I thought 2020 was going to be my year. I was going to turn 35 and life was landing in place. I was finally due with my IVF baby after nearly 2 years of waiting and testing and going through procedures I never had to with my son.

It was nearly 2 years of cathartic journaling and dealing with the complex emotions of guilt , somehow feeling like I am diminishing the importance of having my son by trying so hard for a second baby with IVF treatments. But I finally did get pregnant and I was excited and intially was having a great pregnancy. I had virtually no morning sickness, my back didn't hurt, I had no dizziness or nose bleeds or anything I had experienced with my first pregnancy. It was going swimmingly well and I couldn't have asked for a better experience. And then Friday, March 13 of 2020 happened.

I am a nurse practitioner at a large university hospital in Philadelphia, and I was with my team in a procedure room when I found out that the county I live in was getting locked down. I remember calling my husband and saying, "I'm not one to give into hysteria, but I think something real is going on."

I went to the store to get 2 weeks worth of groceries (since that was all we were going to be locked down for) and seeing bare shelves, no fresh fruit, no paper goods, and thinking, "My God, what is happening?" Being on the East coast I have seen before the grocery store runs for "milk and bread" for an impending snow storm which will likely be 3 inches , but this was unlike anything I experienced.

I went home and spent time with my son, never fully appreciating what was coming next. I was 31 weeks pregnant. On the next Monday, the daycares and everything shut down. My office immediately went to a remote model with only essential trips on campus for procedure days. I remember calling my patients and telling them we were using a true disaster triage model to decide whom would go for procedures and who wouldn't, in an attempt to save precious hospital beds and resources.

I remember watching the TODAY show and seeing women giving birth ALONE in NYC and PRAYING that that wouldn't be me. I remember fear that I would somehow get COVID-19 and be separated from my baby. I remember days of tears that I could not stop while clinging to my son. I remember feeling resentful that this was my experience after everything I went through to get pregnant.

My son's life changed next. He had to learn how to independently play while Mommy "took care of sick people" and Daddy took work phone calls. The hustle of being in multiple places at once had started and the balance of taking care of my patients but also being able to comfort my son was real. There was a day that I was changing him in the bathroom, and my son said, "What are we going to do today?" I replied, "Staying home, baby, and hanging out." To which he replied, "We did that yesterday and every day!"

I decided I needed to level with him and I told him the reason he was home was because there were bugs outside that were hurting people and we need to stay safe. To which he said, "Where are the bugs? I can't see any." To which I explained that because we don't see the bugs, that's what makes it so dangerous. We reorganized his life and expectations with Zoom calls with his preschool and friends, Zoom karate, and he even worked out with me during Zoom Zumba. We were creating a new normal.

I took pregnancy photos with a timer on a tripod instead of the large photo shoot I had planned in my mind. I had a Zoom shower and spent days in between working doing crafts with my son to document this time. My baby girl did come though despite it all. She met her mommy and daddy in a hospital with no visitors. She spent time alone with us for 4 days while I was recovering from my C-section. She was not able to meet her brother until we were home. This is not the perfect transition to a family of 4 that I had planned. She entered a world of masks and social isolation. I knew there would be close family and friends that she may not meet for months, or God forbid, years.

But one day it dawned on me. This perfectly imperfect story is my little girl's and she will have it to tell someday. I made a decision to search for the beauty in it all. I realized that I had 3 beautiful months with my son 24-7, that I haven't had since my pregnancy leave with him nearly 4 years ago. We got the time to evolve as a family without the distraction of running from house to house for everyone to meet our new little one. We received the gift of realizing how important our family and friends are and the influence they have on our family life. We received the ability to slow down and live in every moment.

As a front-line worker, I know my story is one of the lucky ones. I know there is a whole world of people who have experienced the loss of a loved one, and for that I am truly sorry. I still live in the fear everyday that I will bring COVID back to my family and change our lives forever.

COVID-19 has taken so much from us, but it did give us the ability to learn to be truly grateful. I am grateful for my family's health. I am grateful for science and that a vaccine was able to be made so quickly. I am grateful for Dr. Fauci and his endless work to ensure the public had the information that they needed to help mitigate risk. And most of all, I am grateful for my precious pandemic-born baby girl.

2020 is a year we will never forget, but I am grateful for the chaos of parenting in a pandemic. It taught me how to be a better parent and person. When I was attempting to be pregnant with my daughter I leaned on a Bob Marley quote: "Light up the darkness." I never could have known that she would come to a world in such dark times. But I know this too will end. For years her life may not look like I imagined it would. But at the end, there is beauty in the unknown and living a perfectly imperfect life.