2020. Welcome to our new reality. We are raising a new generation of children who will sadly never know what things were like before covid, but will have "wash hands" and "mask" among their list of first words (or at least that's been my experience with my daughter). So where do I start? Well, where do we all start when thinking back on 2020? Perhaps in the best place - pre-covid.
It's been a tough year to navigate, for all of us, but before covid I actually managed to do some international travel in 2020. I started off the new year by taking a trip to Texas. Apart from airport layovers in DFW and IAH, I'd never been to Texas. Ok well, technically I'd been to Houston before, but it was just an overnight layover in a hotel beside the airport on my way to Nicaragua. And the hotel was so far away from the actual city that I didn't get to see or do anything except go for a run and have a drink at the hotel bar with my bestie, Marc, while we read over topical medicine and dermatology textbooks. ( --> picture to prove it happened)
So I guess this was my second trip to Texas. This one was a bit different though, as it was my first time traveling with a baby (she was just 3 months old at the time), and I was doing it solo. A bit different than what I was used to, having replaced my trusted red Arc T'eryx backpack with my JuJuBe diaper bag, and loading up on toys, books, blankets, and bibs instead of a good book, snacks, and my headphones. But I was determined to do it, and that the 4 hour layover in MSP was going to go smoothly. And you know what, it actually wasn't that bad.
I mean, ok, my arm fell asleep holding her because the person next to us on the flight to MSP took over the entire armrest, and I did have to deal with a massive diaper blowout in those tiny airplane bathrooms. Did you know there's a change table in the bathrooms on planes? Cuz I sure didn't think it was possible to fit anything else in that small space... but I assure you it's there. And I guarantee you it is NOT easy. In the future I will avoid it at all costs (and advise you to as well). I also may have washed some of her bibs in the airport bathroom sink and hung them to dry by a "fire" during our layover because she drooled through them all... (note to self, and other mamas out there: pack WAY more than you think you need, because you WILL need it if you don't have it). But other than that, it was actually pretty good. MSP has some pretty solid private family bathrooms and nursing rooms that you can escape to, so that was a plus.
Texas was fun. My daughter got to meet some of her extended family (as did I), and I even tried Chik-fil-A for the first time. It was a great experience to meet everyone, and nice to get away from the January cold and experience some Texan sun (even if it wasn't all that hot out). We were also able to have her 100 day celebration during that time. The 100 day celebration is an important Korean cultural event in an infant's life. It's a time to give thanks and celebrate that the little one has made it through the most difficult and dangerous part of their life, the first 3 months. (Yes, this little girl is quite the mix: Canadian, Korean, and Guatemalan.)
Also, if you're ever in Dallas, I highly recommend "San Martin" - a delicious Guatemalan restaurant with attached bakery and great coffee.
As soon as we got home, trip planning for Spain began. My parents and I went to Portugal last year (as I'm sure you know from my previous blog posts) and we wanted to take advantage of the time off I had while on maternity leave to go again. The plan was initially to go back to Portugal, but after some deliberation Spain was decided upon. I was really looking forward to taking my daughter on her first overseas trip and continuing our travel adventures. But then one day the news started talking about something called the coronavirus.
At this point everything was booked (flights, AirBnBs, car rentals) and all we could do was sit and watch the numbers. Nobody would have guessed that everything was about to change. We waited until the last possible moment, but as the numbers rose higher, and reports of lockdown in Europe came out, we knew it had to be done. So we cancelled our trip. Yes it was sad, but when the reports came out about all the death going on all over the world, how could you be upset about the loss of a trip when so many people were dealing with the loss of their loved ones. It's all about perspective, right?
So March and April came and went. I spent a good portion of my time at my parents place during this these months because staying home alone with a new baby is hard. I very much welcomed the extra help and company that they gave me over this time, and the whole of the year to be honest.
Then May. Ever since I started travelling I've always tried to spend my birthday in another country. It hasn't always worked, but I think I've spent more birthdays overseas than at home over the last 13 years (Nepal, England, Morocco, Nepal again, Ireland...). Sadly, this year was going to be another year on the "at home" list. Not that Canada isn't beautiful in it's own right. It is. So I decided that I was going to celebrate my birthday with a trip to the mountains. At first I was just going to pack up Mattea and head out, but then we decided to make it a socially distanced family occasion, and set off to Abraham Lake. What a glorious location, albeit incredibly windy. Which is exactly where we went (for some reason), to "Windy Point".
My brother and Katie went out ahead of time to do a bit of hiking earlier in the day, so en route we decided to stop at Crescent Falls. The beautiful 89 foot waterfall is located just outside of Nordegg, and an easy off the highway detour. I'd definitely recommend it. There were a few groups of people there when we went, but everyone mostly kept to themselves.
Soon after we met up with Chris and Katie and set up our picnic site overlooking the lake. I've been camping there perviously, and we literally just parked off the highway and walked inwards towards the lake and set up camp. It's such a nice area, and being that it's outside of any National Parks, the freedom is nice. It's a place I've always wanted to go in the winter to see the famous ice bubbles, but outside of winter the water is the most brilliant blue. It's stunning. Such a great way to spend my birthday... topped with with a Rekorderlig cider and a mom fail of letting Mattea hold the can and having her slice her finger open - there was blood everywhere! Poor little girl got her first band-aid on mama's birthday :(
Slowly the year seemed to drag on, yet somehow Mattea was growing at warp speed. I don't get it. In April, just before she was 6 months old, she started crawling - the kind of crawling where she's accidentally discovered friction, putting her hands down and pulling herself with an upper body strength that I'm sure was much greater than mine. In June she was pulling herself up on to things - which was an absolute disaster and resulted in me having to remove the handles on all my lower kitchen drawers because she'd pull them open as she pulled herself up, and then the drawers would close on her tiny little fingers. Then in July, when she was 8 months old, she was up on her hands and knees and the chaos continued.
Somewhere in between army crawling and my kitchen remodelling I discovered Kijij and got myself a chariot (a fancy running stroller). Although I was getting out for walks most days, which was doing wonders for my Spanish podcast learning, not being able to run was starting to really get me down. In fact, not really being able to train at all was a real struggle for me. I'm used to 5-6 days/week of training - swimming, biking, or running - so the lack of physical activity was really impacting my mental health.
I was so happy to finally have a way to get out for a run with Mattea, instead of feeling guilty every time I left her with Grandma and Grandpa. I don't know why I even felt that way. I've heard so many of my friends say that if you don't take care of mama, then you won't be in the right mind to care for your child - you'll be tired, angry, sad, resentful... it's not a good place to be. And it's true. You have to take care of yourself too. But it's hard. Mom guilt is real. When Mattea was first born I remember my doctor telling me that I NEEDED to take 30 minutes a day to just have for myself. And I tried. I really tried. Shower time was my time... or at least I thought that was when I was going to get my 30 minutes alone. I'd feed Mattea, change her, make sure she was content, then dash off to the shower... only to be interrupted mid-shower, not more than 15 minutes later, to a knock on the door telling me that she was crying and needed to be fed again. So I don't think I ever got into a good habit of taking time for myself right from the very beginning. In fact just the other day at work I was telling a co-worker how much I longed for some "me-time", and that I was looking forward to waiting in line at my covid vaccine appointment so I could maybe take some time to read a book. She looked at me like I was crazy and said: "that's your 'me time'?!?!" Sadly, there was no more than a 5 minute wait at my vaccine appointment, so that hope went out the window. Anyways... back to 2020.
Running. I had started running again. I was so happy to get out into the river valley with the beautiful weather we were having. But I think I did too much, too soon. It wasn't long after starting, maybe a month or two, that I started having pains in my joints, especially my ankles. Not to mention the lower back pain that had become a chronic annoyance, no doubt from lifting and holding a baby all day. But it got to the point where I couldn't run anymore. I was told by a massage therapist that for post-partum women, certain hormones can remain in your body for up to a year, making your joints a bit looser than normal. Perhaps. Pregnancy really does a number on your body.
Back to walking it was. And job hunting. I had a casual position in the OR to go back to, but was hoping to find a permanent position for the benefits and a bit of stability. I'd sent out resumes, applied on a few positions, but nothing really worked out. Until I landed the best possible job a nurse could get: Monday-Friday, straight days. Honestly, it really doesn't get any better than that. That's like a dream nursing line. So obviously I took it. And while I was at it, I got a new car too. My little Subaru found a new home, and I found my new mom-mobile.
I tried to make the most of the short-lived summer, and did manage a couple of trips to the mountains and numerous outings to both the Edmonton and Calgary zoos, but before I knew it, it was fall.
I started back at work on the first day of the new RN year: 1 October 2020. Thankfully, most of the in-hospital covid panic was over, and I had missed out on the daily updates and changes to PPE and OR protocols. I wasn't walking in to chaos. I just walked in to a new normal, and a steep learning curve. And speaking of walking, Mattea took her first steps just 3 days before I started back at work. It was the only thing I really wanted - to not miss out on those first steps and have to witness it via WhatsApp photos. Such a great end-of-mat-leave present for me.
So, work... My new OR is focused on ophthalmology and otolaryngology - eyes, ears, nose, and throats. Areas which I had zero experience in. I was coming from general surgery and spinal surgery where everything is big and dirty. There's blood, guts, screws and hardware, and big 0-Vicryl sutures. Ophthalmology is teeny tiny. Everything is delicate, extra-fine, and in miniature. And forget the big sturdy general surgery sutures you could load into a needle driver with your eyes closed... these 10-0 vicryls, well these suckers are so tiny I had to turn the lights on to even see it was there. But it's been great. I was initially a little worried that I was going to lose my cookies at the first sight of a punctured eye ball, but actually, I really like it. We start out with cataract surgery as our basic learning block, and move up from there. I didn't realize how many areas of surgical specialities could come from an eye. In case you're wondering, there are 6! Cataracts, Corneal Transplants, Glaucoma, Strabismus, Retina, and Oculoplastics. Who knew?!
Going back to work has been such a welcomed change to my day. Not that I didn't love every minute that I had with my daughter at home, because I did. It's amazing. But I needed some time away. I needed to get back to work and to have my brain focused on something new. Lots of my mom friends were also going back to work around the same time as me, and were struggling with the idea of being separated from their baby. I get it. It's tough. You think about everything you're potentially missing out on, and when you're around this tiny little human 24/7 for a year, to lose that is no doubt going to be tough. For me though, I welcomed it. Which, of course, I felt guilty about. I remember I kept thinking that I should be sad, that I should be struggling with it more than I was. But all I could think about was starting something new, learning something new, and getting to have a little bit of time to myself during the day. I think it also helped that she was going to be with my parents during the day, so I didn't have the struggle of adjusting to a daycare or day home. Perhaps things would have been different if I was. It also wasn't going to be my first long stretch away from her. She'd been on sleepovers with Grandma and Grandpa before, so I knew her and I could handle being away from each other for the 8 hours I was at work.
Just two weeks after going back to work, Mattea had her first birthday. I had 1 year and cake smash photos done for the occasion, but it seems she wasn't big on smiling for them.
I'd been planning her first birthday basically since the day she was born. I wanted to have a big party and celebration for her. Not that she would remember it, but most of what we do for them now is really just for us. They won't remember what we dressed them in, or the presents they get, or what their nursery looks like, but we as parents will. It makes it special for us. And considering this may be my only baby, I wanted something special for her. Sadly, her first birthday was a covid birthday, just like the rest of the world. But I still managed to pull off a party and stay within the restriction guidelines. All the most important people in her life (my family and closest friends) were able to be there, in two masked-up, socially-distanced cohorts. We chatted, we ate, and Mattea smeared chocolate cake around. It was a great day, and one that I know I'll never forget.
2020 has been a hard year. And as I'm sitting here in April, under yet another isolation period while waiting for the results of my latest covid swab, I'm thinking back to just how crazy it all was. It's been a pretty defining year.
I'm slowly starting to learn just how important it is to remember who I am too. I'm allowed to have, and to want to have, a life that isn't completely my daughter. I'm allowed to have hobbies, and ambitions, and goals. I'm allowed to want time to myself as well (in addition to the couple of hours at night after she's in bed). I mean, I may not have figured out HOW to do it yet, but at least I have figured out that it's not a bad thing to want those things too. I suppose that's one of the good things about covid. Not being able to go out has taken away some of my FOMO because there isn't anything to miss out on. When there aren't races and travels abroad happening, it's easy to just forget about some of these things, and forget that there's more to life than just getting up, going to work, and coming home. Yet at the very same time, that's also the downside to covid. It's incredibly lonely. I suppose I'm lucky in the sense that I see my family nearly every day, since they are Mattea's caregivers while I'm at work. And I'm also able to go in to work and have face to face conversations with other people, and sort of pretend like things are normal. Working in the OR we always had masks on anyways, so really it's not all that different now.
It's been a year that none of us are going to forget... ever. But in all these struggles, it's important to see all the positives in our lives. Sure, there are a lot of negatives of 2020, but I think there are a lot of things to be grateful for, and a lot of reason to have hope for our future.
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