Pregnant in the time of COVID
Why I am scared & angry — but also hopeful — right now
CW: fertility issues, pregnancy complications, COVID-19
In late July 2021, my husband and I had some close friends over to our backyard. These are friends we’ve spent the pandemic with; all are fully vaccinated except one couple’s baby and toddler. The previous week, two of our group had minor colds but tested negative for COVID and felt fine by the time they came to our house. A few days after hanging out with us, our friends’ toddler got sick. Her pediatrician tested for COVID and RSV, but concluded it was adenovirus — another virus with a grab-bag of respiratory symptoms.
A day or so after that, I started feeling funky. Pretty soon I was in a full-blown quagmire of sore throat, hacking cough, piles upon piles of Kleenex, cough drops, and general grossness. The only saving graces were that I didn’t have a fever and was negative for COVID. After five days I went to my doctor’s office. The nurse practitioner said I should wait a few more days before they would prescribe any antibiotics, since it was still likely viral. By the end of that week, though, I was still sick, so my doc put me on antibiotics for acute sinusitis.
I was sick for two full weeks, with lingering congestion a few days beyond that. My friends and husband, who also got sick, felt icky for several days, but nothing like what I had. I could barely breathe through my nose. I had to sleep propped up because if I laid down, I’d start hacking. Why was I sicker than the others? Because I am pregnant and thus immunocompromised and also more susceptible to respiratory viruses. At 24 weeks pregnant, I was hit the hardest of all my friends who caught the bug.
My husband and I started trying to get pregnant in fall 2019. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. My last day in the office before things shut down was March 13. On March 16, my OB-GYN referred me to a fertility specialist.
For a short time, Stefan and I put things on hold, unsure about trying to have a baby during a pandemic. The fertility clinic also stopped providing most treatments over the summer, while everyone tried to figure out what to do about COVID safety. In August 2020, we finally had our first fertility appointment. After initial tests, we started doing hormone treatments. The Fertility Center was great about safety: requiring masks, doing temp checks, limiting visitors, and keeping appointments and wait times brief.
Winter was rough, emotionally. The monthly waiting and hoping for a positive test, only to be disappointed time and again, took its toll. On top of that, the pandemic was getting worse and the far right was spreading lies that endangered the very heart of our American political system. At the start of 2021, I missed my period. We held our breath, hoping I was pregnant. On January 6, we watched in horror as insurrectionists stormed the White House, tried to overturn the legal election, and threatened to kill the Speaker of the House and the Vice President. The following week, at my fertility checkup, my pregnancy test was inconclusive. We bombarded my body with progesterone, but to no avail. The conclusion was that I had a chemical pregnancy, but it never implanted. We went back to trying.
Exactly one year after WHO declared the pandemic, our luck seemed to turn. On March 9, 2021, we learned I was pregnant and found out that I was getting a raise at work. On March 10 I got my first COVID vaccine. On March 12 we closed on a house. For the first time in a long while, it felt like things were going as they ought. The arrival of the COVID vaccines brought so much hope and I felt good being vaccinated so early on in my pregnancy. I want to give my little one as many antibodies as possible.
If I were younger, I’d have opted to wait out the pandemic before trying to get pregnant. But I’m 38 years old. It took nearly a year and a half of trying for me to get pregnant. Waiting indefinitely for the end of the pandemic wasn’t really an option for us.
At the beginning of summer 2021, I felt optimistic that the arrival of the COVID vaccines was going to herald safety for my baby — that I would be able to deliver him in November into a world that was moving past the pandemic.
Instead, the US is full of people who mindbogglingly continue to make the pandemic worse by refusing to wear a mask & refusing to get vaccinated. As of August 20, 2021, only 40.7% of people in my state of Tennessee are vaccinated. Only 48% of those in my county are. My university has grudgingly instituted a partial mask mandate, but I fear for the safety of students and community now that school has resumed. Our local hospitals are now asking people to avoid the ER except under extreme need, because ICUs are overflowing with unvaccinated people.
In my pregnancy tracking apps, chat boards are full of threads like “Who else isn’t going to get vaccinated?” Yet the CDC has shown that COVID poses a particular threat to those who are pregnant. Catching COVID while pregnant puts your baby at risk of premature birth and all of the complications that arise from that. The evidence is clear that catching COVID is dangerous if one is pregnant. The local news in Birmingham, AL, reported on August 20 that there has been an increase in unvaccinated pregnant women being hospitalized with COVID-19 and delivering prematurely. The LA Times reported on August 20 that pregnant women are 10x more likely to die if they get COVID & are “more likely to deliver prematurely, require intubation or mechanical respiration.”
A few days ago, I went to Labor & Delivery Triage because I hadn’t felt my baby move all day. Turned out he was fine, just kicking toward my spine and I couldn’t feel him because of my anterior placenta. When we left L&D, though, I noticed that a patient in another room was marked “COVID +” on the intake whiteboard. I hope she and her baby are ok.
Throughout the medical community, doctors are emphasizing that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe for pregnant women to take and provide crucial protections from the dangers of catching COVID. Yet in spite of the overwhelming evidence that COVID poses a danger in pregnancy and that vaccines are safe for pregnant women, according to CNBC, as of July 2021, only 23% of pregnant women had received one dose of vaccine. We can hope that the CDC’s recent recommendation for pregnant women to get vaccinated has a positive impact, but they are unfortunately fighting against a firehose of disinformation.
We know that with the Delta variant, COVID-19 breakthrough cases are possible in those who are fully vaccinated. COVID still is most dangerous to the unvaccinated; those of us who are vaccinated might catch and spread the virus but are far less likely to get severely ill.
All of this brings me back to my recent bout of adenovirus. I have now seen what a respiratory virus can do to me right now. Because I’m immunocompromised by my pregnancy, the bug struck me harder and for longer than it did my friends and husband who also got it. Because I’m pregnant, I also have fewer options for medication than I normally would, being limited to a handful of pregnancy-safe over-the-counter meds like Tylenol, combined with sleep, saline gargles, and other such remedies.
This is why I am scared and angry right now. I am scared that I will catch a breakthrough case of COVID and that because I am pregnant, my vaccination status will not protect me as much as it otherwise might and that in turn could endanger my baby.
I am angry because a majority of people in my state refuse to get vaccinated, refuse to wear masks to protect one another, and actively fight against vital protections that would keep our community safe.
I am angry because my GOP-led state government actively opposes any pandemic safety measures and cut off Federal benefits for the unemployed in the midst of a pandemic.
I am angry on behalf of all the parents who are making difficult decisions about their kids’ health and education, and for those working parents who are trying to balance careers on top of all of that.
I am angry that the pandemic is setting women’s progress in the workplace back by decades and because our country has such terrible/non-existent social supports in place for working parents.
I am angry because my employer — like so many others — has decided to place the burden of responsibility upon individuals while acting like all is “back to normal” (what does that even mean anymore?) and requiring everyone to be back full time in the office with classrooms at full capacity.
I am angry because when my coworkers and I ask for a safe workplace, we’re told we’re being unfair & selfish. I am angry that people in other workplaces claim that because their own employers aren’t instituting safety measures, no one anywhere should be allowed to get them.
I am angry because our hospitals are overflowing and people are getting sick and new variants are arising and because none of this had to happen if we as a nation had acted responsibly from the beginning instead of politicizing an international health crisis.
I am scared that our local hospital will start restricting visitors again and that our doula won’t be able to be there to help us when I give birth.
I am angry and scared because I wanted to bring my child into a world that was safe and healing, not one in which COVID cases are skyrocketing again and people are embracing dangerous conspiracy theories.
I am angry because I want my parents to meet their grandson when he arrives, but I don’t want to place my parents or our baby in danger due to the possibility of them catching breakthrough COVID while on the plane to visit us.
I am scared and angry about a lot of things right now. But I do also have hope. Vaccines are effective and can protect us. Masking is effective and can protect us. By investing in and caring about the wellbeing of our communities, we can make a positive difference.
I have hope because I have an amazing husband and a supportive group of friends who are always there for one another.
Ultimately, I have hope that my son can be part of a new generation that comes of age with a belief in science, a desire to build and protect community, and the ability to respond to crises with compassion for self and others.
So, to conclude, please get vaccinated and please keep masking. Do it for yourself. Do it for others. Do it for your community.
