020 was so painfully wretched for Jake and me: two rounds of pandemic IVF.

Jake and I stopped trying to avoid pregnancy in December of 2018, when I had my IUD removed. We’d purchased our own home, were doing well in our respective careers, with Jake anticipating a promotion soon, and were well on our way to having our finances under control. I was 31 and Jake was 34, with our two year wedding anniversary coming up in May. Considering the average time to get pregnant is three to six months, we were right on track with the plan we’d outlined before we got married, the plan my OBGYN had approved, the plan that would allow us to have up to four children before we turned forty, if we so chose. Most importantly, I finally felt like an adult who could consistently care for herself and could realistically consider the possibility of caring for another human.

… more or less…

It wasn’t until April or so that we decided to begin trying in earnest, not having been too disappointed about having a few extra months of childfree existence as we waited to see what happened. We felt we were ready (or as ready as anyone can be) for our lives to become about children and family and all the craziness and exhaustion that entailed, so we began timing things in hopes of a more deliberate pregnancy. By June, I’d bought some dollar store ovulation tests, not wanting to waste the money on a giant box of strips from Amazon, when surely things would happen naturally soon enough. It was September, the month of my birthday, when I began to truly worry and asked Jake to get tested, even if we had to pay out of pocket. My doctors had all reassured me that there was likely nothing wrong, based on bloodwork and annual exams, and that it was just a matter of time… as long as there was nothing wrong with Jake. I’d been encouraged to just “stop trying” and that it would happen when I “least expect it,” advice I still find moronic for a woman in her 30’s. I thought I’d heard the last of that terrible adage while dating.

No. I wanted real answers, even if those answers were that I just needed to be patient, backed up by medical proof. So, off Jake went to our family doctor, with strict instructions from me to tell him that we’d been trying for over a year, despite it having been just shy. You see, for some reason, doctors are still insisting on the stipulation that a couple must be trying for at least a year to get tested for infertility issues, despite the rising instances of infertility and increased possibility of difficulties in one’s thirties, coupled with the more rapidly dropping chances of achieving a successful pregnancy, once they do figure out something is wrong. Regardless, the doctor scoffed and insisted that there was no need to test Jake, although he was ready and willing to pay out of pocket because “90% of the time, it’s the woman.”

That’s not even the statistic! The correct numbers cite that men are the sole cause of infertility in 20%-30% of all cases and a contributing factor in 50%. Not only that, but testing a man for infertility is far simpler and less invasive than testing a woman. We were willing to private pay for something as simple as Jake having an awkward moment in a clinical room and the doctor scoffed and blamed me, without any evidence to back it up!

By October, I was crying hysterical tears, certain that something was wrong. I begged Jake to see another doctor and he scheduled a seminalis for January. The holidays were a little bittersweet, as I watched other people’s children enjoy the magic, wondering if I’d always be on the outside of that scene. I tried to keep my spirits up, telling myself that everything was fine, but the day before Valentine’s Day, Jake came home to tell me that he had around 1.5 million sperm… and that 40 million was average. Our only hope of having children was IVF, my literal worst fear since I came to understand what it entailed in my teens. We didn’t know if Jake was the only factor or if IVF would even work, just that the average couple spends just shy of $20,000 per cycle and they’re advised to plan for three cycles, for the greatest odds of success. You can bet I called the office and got us a new doctor.

I won’t get too statistics heavy on you, but the summary of IVF research is that there just are no guarantees. Each cycle has a 20% – 30% success rate, overall, and that varies based on the type of infertility, the age and health of the woman and even the man, and the clinic. There are online calculators that will tell you your overall chances, but they’re hardly conclusive and backup the idea that a couple should plan for three cycles for the best chances. My stats were quoted as having a 56% chance of success after the first cycle, 75% on the second, and 85% on the third. Some research suggests moving on after three cycles, as the odds begin to decrease, while others suggest pursuing up to six. Some recommend transferring two embryos, while others warn against it. What it comes down to, however, is that there are really too many individual factors to provide anyone with accurate predictions. Every couple going into IVF is looking at a gamble of tens of thousands of dollars.

This was, of course, a devastating blow. Jake and I had just gotten to a good financial place in life and had no idea how we’d fund potentially multiple rounds of IVF. We couldn’t fathom a life without children and, honestly, it wasn’t until that moment that I realized how very much I wanted them. I thought about the Easter and Halloweens, Christmases and birthdays we’d miss, the sleepless nights and tantrums we wouldn’t have, the first steps and first words, that first painful “I hate you”, the sports games I wouldn’t get to pretend to enjoy, those insufferable holiday pageants and “graduations” from the first half of second grade, the first broken arm and the first broken heart, the first wedding and grandchild… all of the bad and all of the good. I remembered that awful party in 2019, when all of Jake’s friends’ wives acted as though I were invisible the second they realized I didn’t have children. I pictured a lifetime of being excluded for something I couldn’t control.. and then Covid-19 hit.

They say that God never gives you more than you can handle… and I’ve linked the blog I kept during my infertility treatments to testify to that not being entirely true, as I received the news that all elective procedures had been suspended for an indeterminate amount of time, just a month after receiving our heartbreaking news. Then we found out that the financing company our clinic used had gone under, dealt with family disapproval of borrowing funds, and discovered that when we could move forward, we’d have to sign papers agreeing that one instance of fever or a directive from the CDC could forfeit the entire cycle with no refunds, because we weren’t just dealing with IVF, but Pandemic IVF.

I survived 2020, but it was in much the way I survived my early 20s. I am not stronger for it and I can’t even say I pulled myself through it, this time. Nope. Jake was the string to my kite, y’all. He is the only thing that got me through the breakdowns, the days of lying in bed staring at the wall, the shots and the horrible symptoms that came with them, the mood swings and outbursts, either stress or medication induced, I’ll never know. I was legitimately concerned I might have bipolar disorder after I got so angry at Jake for touching my donut, that I hurled a plate across the room, into the sink, went to the bedroom and completely broke down. That will chip a Corelle dinner plate, by the way.

… and everyone else gets to have kids the fun and free way.

It was not an easy year, especially after that first negative pregnancy test indicated an entirely failed cycle, having transferred two embryos with none left to freeze, after spending $16,000. Always having been the “go hard or go home” type, I told Jake that since I was turning 33 in a few weeks, I wanted to pursue another cycle… right now. So I found myself finishing one IVF cycle in August and starting a new one in October. This time, we’d told no one. It was during an historic ice storm that wiped out power across the state, that I sat at home praying we’d keep ours, with over $1000 worth of medication in the refrigerator, funded through a combination of credit card debt and liquidated investments. If we had to stay with family, we’d have to share that we were trying again and open the door to their hopeful expectations, once more. It was awful enough breaking the news to them the first time, while coping with it ourselves.

I spent election day in surgery, alone due to Covid-19. After our initial telehealth consult, I’d had every single appointment alone, in fact, with Jake often waiting in the car. I was by myself for the first egg retrieval and now the second, finally breaking down post-op and crying that I wanted Jake and I was never going to be a mom. Of the many low points in 2020, that could have been the lowest. It was miserable and going home to listen to my clueless Gramma rant about Russia taking over, while high on hydrocodone, didn’t help.

I’d once again transferred two embryos, with Jake in the car, but was able to freeze six this time. I prayed and cried through the pain of ovaries expanded to the size of clementines, still taking an intramuscular shot of progesterone in the hip every night, along with all of the symptoms that came with it, such as fatigue and shortness of breath (while wearing a mask), crippling headaches, and the spasms of pain from nerve damage that persist today, knowing it could all be for nothing again. For the first eight days, I took a prescription to keep me from getting OHSS, an even more painful and potentially life threatening condition that develops when the body over responds. It caused such severe dizziness that I couldn’t drive or work.

In many ways, 2020 was the most difficult year of my life and back-to-back rounds of pandemic IVF was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through… except that it worked the second time. That’s right, tomorrow I am 21 weeks pregnant with not one, but two babies, approximately $30,000 worth, due in July. I haven’t shared, because I was waiting for my 20 week anatomy scan, for fear of jinxing it, but all is well. I blogged a lot more than it seemed last year and for anyone suffering from similar struggles, I’ve linked Belle of Infertility. I can’t claim it’s always uplifting or that I always intended for it to be read, but thus far, it does have an HEA: twin girls!

One year ago today, I received the email that the library was closing its doors and all fertility treatments would be halted, for an indeterminate amount of time. Today I am fully vaccinated and tomorrow, 21 weeks pregnant with twins! For the purposes of this blog, their pseudonyms will be Violet and Scarlett, two names we strongly considered and ultimately vetoed for the color theme and the inevitable shortening to Vi and Scar.

Do Something Nice for Your Spouse

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When Jake and I got engaged, I frequently ranted about how generic all of the marriage advice sounded. Three and a half years later, I feel just as strongly that if you haven’t discussed finances or kids or familial boundaries, you have no business even getting engaged. I also firmly believe that “never go to bed angry,” is the single worst advice ever for two incredibly strong-willed individuals. “Continue arguing, no matter how exhausted you become” sounds like a great recipe for mariticide.

Now, here we are in 2020, the worst year ever for planet Earth, and I find the best marriage advice I can possibly suggest, is to concentrate more on what you give than what you get, with the obligatory disclaimer that this only applies to healthy relationships and not those who are married to lazy scoundrels.

Y’all, 2020 has hit hard and if anything, it has made me love Jake more. He’s string to my kite and I can’t give him enough credit for his unwavering strength and support through the breakdowns and the days when I just can’t get out of bed. So, when I have it in me, I do what I can to give back, in the following ways:

Doing Things He’d Never Consider

When Jake visited his parents the weekend before last, I did my best to keep myself busy, feeling as though being alone with my thoughts was the most dangerous place on Earth, even during a pandemic. So, I decorated for Halloween and updated my annual photo album. I went through some old pictures, trashing many, and made copies of others, for Jake and my Gramma. I filled the remaining slots in the photo collage dedicated to Jake’s pre-Belle days. I finally went through that box of wedding cards and realized I could use them to fill up the pages of our nearly empty guest book. I made a trip to Hobby Lobby and purchased some Thanksgiving decorations and a glass block frame for our wedding invitation, because there’s no point saving something that’s not displayed. I bought another frame for the blackout poetry I made in my first year at the Cherokee library and some reasonably priced decor to round off our his and hers bedroom theme, so Jake’s side looked more masculine. I bought pumpkins and a hay bale for the porch, replaced some old plants, donated books I’ll never read, and bought supplies to make Jake a pizza when he got home. He couldn’t have pinpointed these things, but he was pleased as I showed him how hard I’d worked to make our home more comfortable and inviting, in ways he’d have never considered.

Keeping the House Clean and Even Doing His Chores

Jake and I have split our household duties, as opposed to trading off, so we never have to argue about taking turns. So, while he was away, I took the liberty to do not only my share, but his. I cleared off the porch, emptying the bags of potting soil into the planters and cleaning up the dead elephant ears in the vegetable garden. I did the dishes and wiped down the kitchen counters. I went grocery shopping and organized the pantry and refrigerator. I swept and vacuumed and replaced the waxes in the burners so the house would smell nice. I cleared off the dining room table and made sure all of his laundry was done and the sheets were clean. Many of these things fell under the heading of Jake’s responsibilities, but I figure if he can sit quietly with me through a bad weekend and put off visiting his family, so I wouldn’t be alone, I could make his life just a little easier on a good one. Even when he’s home, I do my best to follow old and new routines, by switching the towels on Tuesday and Thursday and Sunday, watering the plants on Thursday and Sunday, making the bed every day, and washing the bedding every two weeks. Considering the fact that we have literally nowhere else to go, this has been vitally important to our mental health in the dumpster fire that is 2020.

Giving Him Video Game Time, Sans Nagging

When Jake comes home from work, he often either does chores or plays videogames and one of the ways I’ve tried to make his life more enjoyable, during a tough year, is to be more forgiving of the latter. I’ve never been a videogame hater, but I do consider them a massive waste of time, comparable to my romance novels and teen shows (though these actually make me better at my job), so in excess, I find them pretty obnoxious. During a pandemic, however, I’ve worked to redefine my internal definition of “excess.” What else is he supposed to be doing with his time? During a normal year, he usually only plays video games a few days a week, especially during Daylight Savings Time, but… this ain’t normal. Sure, there are some projects he could work on around the house, but that’s a lot to ask of someone who’s been working a very stressful new job all day. So, each night, after we’ve watched a movie or show or gone on a walk, I try not to give Jake too much grief when he wants to spend some quality time with his XBOX again, especially when it’s a social event, because he’s playing online with my step-brother or his old oil buddies.

Doing Thoughtful Little Things

Jake is not good with “thank you.” He sucks at “please,” too, as a matter of fact. I see why, when I visit his family and not a single person utters such pleasantries. It’s as if they think that family doesn’t need these formalities, but it drives me batty. How hard is it to show just a little bit of basic gratitude?!?! This year, however, I’m trying to do more nice little things for Jake, regardless of the lack of praise. I get him his favorite movies from work, make his lunch if I get home first, surprise him with a Monster drink or a Dr. Pepper, and unload the dishwasher so he doesn’t have to do it on his lunch break. I buy him the gum and coffee beans he likes and a bag of bulk chili mango slices, which I’m not only allergic to, but find absolutely disgusting. With or without verbal thanks, I know these things make Jake feel loved and appreciated and I’m doing my best to do them more often.

Cherishing the Little Bit of Normalcy That is Staying Cute

This year isn’t going to be any easier on either of us, if we both get fat and sloppy. In fact, that would make next year suck, too. While I’ve essentially stopped wearing makeup, for the time being, because it seems like a waste when half my face is always covered, I’ve done my best to maintain my fairly low-maintenance beauty routine of shaving my legs and using the fancy conditioner (fancy still means $3) on Thursday and Sunday, keeping my skin as clear as I can when it’s often covered by a mask, trimming my bangs, and once again dressing cute and professional for work. I’ve spent some of the money we’ve saved this year on new dresses and shoes from Kohl’s and Old Navy and thrown out anything ratty or torn. I’m hardly dressed to the nines, but I also refuse to make my life any more difficult by gaining 30 pounds or getting into the habit of lounging around dressed like a slovenly mess. It makes both Jake and I feel a little better to recapture the normalcy that is not living in athletic shorts and a tank top, as I did during our six week lockdown.

Giving Him the Best Birthday I Can

My Red Panda turns 36 next week and I’m going to give him the best birthday I possibly can, in a year when Earth is still only varying degrees of open. I’ve been saving for several months to buy Jake a new 30 gun safe, a long time goal of his. I’ve read the first in The Fellowship of the Ring, so we can watch it together and I’ll know what’s happening. I’ve gathered a few small surprises. I’ve got a plan in place to get his favorite cake and I’m going to make him his favorite cookies. This weekend will be all about him. Whatever he wants to do, that we’re able to do we will. My birthday was a little underwhelming, but I’ll do my best to give my favorite cowboy whatever I can.

This has been a hard year, folks. While I don’t claim that my values or emphasis are universal and fully understand that there are many different kinds of marriages, I encourage you to do something nice for your spouse, whatever that may be, expecting nothing in return. We all need someone right and it’s the luckiest of us who have our best friend with us each and every day.

A Pandemic Blogiversary and Birthday

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Eight years ago today, on my 25th birthday, I started this blog. Since then, I don’t think I’ve ever taken a five month hiatus… but there also weren’t any global pandemics in that time. As much as I’ve enjoyed chronicling my day to day and making self-deprecating jokes, as much as I love viewing snapshots in time of my life and my person, I just… haven’t been able to bring myself to share these last few months, because 2020 is kicking my ass.

For nearly 10 years, this blog has predominantly been a positive form of self-expression. Sure, I’ve shared tales of frustration with bad dates or disappointment over friendship breakups or work woes and stress, but never have I experienced a full year of devastation… at least not since that 25th birthday.

Jake and I are okay. If anything, this wretched year has made our marriage stronger. I know it’s made me love him more. As for the reverse, well, if I didn’t really know why he liked me before, I definitely don’t now, because I’m a complete and utter mess. We’re both still employed in our fields. He’s actually looking at a promotion. Our pandemic suffering has not been a career crisis, but I can’t bring myself to share all of the horrible details as they unfold, because I don’t want to look back on my worst year since 2010.

I’ve been making annual photo albums, through Mixbook, for years. I started with 2010 and began working my way to present day in 2013. I’ve always been a record keeper, even in my teens, when I carried a film camera to school every day, until I upgraded to digital. I eventually scanned every one of those photos into an album and had it printed, as well. My Mixbooks are one of the first things I’d grab under a tornado warning and I can barely bring myself to compile 2020’s. It’s a good thing I’ve forced myself, regardless, because I guarantee that I’ll have no desire to look back and create it later… something I genuinely enjoy and which makes me feel immensely grateful for my life and all the blessings in it.

So, today, on my 33rd birthday, I’m updating you. Where have I been? I’ve been at home… almost exclusively. I’ve been at the library, where there are almost no customers. I’ve been wiping down tables in gloves and a mask and goggles. I’ve been spending days in bed, because I can’t bring myself to get out of it, sometimes watching Netflix and sometimes doing nothing. I’ve been missing my family and friends and normalcy. I’ve been crying… a lot. There’s of course more to all of this and I will share in time, but the pandemic has hit me hard… and that’s not a snapshot I’ll want to view in five years.

This blog has long been my pride and joy. I’ll try to post more, perhaps sharing my thoughts on the 25 classics I’ve vowed to read this year or who would make a better president than our current terrible options. I am not gone… just coping. Thank you for sticking with me. Check on your friends.

How Luck Prepared Us for Disaster

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Right now, I have a firm grasp on positivity… which of course means that later, I’ll have a firm grasp on a bottle of whiskey. My highs are really high and my lows are really low. I half-ass nothing.

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So, in my latest up moment, I’ve been considering all the ways that I’m at an advantage during this pandemic, either by good decisions I’ve made that have ultimately prepared me for disaster, or the more likely scenario of pure chance. I’m a firm believer that where liberals tend to underestimate the role of moxy and self-determination, conservatives tend to underestimate the role of luck. So here’s a mix of both.

We’re used to eating at home.
Zetus lapetus, I don’t know how you people eat out all the time. Jake and I split a McDonald’s burger and fries (no drink) to celebrate Easter, since it was already the lamest holiday ever and it cost $7.26. That’s why we never eat out and y’all are crazy. Fortunately for us, this means we’ve got quite the cache of recipes, because we’re used to cooking. We’re not eating pasta night after night, but instead we’re eating soups, stew, salmon, enchiladas, salads, burgers, garlic green beans, battered fish, fries and tots, coconut haystacks, chocolate chip cookies, cake mix cookies… We’ve developed a lengthy menu over the years. Since we come home for lunch, that includes lunches. We are not scrambling for meal planning ideas.

I’ve been cutting our hair for years.
Zetus lapetus, I don’t know how you people get your hair cut all the time. A few years ago, I decided I wanted bangs, but I knew they’d need more upkeep than my twice annual haircut, so I bought some hair sheers on Amazon for $15 and started doing it myself, with tips from YouTube. A year ago, Jake asked me to cut his hair, so we could save the $20 every couple of months. For the cost of one of those haircuts, I bought a trimmer on Amazon and have been doing it ever since. Despite all salons being closed, there are no shaggy folks in the Granger household.

I own walking shoes and workout equipment.
I’ve had an elliptical for years and purchased my rowing machine about a month before the pandemic really hit. I also bought a good pair of walking shoes about six months ago and live in an older neighborhood with large lots and wide streets, so walks are a great way to get out of the house.

We don’t have kids.
We want to do the baby thing soon, but we haven’t gotten around to it just yet and I’ve gotta say, what a time to be childless. I cannot imagine going through the highs and lows I hit in one day with small children in tow. I miss my job and the days feel long and meaningless, while I’m constantly terrified that I’ll get news that there won’t be any paychecks after a certain date. I can’t sleep, because I wake up and remember we’re in the middle of the apocalypse. It’s exhausting and I’m so glad I’m not solely responsible for another human’s health and well-being at this very moment of my life.

We have stable(ish) jobs. 
They’re furloughing nurses and doctors in my state, during a pandemic. No job is 100% safe. Jake and I, however, have been lucky enough to keep our jobs and pay thus far. While I’m home, I am doing three remote programs a week with my homeschool kids, to justify that pay and none of my managers seem worried that we’ll lose it, let alone our jobs. Jake is essential, if people want to continue getting water in their homes, and he goes to work every day, as per usual.

I have a contingency plan.
If the bottom falls out, I just passed my school media certification test to add another subject area to my teaching certificate, which I’ve kept going all these years. They will always need teachers and I can always teach… even if that means eventually relocating to Jake’s home state, where teachers are better compensated.

We already bought a house.
Realizing that Cherokee property values were soaring and recognizing that if we waited to buy until we had a 20% down payment, we’d price ourselves out of the market, we purchased our 2,300 square foot, 1980’s flip on over an acre, for $210,000 with 5% down in 2018. Since I have no idea what Covid-19 is going to do to the housing market or mortgages as a whole, I’m really glad we’ve already bought a home that we plan to stay in for at least the next 15 years.

I just refinanced that house.
Literally, two weeks after the lock down, we signed the paperwork on a lower fixed interest rate and a lower monthly payment, which stated that we’d already earned 10% equity. We won’t have to make a mortgage payment until June and can use those payments to secure our financial position.

We’ve paid off a lot of debt and are now nearing an ideal financial situation.
I married a man with a nest egg and that is pure luck. Do any of y’all remember my rants about Fifty Shades of Grey and how I’d let a man hang me upside down and gut me like a deer if he’d only pay off my student loans? That happened!

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Not that part… the part about the student loans. While I still owe on my federal student loans, they’re on an income based repayment program that only counts my income and comes out to about $220 a month, while the remainder is due for public service student loan forgiveness in 2024. My private student loans, however, were killing us. We were paying $300 a month just to keep the phone calls at bay, because we weren’t even touching the principal… that is, until my romantic hero swept in and paid them all off, along with my car and credit card, ultimately lowering our overhead by quite a bit. We’ve also paid off multiple credit cards since then and managed to secure a car payment of about $200 per month, while maintaining a sizable emergency fund.

I like my husband… and for some reason, he likes me.
I’ve seen a lot of memes and articles citing the stress that this pandemic is putting on marriages. Maybe it’s because Jake is still going to work each day or because we have a lot of space to offer each other, but I just don’t feel that way. I have thought a hundred times how much worse this pandemic would be if I were single. I could barely handle getting iced in all alone during Southern snowstorms in my twenties, and those only lasted a few days. I would go crazy with no one but my pets, sitting around 24/7 reading articles about the end times.

During Armageddon, Jake gives me a reason to be in a good mood, to be sober, to keep a clean house, to make healthy meals, as opposed to my famous single girl dining experience of Lotso Snack Foods. Marshmallows and maraschino cherries for dinner anyone? Jake provides comfort and company and someone to share sad McDonald’s burgers as we celebrate Isolation Holidays with video games and drinking. For some reason, he’s grateful to have me around too and I’m beginning to think that’s it’s just his provider instincts. When crisis hits, he needs something to take care of… enter me. 

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Apocalypse Librarianship

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So, I just read over my last post, to gauge the status of my Isolation Checklist. It’s day 11 and…

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It was a bad week, y’all. I was in tears by day three. I suppose I did make some progress on Vampire Diaries… perhaps the only real progress since that particular activity allowed for curling up on the couch, while I obsessed over the news, as the number of infected in my state doubled each day.

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I wasn’t even good at self-isolation. Nearly each day, I managed to convince myself of another vital errand that had to be completed, from grocery shopping to returning packages to Amazon to getting gas in preparation for not going anywhere. I felt a sense of purpose as I made trip after trip, for sandpaper and Funfetti icing, talking myself down from the remaining food-hoarding tendencies I earned in my poverty-stricken early twenties. When I wasn’t preparing for Armageddon, I was frantically texting my husband news updates, exclaiming that the world was ending… and yes I did read that article about taking a break from the internet if you’re feeling stressed, but I’m a researcher! This is is what I do… when I’m not staring into space, contemplating the end of civilization as we know it.

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What can I say? I read a lot of YA novels.

Speaking of which, I am a teen librarian. While I’m unbelievably fortunate to be receiving full compensation for this time at home, there’s not really a way to be a public teen librarian from home. The bulk of what I do, on a day-to-day basis, is interact with teens. I’m not allowed to interact with anyone, right now! My inbox is brimming with suggestions for children’s and adult librarians to help their communities, through remote story times and resource sharing for tax help and Covid-19, but when it comes to teen services, it’s crickets. Shocking. That’s totally new.

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Folks, I love my job. If I’d been offered two weeks of paid leave, I probably would have turned it down. I don’t want to be away from my kids and my work friends. I want to plan Minecraft relay-escape rooms, despite thinking Minecraft is stupid. I want to act as GM during my bi-weekly Teen Table Top Time, without having my apocalyptic role-play interrupted by the actual apocalypse. I want to recruit summer reading teen volunteers. Being a teen librarian is as much my dream now as it was 10 years ago, even more so now that I know what it looks like…

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Me… every day… if my boss trusted me on a ladder after the great guillotine paper cutter incident of her third day.

I know these are drastic times, but oh em jingles, y’all, I could not stay home, as a general state of being. Despite my rapidly developing depression, I did finish reading my 99 cent romance novel and listening to Lord of the Flies, which by the way, I recommend skipping when you already possess an irrational fear of the breakdown of society. I cleaned my house multiple times and upgraded my cell phone, which is not an easy task when Earth is closed. I took the dog for several walks and even attempted a few myself, before I was attacked by a hawk.

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True story, folks. After days of staring at the ceiling in despair, I decided to test out my new earbuds and call my Gramma, while on a walk. It was at the point furthest from my house, naturally, that I felt something hit me in the head… hard. I thought a branch must have fallen or someone had actually thrown something at me, but the only possible culprit was a giant bird flying overhead… which proceeded to follow me halfway home. Sure enough, when Jake got off work, he verified that there was a single long, bleeding claw mark under my hair.

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We’re in a pandemic and the birds are trying to kill me! Zetus lapetus, I can’t even leave the house! Just as I was graduating from Anna from Frozen to Jack from The Shining, however, I had an idea:

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While my public school teens are enjoying an extended spring break, before joining virtual classrooms with their teachers and a dozen friends, my homeschool teens are still following their normal curriculum. They don’t have cell phones and the ability to spend these weeks texting and sending booby pictures to all of their classmates. Their parents would never let them spend a month playing video games and streaming without end. Without their co-ops and sports and library time, they’re probably feeling just as isolated and bored as I am. If public school teachers could engage with their teens virtually, however, so could I! All I needed were some fun, remote engagement opportunities, and I could librarian during the apocalypse, y’all!

So, I messaged all of my regulars’ moms, asking if their children would be interested. After several enthusiastic yes’s, from stay-at-home moms who’d been trapped inside with bored teenagers all week, I arranged for a Neflix Party, through the Google Chrome extension. I would take movie votes, verify their appropriateness with parents, schedule a time, and send the link to a video I controlled. While I did sporadically participate in the chat, I mostly oversaw the kids’ behavior to make sure twelve teens weren’t driving each other crazy… and immediately proved the necessity of my presence when one of my regular girls started impersonating everyone two minutes into The Dark Knight.

Folks, this was really just me supervising a chatroom of my regular teens, but there was something so normal about telling kids I see nearly every day “No one is trash. You’re all beautiful little buttheads, now knock it off,” even via chatroom. There was something about explaining why we don’t joke about Coronavirus that made me feel a little more grounded. So, Friday, as we wrapped up The Dark Knight, I asked if they’d had fun, if it was something they’d want to do again and they all said yes. On Tuesday, they watched Avengers: Infinity War, while I watched New Moon (making my way through that Twilight Saga rewatch) and threatened to text their parents, so they could explain why it wasn’t funny to joke about Covid-19.

As the credits rolled, I suggested we try our apocalyptic RPG during the actual End Times (not verbatim), through Zoom. So it is, that I’m planning to video conference 12 teenagers later this afternoon, to discuss how we’ll fight off Zombie Hitler if things get really bad… and it’s my lifeline, the key to my sanity… just in time, because yesterday I received the automated text message that my library system will be closed, at minimum, until April 16th and we’ll continue to be paid “unexpected closure leave.” It seems, I have plenty of time to hone my apocalypse libriarianship skills and possibly be a little more productive these coming weeks. That or take up day drinking.

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