I got covid with a 6 month old… here’s what happened
Hello friends! Today I thought I would share a bit of an unusual post for me, my experience with covid… with a 6 month old. I dunno why, but I thought you might be interested. Let’s go!
Fully jabbed
So, before we get started, I just wanted to let you know I’ve had both my vaccines and my booster. So, I’m fully jabbed up and because I had my first two vaccines when I was pregnant and Mary was on my milk during my booster, she was as protected as possible too. Needless to say, but Jon was also fully vax’ed and boosted too. Spoiler alert: Covid still hit us hard.
Since the first lockdown, I’ve been a massive hermit and managed to avoid getting covid this whole time. I wish I could tell you I went to a wild party, or went on holiday or did something fun, but the way we caught covid is possibly the most boring story ever. My boyfriend was speaking at an IT conference and boom… he got it. Then Mary & I got it. That’s it. Fun right?!
Early Signs
If Jon had any early covid symptoms, we completely missed them and wrote them off as work-related exhaustion. So we didn’t isolate from each other because we simply didn’t know he had covid until he felt bad. Like REALLY bad. At first he was testing negative and then that second line crept in.
Jon had two days of feeling rough before covid got me. At first I had super subtle symptoms of itchy ears and throat, which I thought was hayfever. That night I felt tired and went to bed early around 9pm and then I woke up in the night and felt WRONG. It came on fast. My head was pounding and I was FREEZING cold. I was desperate to wee but I was too cold to go to the loo so I lay in bed shivering, holding it in. Eventually I pulled myself out of bed because I started dreaming about going to the toilet and thats when I knew I had to make it to the bathroom. By the time I was climbing back into bed I was shivering so much that my teeth were chattering. I think Jon told me to try to be quiet because I would wake Mary, it was full on chattering. I wrapped my dressing gown around me for extra warmth and curled up into a ball and went back to sleep. At some point that night Mary woke up and I felt SO ill I couldn’t even lift my head off the pillow. I literally couldn’t move so Jon had to get up to see to her.
I think she woke up a few more times that night and I couldn’t help her. I literally couldn’t drag my head off the pillow. I had nothing.
By the next morning, my fever had broken and I was no longer cold. But I still felt absolutely wiped out and my limbs felt SO heavy it was hard to move. I don’t think I even had the strength to pick up Mary. I was so weak. That day is a bit of a blur but my head was aching, my body sore and I was cripplingly tired. I remember having to pump my boobs and struggling to sit upright because I was so exhausted. I sat against propped pillows on an arm chair because I couldn’t support myself.
Once I had some breakfast and strong coffee, I thought a shower might help me. So I headed upstairs and got in the shower. As soon as I did, I knew I had made an error and I was so tired I ended up sitting on the floor of the shower because standing was too much effort. As soon as I sat down, I realised I had made another error in sitting down, as I couldn’t find the strength to stand up. I had the longest shower because it took me so long to summon the energy to stand back up. When I finally did, I roughly dried myself, put on knickers and got back into bed because I needed to rest after my shower.
Mary
Jon and I both felt SO ill this day and we knew Mary wasn’t quite herself either. We had been really struggling to get milk into her, which isn’t like her and by 4pm she had drank a fraction of what she normally drinks and the milk was piling up in the fridge. I got nervous. I called my mum and she told me to call 111 or our GP. I tried 111 and they said I needed to go to A&E with her, but first I should wait for a call from the paediatrician. Whilst I waited I called our GP and they put me through to the Doctor who was incredibly helpful and said because she hadn’t felt well she hadn’t wanted to drink and maybe her stuffy nose was holding her back too. But now she had gotten into the newborn vicious cycle where she had become super sleepy so it made her harder to feed. He said if we didn’t get milk into her we would need to go to A&E and they would want to feed her via a tube / drip. So we promptly woke her up and somehow managed to get milk into her. Thank God. From there, she picked up her energy levels and we were back on track. She was still fussy and upset because she wasn’t well, but she was no longer scarily tired. The paediatrician from 111 called us back and gave us some more tips and confirmed we didn’t need to go to A&E. A huge relief. As much as people say that it doesn’t effect children like it does adults, she clearly wasn’t herself for a good week, but the struggle to feed her and the disturbed nights were the hardest parts.
Speaking of which, that night Mary was still feeling ill and woke us up around 4 times, again, this is SO unlike her and it was desperately hard. I was able to get out of bed to see to her, but I do remember one time when she woke up crying, I started crying too because I felt so ill. That next morning I was shattered from covid and the disturbed sleep and I think Jon and I took it in turns to try to rest. Again, it’s all a bit of a blur but if I remember rightly, I was too tired and too ill to sleep, even though I was exhausted. I felt dreadful all day, but I didn’t know how much of that was covid and how much of it was fatigue.
That night we went to bed early again and Jon kindly said to me ‘no matter how many times she wakes up tonight, don’t worry, I will get up and see to her, you need to sleep’. Which was so kind of him… but he got lucky. Mary slept through the night. A much needed treat for us both.
A few days in…
I think that next day was a bit of a turning point for us all. Mary seemed much happier; Jon and I were a little less exhausted and our headaches and cold symptoms lifted a little. I felt super tired and had an afternoon nap, but it felt like we were finally seeing an end point. It had been a rough few days.
Ten days on and we are feeling much better, still not quite 100%, with the ends of a cold and way more prone to tiredness, but much better. Even though Jon was two days ahead of me in catching covid, it felt like we got better on the same day – my day 4, his day 6. As for Mary, I can’t exactly ask her, but I think it effected her the least out of us all. But it still effected her and it was hard, especially because she’s so young.
Thoughts
Covid is an absolute b*tch. I’m so glad I was jabbed up as if I felt that bad after 3 vaccines, I can’t imagine how I would feel after none. Maybe the same, but probably worse. I’m personally going to take every booster I’m offered and I’ll be paying for the flu jab at boots every winter too. Being that ill is not worth skipping a jab.
If you get covid with a little one, the best advice I can give you is to keep taking paracetamol, ibuprofen and do regular inhalations as it really helped clear our headaches. As for the exhaustion, I have no cure for that. Just try and do what you have to do; for me, it was feed & change Mary, eat, sleep and pump. Don’t do anything else, not even shower, unless you really want to.
Finally, if you are nervous about covid and want to keep wearing a mask in public, I urge you to put away the embarrassment and wear that mask with pride. It’s a sh*tbags virus and if you have any immune deficiency or underlying conditions, I can’t imagine how scary it must be. So wear you mask. Ask your friends to wear their masks and let’s normalise it for the long haul. I know I will when I’m on busy public transport. It’s not worth getting it for the sake of feeling embarrassed on a packed train. Which brings me to one last piece of advice… friends… if you are going to get covid. Please, get it by doing something fun! Don’t get it at an IT conference, get it having fun. Make it worth your while. Life’s too short. have a fabulous day out and if you get covid, at least you had an amazing day.
♥
Oh and one more thing… single parents. You are incredible to going through these moments alone. I don’t know how you do it.
