“I assumed it was another bi-yearly media drama. I began to get nervous. We escaped with a ‘normal’ birth experience by the skin of our teeth. I held my breath on the way out.”
‘I went to the hospital in labor. All the doors were locked. When we entered the recovery room, things started to get weird.’: Mom grateful son’s birth timing was ‘untainted by the coronavirus’
‘Why are you guys smiling? Don’t you take this seriously?’ We have no ‘normal’ at work. Every protocol we know is thrown out the window.’: Nurse urges ‘hug your healthcare providers, when hugging is safe!’
“We look around at our coworkers and wonder, ‘Who will get it?’, ‘How bad will it be?’, ‘How many patients will we lose?’ We don’t know what else to do but smile. We are trying our best to embrace this new reality-to keep our cool. Underneath, we are scared to death. We are scared, of death.”
‘Should we take our kids to China with us, or drop them in the US?’ The mood on the plane was somber.’: Expats make it back to China to begin quarantine, ‘We’ve been forced to realize just how lucky we are’
“We had fears and doubts in the back of our minds about what would be best for our family. It was in Dubai we discovered there were a few families in our gated community who had been infected, and to add salt to the wound, we discovered my daughter and I had picked up lice. The situation was almost comical at that point.”
‘To be fully honest, if I didn’t stay busy, I’d eat all of the quarantine snacks while standing in my kitchen staring at my phone.’: Quarantined mom urges ‘take it all one day at a time’
“Within a quick 24-hours, I became a full-time-working-stay-at-home-full-time-home-schooling-mom. I had no idea how it was all going to happen. Hell, I’d be happy with a general idea or suggestion of how this all will play out! I know we will figure it out, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s going to be a lot of building the plane while we fly it. And I have to be okay with that.”
‘I’m going to throw up.’ He looked like an unfamiliar creature. Everything I expected went out the window.’: Woman gives birth to twin preemies at 24 weeks, ‘We knew this would be the greatest fight of our lives’
“A nurse said, ‘Do you want a picture?’ I abruptly said, ‘No.’ I was trying to erase the past 6 hours from my memory. I didn’t even know if my baby would survive. Why would I want a picture or anything that would make me feel attached to this little creature? Baby B was barely alive.”
‘Last night, I sat on the house steps after the kids were in bed. 10 minutes alone were the most ‘distant’ I actually was from anyone in the last 8 days.’: Mom of 6 credits exhausted parents, ‘We may be isolated, but we’re never alone’
“She would freak out when I left the room to go pee so I would just take her with me. This is why parents are so darn tired. And why it is even harder with social distancing. We may be isolated, but we’re never alone.”
‘Instead of seeing my son and potentially giving it to him, so he can give it to my parents, I just won’t see any of them.’: Single nurse mom says ‘I am doing my part, and I am now asking you do yours’
“I am a nurse at a Portland area Hospital. I rely heavily on my family to watch my son while I work my 12-hour shifts. But I am also so much more. I am a single mother to a 9-year-old boy. I am a daughter to a mother who has had asthma her entire life. No more hugs, no more kisses. I am making a sacrifice.”
‘I read a status from a fellow teacher. She’d called all 175 of her classroom students, talking directly with 150 of them. We will not give up.’: Teacher working from home says ‘not even global disease can stop our passion’
“I miss my kids. I miss seeing them light up when learning something new. I miss their laughter, conversation, varying personalities, and energy. This is not what I had in mind when I decided over 10 years ago to be a career teacher. We’ve combined powers of cafeteria staff, custodians, aides, and bus drivers to travel home-to-home delivering hot meals to our people. We will not give up.”
‘This was the last photo I took of Finn in a school. It’s all gone. His body language is an obvious expression that he did NOT want to be pulled away.’: Mom of son with heart disease says ‘you can’t have a lifestyle without LIFE’
“His teacher means the WORLD to him, the world. We had big plans for May 28th. Finn’s graduation from preschool and an adorable spring program that was planned. It’s all gone. He will never get to complete preschool. We had our kids at this school for 6 whole years and with one announcement, gone.”
‘Please don’t take him away from me.’ We were wiping down our phones, scrubbing our fingernails with hot soap. We put on gowns, gloves, and masks.’: Mom births 24-week-old miracle micro-preemie
“‘He’s breathing.’ That’s the first thing my husband, Myles, said to me as the doctor delivered our 1 lb. 14 oz. baby via emergency C-section at only 24 weeks. The nurses were running to his bed to manually pump breaths into his lungs. I went to the ER fully prepared to not hear his heartbeat. But every time I thought he was gone, there he was, his heart beating away.”