Joy Amidst Chaos
I cried several nights ago. I buried my face in my husband’s neck, asking him, “Are we nuts for bringing a child into this chaos?” It was a serious question. COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on the world, and I don’t know what life will look like when our son is born.
After two and a half years of infertility, I’m almost six months pregnant with our first child — our miracle child. I screamed with shock and joy when the pregnancy test showed positive. I stared with wonder during the ultrasounds when we heard his little heartbeat. For months I’ve been dreaming of holding our precious boy in my arms. I promised myself that I would never, ever take this child for granted. And yet, here I am… questioning my baby’s existence.
How can this be?
Is there something wrong with me?
Many tears later, I realized that my concerns are valid. After weeks of hearing stories of deaths, people losing their livelihoods, and the shortage of equipment for medical workers, the weight of it all had really hit me. In our own lives, my husband and I had to cancel our baby moon, postpone our baby celebration, and had to have many hard discussions relating to COVID-19. What if my mother-in-law can’t visit after the baby is born? What if it is months before any family or friends can meet the baby? What if the birth center we plan to use won’t allow my husband to be present in labor or delivery? I can’t imagine giving birth without my husband there, but I know moms across the nation are now facing that reality.
Life does not look like what we are accustomed to, and the world is not “normal” right now. To be perfectly frank, the world is scary at the moment; none of it looks anything like we had planned or hoped it would be. It’s okay to have sadness, anger, grief, or fear due to these events. Those feelings are natural, and real. But I don’t want to feel only these negative emotions. I still want moments of joy.
Given this uncharted territory we are all learning to navigate, it is incredibly important to check in with our mental and emotional health. If my journey through infertility taught me anything, it was to learn to find the hope in darkness. What I’m discovering now in pregnancy is how to hold onto my joy amidst chaos. Even before the novel COVID-19 virus turned our world upside down, I dealt with the grief of losing my mother during my first trimester. Two weeks after my mom was hospitalized for unknown causes, I learned I was pregnant. I was unable to travel to be with her, so from thousands of miles away I handled every medical update, decision, and consent with dozens of different medical personnel. Then we reached the point at which there was little chance for my mother to have any quality of life, so I had to make the impossible decision to transition her to comfort care only. She passed away three days later.
When I should have been overwhelmed by the joy of finally being pregnant, I instead was forced to navigate overwhelming loss and grief. During these first few weeks, my husband and I worried about losing the pregnancy due to stress. Looking around at the world currently, there are millions of people pushing aside what should be joyful moments to grapple with hardships or tragedy instead. That’s our reality.
We are united in our struggle with upheaval; I also feel that it is important we remain united in preserving and celebrating joy where possible. I am not a mental health expert — nor an expert at life, really. Rather, I am an average person relaying my experience with what has anchored me during troubling times. I hope that by sharing these tactics that have helped me, I can help others hold onto joy, too. I will note, though, that I was still seeing my therapist until recently. These tactics have been developed under professional guidance — and I fully believe in seeking help for mental wellness.
Create time for joy
Though it can be challenging to thrust aside anxiety, fears, and sadness, it is important to set aside time for joy. Life without hope is abysmal, and hope survives best when there are little snippets of joy to bolster it. During those first few weeks of my pregnancy, small times of joy during grief would be to daydream about our baby, or to tell a few trusted friends of my pregnancy. Celebrating my pregnancy with them helped me remember that a good thing was happening in my life, even if my heart was also aching with grief over my mother’s death.
It takes practice to push aside feelings of sadness, anxiety, or fear. While short periods of joy cannot fix big problems, it sure helps getting through the dark spaces. During the COVID-19 madness, I am still taking time to focus solely on the joy of our coming baby. I have moments where I shut everything else out, and allow myself to daydream about our baby boy. I look forward to these moments of relief, for they allow me to lay my concerns aside and feel happy.
Be present in the peaceful moments
My therapist taught me to anchor myself in the present so as to not lose myself in wandering, dark thoughts. One of the best ways to do this is through our senses; when in doubt, we can anchor ourselves to what we see, what we smell, what we taste, or what we hear. I am a visual learner, which is perhaps why photography speaks so strongly to me. With this in mind, my therapist helped me understand that I can use photos to recognize and remember the peaceful moments. Taking photos of these moments is not about technical perfection, but rather about capturing the emotion that I wished to preserve.
By learning to truly breathe in the present moment, I also learned to shut out worries. I would remind myself, this moment is now — tomorrow can wait. Even if it is only a brief reprieve, it feels wonderful to have a few moments of peace. If I see something that I enjoy, or have a moment that feels peaceful, I take a picture to capture it. I often look at these photos later to remember those little moments.
Narrow your focus
It’s terrifying to wonder what life is going to look like weeks or months into the future. Perhaps the simplest solution to this problem is to not look so wide. This was the most challenging thing for me to learn, as I am that annoying person who always looks 10 steps ahead and asks, “what if…?” Narrowing my view to just one day helped me manage what needed to be done that day, and also carve out some periods of rest.
With access to world events at our fingertips, it can be easy to overload ourselves with woes. Taking breaks from the world’s problems by narrowing our focus helps us to ensure that we can do the best for ourselves and our families. There’s a reason why airlines always instruct people to place their own oxygen masks first during an emergency — and that’s because if we don’t take care of ourselves, we cannot help anyone else, either.
Practice gratitude
In the first few days of my pregnancy, my gratitude was simple. I would wake my husband with a kiss and whisper, “honey, I’m pregnant.” I took walks in the morning to watch the sunrise, placing a hand on my abdomen and breathing in deeply. I was thankful for the gift of my baby, even knowing the pregnancy might not last. But that day, at that moment, I was grateful. After zero success in conceiving, we finally knew it was possible to conceive. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and finally we allowed ourselves to believe that we are getting our baby at last.
Now my gratitude looks a bit different. I smile when our baby boy kicks because it is comforting to know he is okay. I am choosing to accept our forced quiet time at home as pleasant, because soon our home won’t be quiet at all. Though my husband must continue to go to work (he is essential) and we worry about exposure to COVID-19, I remind myself that we are blessed to have his paycheck. Gratitude, even for the smallest of things, has an incredible power to shift perspective. Instead of lamenting all that is going wrong, expressing gratitude for what is right in our lives reminds us that not everything is bleak.
Serve others
Although making my mother’s medical decisions put an immense strain on me, I was reminded multiple times that it was the last act of kindness I could perform for her. She never wrote out a will or expressed in written terms her medical wishes if she was ever incapacitated. What I knew was helpful in guiding the medical staff in appropriate care for her; in this way, I was able to serve my mother.
There are millions of problems in the world that I can’t fix, and millions of people that I can’t help. But that doesn’t mean I am helpless; rather, I am finding small ways to serve my family, friends, and community through this crisis. These acts can be as small as checking in with family and friends for their emotional well-being, supporting small businesses through online or pickup orders, or commenting on a stranger’s social media post to offer empathy and wish them well. Though the act itself is small, the intention behind it reminds me that I can make a positive difference and helps me feel less isolated or trapped. Serving others is a good reminder that our personal problems are not the only problems. This reminder helps pull me out of feelings of self-pity, and into a mindset of I can still do something positive for others.
Just before my sessions halted with my therapist, I chatted with her about my worries over all the advice surrounding parenting. She encouraged me to filter out “the noise” and find a few simple things to ground me. As always, her guidance helped me immensely — for I’m finding that filtering out the noise is helping me stay grounded and joyful during very uncertain times. From my heart to yours, I hope we all are able to stay well and persevere through this global pandemic. It’s okay to feel sad or grieve over what is lost. It’s healthy to recognize our emotions, and give them space to breathe. But in all this, it’s also important to remember to filter out the noise and look for moments of joy amidst the chaos.
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