Quarantine and a Baby

 Over the weekend of March 14-15, we were following the news closely. Covid-19, a coronavirus, was spreading rapidly across the country and things were closing down left and right. Eventually, we got the word that school would be closed until things improved. We were also under orders to quarantine and shelter in place in the bay area. We started school at home. The kids took home packets of work but without any kind of preparation, it was all a bit of a mess. It was difficult figuring out what they were expected to do, the Zoom meetings with their classes, and getting them motivated to work, especially after it was announced later on that all students would just be given credit for the semester instead of grades. Eli had daily journal assignments and I loved reading what he would come up with:

I sent that to Joe siblings to give them a hard time. :)

I loved this paper I found in his work too:

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with some green crepes:

The boys loved having permission to play Just Dance for PE:

They also loved having violent blanket wars:

They went a bit crazy being cooped up so much and sure missed getting outside to play with their neighbor friends.

On Thursday, March 19, after feeling a bit achy and a weird shortness of breath, Joe decided to get test for Covid-19 just to make sure he didn't have it. The c-section was scheduled for 2 1/2 weeks away and he wanted to know before then. I'd heard tests were scarce so I was surprised they got him tested right away with minimal symptoms and no contact with anyone who had it. The next day, I drove myself to the hospital for a non-stress test and left Joe and the kids doing their work/homework at home. When I arrived at the hospital, they took my temperature and then I had to wear a mask because they asked if I'd had contact with anyone who was sick. I told them about Joe so I wore one just in case. It was hot and I was tired by the time I got up to the prenatal area when I took this picture to send to Joe:

They did the ultrasound first and the fluid looked good. Then they took my blood pressure and it was up a little bit which worried me, of course, but they said it might be due to the walk up there and they'd try again later. They did the monitoring and the baby looked good. Then they did another blood pressure and it was high again--I think even a little bit higher. The nurses there started asking about my history and I think that pushed them over the edge to decide to send me down to labor and delivery for more monitoring. At this point, I was getting upset because I knew that they wouldn't let Joe in the hospital without a negative result to his test and I had no idea how long that would take. I was standing at the desk giving them my information, crying with a mask on and snot getting everywhere. I was a mess. Right then, my doctor came around the corner in her scrubs. She must have been there for another delivery. She was surprised to see me and I explained what happened. I was able to tell her why I was upset. It was such a relief to see her and I was thankful for that small blessing. They got me in a room for monitoring and the blood pressures kept being a little bit high. They never got too bad but after considering my history and the fact that I was 37 weeks they decided that I shouldn't go home. In some ways we were relieved to have her come sooner because we'd been hearing horror stories about places where the virus was bad and hospitals were overcrowded and we wanted to give birth before that happened. Of course, the major downside was that Joe couldn't come in. I was feeling very panicked about that when I thought I should call Lisa to see if she could come. She was wonderful and left her family during a scary time to come right away when I called her. It was such a relief to see her because I was stuck in that monitoring room forever with hardly anyone checking on me and I was scared and lonely. 

When she arrived:

Eventually, they moved me into a different room for the night. Lisa helped me pass the time by playing some Five Crowns, talking, and watching The Sun is Also a Star together. Joe did all he could to try and figure out a way to get his test result sooner. He tried to get another test with quicker results but nothing worked. We hoped that just maybe we'd find out in time but sadly, testing was so backed up that it would be 8 more days before we got the result. They prepped me for surgery that night, with the plan that I'd deliver the next morning, March 21st.

2020 Until the World Went Crazy

The year 2020 started out fine. We had some big changes ahead of us. Joe and I decided that we just couldn't see how to fit our family in our current rental long-term with the baby coming. We still weren't in a position to buy a house in our area so we started to look at other options. One them being Clovis, CA, where Joe had a job opportunity working with a friend from law school. The two of us took a day trip over winter break to check it out and we both really liked the town and could see ourselves living there. A couple weeks later we took the whole family down and stayed in a hotel for the weekend. The kids loved doing some night swimming:

While the kids didn't want to move, they understood our reasoning. We looked at houses together and got excited about the space we'd be able to have down there.

Meanwhile, life went on normally. We had a fun YW activity combined with the other ward where they taught us Muay Thai, a kind of martial art:

My belly was getting bigger and bigger:

I felt pretty good but ended up being diagnosed with gestational diabetes.

That meant recording everything I ate and finger pricks 4 times a day to check my blood sugar levels. That was in addition to the daily shots. It also meant changing my diet. I had been craving a lot of carbs this pregnancy so that had to change. It was really hard for me at the time but I'm really proud of myself for being able to do it. I never had to take insulin, although they considered it since my readings were on the border at times. I stopped eating cereal and went two months without having a Dr. Pepper (except once on a drive to stay awake). Here is one of my food logs:

My friend Carrie threw a really fun brunch for Valentine's Day. We had delicious food and enjoyed talking for a morning:

Eli and I made some Valentines sugar cookies. One of his personal goals was to learn how to make sugar cookies so we did that together. 

I loved this note Natalie left on a treat she made, and Joe's edit. :)

The boys had fun trying to make a Rube Goldberg machine. It didn't work out quite so well but it was fun to try.

I kept going in for regular appointments and ultrasounds and we got some fun 3D pics of our baby girl:

The kids loved that last thinking position she's in. :)

I loved this picture Eli made me:

His Valentine's Day bag:

We did pretty well at reading scriptures in the morning and doing Come, Follow Me together. We read this scripture and I told the kids about how my friend Kari and I would quote this scripture to each other as a joke. Eli thought it was so funny that he wrote it down to memorize it. :)

I still loved hiking regularly and especially when the poppies started blooming:

I had two baby showers. One was thrown by friends from the ward, along with another woman in the ward who was expecting. People were so nice and we got lots of cute things. My friend Megan also gave me all of the hand-me-downs from her baby girl so I felt like we were set. The other one was a book shower thrown by the sweet ladies in my book club. I got a bunch of cute children's books and they even got this cake, which I loved:

It was so hard to think about leaving all the wonderful people in Fremont. We started announcing it in February when we found a house and started the process to buy it! Our plan was to move after the school year finished in June. Joe started working in Clovis a few days a week and commuting back and forth.

A beautiful double rainbow right outside our front door:

Natalie entered the bookmark contest and won! She really improved quickly at lettering:

I kept teaching FAME at the elementary school up until February and finished all the lessons in the boys' classrooms. They loved this sculpting activity trying to make horses:

And this pointillism activity (especially Nate's title):

I started going in for weekly non stress tests at the hospital. This was my view for about an hour:

I had a lot of time in the car driving across the Dumbarton bridge and back for appointments listening to podcasts and books.

We made this strawberry rhubarb pie for pi day:

Little did we know, that would be the last day of school for a while...

Christmas

It was a fun December getting into the Christmas spirit. The girls and I finally got to see the Nutcracker that they put on at temple square for free every year. I'd been wanting to go for years. One of our YW was in it so we went to support her. It turned out that one of Lizzie's friends from school was in it as well. It was a rainy night but I loved going out with them and it was actually a really good performance for being free:

We had our ward Christmas party. We made supply kits to give to the homeless this year. I was sad to only have one kid who wanted to talk to Santa this year:

The YW came over to our house to make Christmas ornaments one night. I loved this one Natalie made:

There was a ward gingerbread contest for a linger longer and we actually tried doing the kits this year. The kids teamed up to make theirs and did a great job:

We made our annual Christmas plates for neighbors and friends:

I'd forgotten how much work that is!

All dressed up for Christmas Sunday:

The choir Christmas program was really simple this year--we just sang some hymns and a song called Prince of Peace that the girls both had solos in. They did great!

Christmas Eve dinner:

It was a quiet year here at home by ourselves but it was a nice one. I didn't get any pictures of the kids opening presents so I just took some screenshots of our video:

I got the best gift:

I'd been wanting one of those for years and they were finally not crazy expensive. We've enjoyed it every single day since!

It was a pretty quiet day eating, doing puzzles, playing with toys and watching movies. 

The day after Christmas, we left for Tahoe to stay at the cabin with Chris and Lisa and their kids. We had so much fun up there with them for a couple of days. The girls got to go skiing with Uncle Chris, Emily, Isaac and Lily. They loved it! We'll have to keep taking them so they can improve more. I was impressed with how well they did. It was Natalie's first time ever and Lizzie had only been once on a 5th grade field trip.

The boys and I had fun sledding and playing on the golf course:

Joe was recovering from a minor surgery so he rested most of the time. After Chris and Lisa and kids left, we stayed a couple more days. We always love playing games, warming up by the fire, and hanging out in the spa. We also had fun going to Reno to see the last Star Wars movie.

We came back on New Year's Eve so we spent that night at home. I can't remember what we did so it must not have been too exciting. Goodbye 2019!