This is a photograph of my best friend, my mother. In December of 2020, we went to Disneyworld and came back with Covid-19. I was barely pregnant at the time, but my Covid symptom was only a cough. This cough would only hurt my uterus, so when I started to miscarry, I wasn’t too surprised. My mom, on the other hand, thought that her muscles were sore from walking around the parks for a few days. She had a cough and a bit of a fever, but was still walking around the house as we quarantined together. She was cold, which only ever happened when she was sick. One day, she didn’t leave her room because she was struggling to catch her breath if she did too much. She had me turn the heater on for her because of how cold she was under her blankets and comforter. She had been keeping her C-PAP machine on to give her the extra air support, but when we checked her oximeter, it was only at 70. So I called the paramedics like she asked me to, they came, we met them at the door, her vitals were taken, and they said that I could take her to the hospital or they could. I told her that I would drive. I had to take her to the emergency room that was not in our normal network because that’s what was open. I took her there with the expectation of getting her transferred the next day. When we called, the other hospital couldn’t take her because all of their beds were filled. So, she stayed there, and I couldn’t be with her because they were trying to keep the spread down. She was texting and FaceTiming me for the first 4 days that she was in the emergency room. On the 5th day though, she stopped responding. I called the hospital and they told me that she had spoken to her doctor and they had decided to put her on the ventilator to give her body a break for a few days. It was not a few days. On day 39 of her being on the ventilator, they lowered her sedation medication and she had no eye movement. So, I told them to let my brother go in and say his second final goodbye and to call me when they had ended her fight the next day. They called and said that she took a few seconds off of the ventilator before they called the time of her passing. I was alone now. My dad passed away in 2006 and my brother was a technical part of my family, but it was just me and my mom in the house still. Now, it was just me. A year later, I lost my home because I couldn’t get a loan approval to buy out my brother’s half of the equity. At that time, I was pregnant again with the baby girl that my mom dreamt of me having. This child that she had planned to be overly involved with, to play with, to snuggle, to kiss, and to have memories and adventures with. But now, the nursery would be someone else’s room. A stranger. Covid-19 took my baby, my mom, my house, my stability, and my will to love. I have been able to love my baby girl, but I am always comparing myself to my mother and thinking about how she could’ve been the best grandma. How she would’ve helped me. How we would’ve traveled to so many places together. And now, I struggle to pay rent on a single room. I leave my child at daycare 5 days a week and try to keep her there for each meal in case I don’t have enough to feed her. And I hide away from a lot of socializing because my mom was my favorite person to hang out with.

I've written a story sharing our Covid trip to Iceland that we were able to take after the restrictions were lifted. I don't think we would have gone if the circumstances were different, it was a life-altering trip for us, something joyful in the midst of a world crisis.

It was Christmas of 2020, and my eighty-four-year-old Dad was really sick. Up until then he had been healthy. He worked out at the gym every day and always went for coffee at Starbucks afterwards. I call him every day, and I could tell he was under the weather, but he didn’t want to admit he had COVID-19. He was sick for several weeks but came over on Christmas Eve to have dinner with our family. I remember being slightly irritated that he did come over because we could have brought him dinner at his house and minimized exposure to everyone else. Fortunately, our family and my sister’s family did not catch it that year. Oddly enough, we wouldn’t catch it until the following year. I remember being sort of surprised that we didn’t catch it because everyone around us had it. When the gyms and restaurants and grocery stores all closed, I would walk around our subdivision everyday to continue my exercise routine and I noticed I was tired and had shortness of breath. I remember going in for my annual physical with a face mask on and telling my doctor my symptoms. I remember him saying that those symptoms were too early to be COVID-19 and was probably a milder version of the flu. I was doubtful due to being heavily exposed by my dad, as well as so many others who had no idea they had it but were technically “super-spreaders.” My sister’s family and our family caught Covid within a week or two of each other despite not having any contact and being vaccinated the prior year. My husband and I both opted for the Johnson& Johnson vaccination because it was traditional with just the one shot. Our friend, who worked with my husband also got the same vaccination. My husband and I were sick after the shot, but we knew from friends that we would be. It lasted maybe a night and then we felt better the next day. Our friend wound up in the hospital after her vaccination with a small intestinal blockage which she blamed on the shot. She stayed in the hospital for about a week, but other than some follow-up monitoring, she is ok. Shortly after that, we read in the news that several women had died from embolisms after receiving the vaccination. Our daughter, who has special needs, sees many doctors and I remember telling him that I just gotten vaccinated and now there was this complication. He was very reassuring and said that the women who had passed away probably had a serious and pre-existing condition. He told me to stay active for the next week or two and drink lots of water which I did, but it was the longest two weeks until we were cleared from the risk. We did end up catching Covid in February-March 2022. It had been a normal week. I went to the store, gym, did carpool, walked the greenway, but I felt slightly off all week long. I remember coming home and making dinner, but I was exhausted and told my husband that I was unable to have dinner with everyone that evening. Sure enough, I was running a low fever. I took an at-home COVID test, and my results showed I was positive within a few seconds. I immediately quarantined in our bedroom for the next several days. My husband caught it about a week later, but his symptoms were different than mine. He had a bad sore throat and was cold and shivering for a couple of days, and had a cough that lingered. Our daughter, who has severe Cerebral Palsy, caught it next but thankfully she only had mild symptoms for two days and recovered almost immediately. Our son caught it last, and he had a very bad sore throat for a week. We made it through, and consider ourselves fortunate that we recovered without long-term issues.

Shelby Kolar is a lifelong Eau Claire resident and Director of Nursing at a large long-term care facility in Eau Claire. In this interview, Shelby discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted her work and discusses how it has affected her family and friends. Shelby responded to my interview request because she felt it was important to share the high impact of COVID-19 on long-term care facilities and the geriatric population she cares for. Shelby highlights the emotional and mental toll of caring for the elderly during the pandemic and provides a deeper look into senior care as a whole. Shelby touches upon how her kids and husband managed the pandemic and the highs and lows of spending so much time together.

Heather Perrault is an Eau Claire, WI resident and currently works for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections as a parole officer. In this interview, Heather talks about her experience with COVID and how it affected her life as a stay-at-home mom/ pseudo-teacher for her kids as well as her job that she rejoined about halfway through COVID. She also talks about how COVID has affected her family and friends in terms of their physical and mental health and how the people she oversees as a parole officer may be affected by COVID as well. Heather also gives future generations advice on how she thinks they should look at information about the pandemic in the future.

Crystalina Peterson is a non-traditional University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC) student. Currently, in her fifth and final year of undergraduate work, she will graduate from UWEC at the end of December 2021 with her degree in Public History before going on to graduate school with the hope of becoming a professor. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, she moved to Barron, Wisconsin, near Eau Claire, for school. In this interview, Crystalina talks extensively about the challenges of motherhood during the pandemic especially when you have children in different households as well as mental health and how the pandemic had an impact on her and helped her better prioritize her health. She also talks about her experiences and involvement with the university, how the Covid-19 pandemic impacted that involvement, and how what she’s learned in college helped her better research and understand the pandemic. She also tackles the political climate that has heated up around the pandemic and how to handle those with differing opinions than your own.

Melinda Ruzich is a 20-year veteran kindergarten teacher from Hibbing, Minnesota, a rural town 229 miles (about 4 hours) north of Eau Claire. Melinda is also undergoing treatments for breast cancer, and she has been immunocompromised for the entirety of the pandemic. In her interview, Melinda discusses how her cancer treatments impacted her ability to teach during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 as well as how her job has changed over the past 20 months. Melinda shares how childhood development has evolved at the early childhood and kindergarten levels and how her role as a teacher has shifted. Melinda also discusses how parents and the public have interfered with her (and other teachers in her district) abilities to teach in schools safely. She discusses her school district’s mask mandate and the public’s response and pushback to vaccinations and masking in the small, rural community in Northern Minnesota.

Betsy Stangel continuously faces difficult challenges in her everyday job as a math teacher at Wausau East Highschool. But since the COVID-19 pandemic Betsy, in her later years of teaching, has had to adapt and mold not only her styles of teaching but many of her teaching standards to reach many of her students and their struggles with the virus. Betsy constantly must find new methods of interacting and engaging her class along with dealing with pressure from other school district staff. In addition, the new lazy “COVID lifestyle” that fellow teachers have been encompassing within students and their assignments could be in correlation to parents, guardians, and a vast majority of the American population’s tone towards returning back to work. This could explain why education has been such a rough adjustment back to the original five-day-a-week class schedule.

Wendy Vorpahl is from Gillett, Wisconsin which is a small town near Green Bay. She has four boys: Matthew, Mark, Aaron, and Adam who all fall on the Autism Spectrum with Mark and Aaron having classic/severe Autism. In this interview, Wendy talks about the impact the pandemic had on her small business and the small business around her, her family’s experience with all getting Covid at the end of 2020, as well as her thoughts and feelings about the vaccine and the handling of the pandemic. Matthew and Aaron also come into the conversation at a few points as Matthew answers some questions and Aaron can be seen and heard in the background.

Angela Nelson, a wife and mother of two, lives in Illinois on the Wisconsin border where she works from home as a Configuration management engineer. We discuss how COVID had affected her life, both work and personal, and her community, both local and statewide. She discusses what problems have occurred over the pandemic and what could have been solutions to help ease the problem.

Teresa Kirchner currently lives in Southeastern Alaska with her husband and three children. She is a nurse practitioner working in an outpatient clinic setting, providing primary care needs to rural Alaskan communities. She discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected her job, in both positive and negative ways. She shares many changes she has seen in her community during the pandemic, and how those changes affect the everyday lives of those who live there. She shares advice she would give to those in the future from what she has experienced during the pandemic and goes deeper into how Alaska in general has handled issues regarding the pandemic.

Jodi King is an eighth-grade math teacher and district mentor coach in the Kimberly area school district. Jodi was born and raised in the Kimberly area and discusses how the pandemic has affected her, her family, her students, and her coworkers. She shares her experiences throughout the pandemic, from the transition to online learning to adjusting to teaching in person during the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jodi also touches on some of the politics that were brought into educational discussions, such as mask mandates and vaccination status, as well as social justice issues that affect the way she teaches in her classroom today.

Deborah Jorgenson lives in Frederic, Wisconsin, and currently owns a salon in Hudson, Wisconsin. In this interview, Deborah discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected her life, business, and family. She shares the struggles of owning a business in an affluent area during the lockdown and is concerned that if another lockdown comes in the winter she will have to shut down in Hudson for good. She also talks about how she’s grown closer to her family during this time and is able to see them more often. She also touches on how it’s frustrating that her business had to shut down while bigger businesses were able to remain open and had fewer restrictions.

In this interview, Shae Havner discusses her experiences as a mental health therapist during the pandemic and the changes in her career and her clients. She talks about how the pandemic affects mental health, both positively and negatively, and the rise in domestic abuse cases. She also gives insight into how COVID-19 affected her home life as a mother and how the pandemic has affected her sons as well as what her family and friends did to have fun during the shutdown. She lives in Fall Creek, Wisconsin, and works in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and compares how the two cities responded to the pandemic. She also brings up vaccinations, the booster shot, and getting her children vaccinated.

Rebecca Lynn Ferber is a resident of Oronoco, MN, and currently works for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester as a CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist). In this interview, Rebecca talks about how COVID has affected her job as a CRNA and Mayo Clinic as a whole as well as a mom and wife. She also talks about how it has affected her family and friends and how some of her relationships have been strained because of different views on COVID. She touches on how it not only affects people's physical health but mental health as well and gives some advice for future generations.

Courtney Erickson is a single mother who lives in Chippewa Falls, WI with her four children, as young as kindergarten through 16 years old. In this interview, Courtney Erickson discusses her experience being a caregiver during COVID-19 while also balancing school and work and the difficulties that go along with those responsibilities such as overseeing her children’s Zoom meetings and working from home. She shares the ways the pandemic affected her family life, the health of those around her, as well as her struggles with recovering from addiction amidst the pandemic.

Terry Ehle lives in Two Rivers, Wisconsin with her husband, three daughters, and two foster boys. She works as a librarian at the local public library. In this interview, Terry discusses the struggles she faces during the COVID pandemic trying to juggle such a large family and their many extra-curricular activities. Her daughters are involved in musical theater, sports, and international travel- all of which have been impacted by COVID. She struggles to manage all of these different activities together, all while trying to be a good mother and a good employee. Because of her situation, she has had to take a lot of time off of work and has found herself working many nights and weekends to make up for the lost time.

Cheryl is just one of my many Eau Claire County residents who have been experiencing the many issues of COVID in the nursing home environment. But what makes Cheryl’s story unique is that throughout this pandemic she has seen three different outbreaks within her facility and just recently experienced Covid for the first time earlier this month. However, Cheryl claims that thanks to COVID nursing homes, especially her current facility, will never resort back to normal. Much like her potential to engage in therapy, COVID has halted many aspects of Health care’s motivational tone and instead turned into an isolation facility. Through her limited experiences with staff and her few conversations with family and her roommates, Cheryl has hit rock bottom a few times. Yet through her love of the holidays and association with such a supportive family, Cheryl continues through, what she predicts, to be the next major virus that will never leave.

When lockdown started, I was quarantining with my husband, our 2.5 year old daughter, and our elderly cat, Floofy. This series of images captures a year of my workspaces (March 16, 2020 to March 15, 2021). I worked all over our house. The living room when I was on kid duty. The porch when the weather was warm enough. A brand new desk when the porch got too hot. The bedroom when my husband, who had been laid of in March 2020, needed the desk to job hunt and eventually began doing off and on temporary work in December 2020. I returned to the office some of the time in September 2021. My husband is now fully employed again. Our daughter returned to pre-school in September 2020. Floofy died in January 2022. She had attended every work meeting with me.

I got married on April 4, 2020. We had planned 125 guests. I was so excited to celebrate with everyone. I remember hearing about covid in China in February and thinking that it was so far away I shouldn't worry. While my daughter was on Spring break everything started shutting down. At first it seemed temporary. Like it would just be a week or two. Just until things died down. Then local governments started getting strict as it became apparent how dangerous covid was. As the rules changed, I had to send apologetic emails disinviting guests due to limits on gatherings. We went from 125 to 100. Then it went to 75, 50, and 25. Each time it was agonizing figuring out who would be cut from our wedding. Finally it came down to just our parents, the pastor and his family, and the photographer. I got my wedding dress back from alterations the day the shop closed down to the public. We had the wedding in my parents' backyard. The pastor's children played guitar and sang. Our honeymoon was canceled a few days before the wedding because the small county in the mountains wasn't letting anyone in who wasn't local. We had a staycation for a honeymoon and played video games together.  We are a blended family. I often tell people we got married at the beginning of the pandemic. It was like "Congratulations on your new sister! You'll be with her 24/7 and never get away from her!" They quickly became sisters. They were each other's only playmate. At the same time they irritated each other just like normal siblings. It bonded them as sisters. It was hard for us when my step-daughter started kindergarten in the fall and my daughter started 2nd grade. We had alarms going off all day to try to manage their classroom google calls while my husband and I attempted to work from home. It was very stressful.  My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2020. At times they refused to allow my dad to accompany her to appointments. She was found crying in a hallway unable to get to the correct room. It was awful. I had to be so careful as my kids started hybrid school to not get her sick. It was hard to balance my kids' need for some stability and trying to be with my mom as much as possible. We made the decision to try for another child so my mom had the best chance at meeting her grandchild. I got to share my positive pregnancy test while visiting. It was such a happy moment in the midst of so much sadness. Adding to that stress was a difficult custody battle over my daughter. We couldn't have extra people at court to support me. My husband had to leave early to get the kids from school. Being left at the courthouse after testifying about how my ex abused me was one of the loneliest moments of my life. I had to take a Lyft ride back home and try not to break down in a stanger's car. My mother's condition got worse quickly. We were able to have a family reunion in June. I was nervous about so many people traveling in, but we needed to have mom see family again before something happened. My mom was admitted to the hospital at the beginning of July. I couldn't visit her because of being pregnant and the risk was too high to go to a hospital. My mom and dad supported this and wanted me to keep the baby safe. I had to record a goodbye message to play for her when she was awake. My mom passed on July 5th, 2021. Even at the funeral, I stayed in a separate room and had a friend read the eulogy remarks I prepared.  I had my youngest daughter in February 2022. We were limited on visitors, so only my husband and dad came to the hospital. So many day cares closed in the pandemic, we had a very difficult time finding child care. Despite getting on the list in early pregnancy, we couldn't start at day care until September. We had to use social media to find part time nannies and alter our work hours to cover child care until she could start day care. She actually just tested positive for covid yesterday after another child at daycare was positive earlier in the week. Thankfully she's vaccinated.  I've been through so much since the pandemic. I'm thankful for what I have, I crave rest. I'm worn out. I lost so much. No bridal shower. No honeymoon. No baby shower. No support for happy and sad moments. It's been really hard.

• I am by Profession a Part-time Instructor of Creative Writing. I received my master’s degree in creative Writing from Concordia University. Right now, sine the Coronavirus crisis hit, I have been a full-time Stay-at-Home Mom with our two lovely daughters, Emily 8 and Lisa 10! They have been having the hardest time since the Coronavirus Situation hit our Country. Many times, Emily will say to me ‘Mommy, I’m scared, when will this crisis end? I’m Sorry, because I really don’t know what to say to her, at that age!! When I was a little girl, we didn’t have to face such a crisis! The closest thing we had was in 1961, to hide under our school desks, during siren drills! • Mentally, lately I have, personally been having frequent bouts of Severe Depression, whereby I feel like crying a lot, but my daughters and my husband, Dennis, kisses me, comforts me and tells me not to Worry!! • My Father-in-Law has recently been admitted to the hospital, after he began having severe stomach pains, after helping my Mother-In-Law to lift several boxes of heavy furniture! He was in the hospital for a series of Tests, after which it was discovered that he had damaged his Kidneys and 1-2 months of Intense Physical Therapy, combined with daily Anti-Biotics! A Group of Ladies that I belong to at my Church, have been commenting, “Boy Melissa, you simply don’t seem like your Cheerful, jolly, Loving self, are you sure you are alright?? Is there anything that We can do to help you and Dennis? • I typically work Outside-the-Home, but lately, because of our two daughters, I have chosen to work remotely from Home! But their smiles 😉 make it all worthwhile!! • My Husband and I are both, definitely practicing Social Distancing!! My girlfriends All Admire the ‘Courage-Of-My-Conviction!’ They tell Me Openly that they feel that I AM TRULY ONE OF THE BRAVEST WOMEN THAT THEY KNOW!! Although Dennis and I have to frequently visit his parents only via Skype! This is often-times distressing! • Because of this, We hardly-Ever, if Ever, Go Outside Our Home, so We have had to cancel Running of All Errands, and We absolutely do no Travelling and Outside trips, (Except the get-the-mail), and So we Obviously pursue All of Our Leisure, Social Activities, and all such Celebrations like Thanksgiving, and Christmas, on-line via Zoom! • Personally, I Definitely think that the Government could have done a lot more in the wake of this Covid-19 GLOBAL PANDEMIC. Of course, I am relieved now that we are going to have a Wonderful New Administration in Washington, D.C.! I just hope to-GOD THAT THEY DO NOT “TAKE THEIR EYES OFF THE BALL!!” • As the Mother of two young girls, it pains me very much so just think about ‘what kind of future my daughters are going to have, if we fail once again to ‘Nip this crisis in the bud’? • Definitely, I am hopeful that as a World Community, we will all be coming much closer together!! This makes me smile too!

Like many other people who suddenly found themselves at home for an extended period due to the COVID-19 quarantines I picked up many new hobbies which have now become a part of my normal life. In March of 2020 I suddenly found myself unable to go into nail salons that had been closed as nonessential businesses. I found online advertisements for at-home dip powder nail kits and ordered to materials to turn my living room into a makeshift nail salon to do my own nails. The smell of a nail salon is distinctive, and I found that smell filling my living room every time I did my nails. Also in March 2020, my office shut down and the entire staff was sent to work from home. At the same time my kids’ school was also closed and they were sent home for virtual classes. My quiet private office at work was traded for my noisy house with dogs barking, teachers teaching over Zoom, and kids in group videos talking with their friends. With all our usual reasons to leave the house gone I found little escape from the chaos that was now a typical day at work in my house. Looking for a reason to get out of the house I took up running. A few days a week I would head outside for a quiet neighborhood run trading in the sounds of Zoom calls with teachers and kids for the occasional neighborhood bird. Over two years later and life has returned to a version of what we used to call normal. Nail salons are open, I am back to working in my office, and my kids are back to learning in their classrooms. However, some of these hobbies I picked up out of necessity have found their way into my life permanently. I still do my own nails at the house, turning my living room into a nail salon every other weekend. I still go for neighborhood runs a few times a week either before or after a day at the office. While these have become fixtures in my life now, the smell of a nail salon in my living room still reminds me of the earliest quarantine days and when I head out for a quiet neighborhood run, I still recall the peaceful feeling that brought me when life at home was becoming too stressful in 2020.

Most people probably don’t think of belly buttons when they think of a pandemic. They likely also don’t think of the South African Activist Miriam Makeba. However, when I consider the earliest days of covid, those days before I realized I would be teaching online for an extended time, or that my Varsity Lacrosse players whom I had coached through their careers would never step on a field for our 2020 season, my life was all about belly buttons and a song called Makeba by a French Singer-Songwriter. In April of 2020, schools in Michigan closed, sending me home with every other educator to figure out online teaching. Also at this time, my daughter, Edie, was just over one year old. She was very fond of her “Beluh-but’n” (bellybutton) and ran around the house proudly showing hers off, thinking she was hilarious. To her credit, it was hilarious, and also adorable. She had recently heard the song Makeba by Jain on a BMX video featuring my husband from when he used to ride professionally, and it became her anthem. Even at three years old, she still requests Makeba in the car, though today it is second to David Bowie or Vampire Weekend these days. She would dance to it on repeat, her little feet on her ABC play mat making a sticky pitter-patter, her arms swinging wildly, and her diapered baby butt dropping low like she was in a nightclub. She was, and still is, one of the funniest little humans I have encountered. The attached sound clips are recorded from a video of Edie, my daughter, strumming my guitar on its stand, while singing her version of Makeba. These videos are some of my favorites, her head bobbing and bum wiggling with her music. These are the sounds that filled my house and my heart throughout those first weeks of quarantine, and they still bring me nothing but immense joy and thankfulness. Covid for me meant more time at home with her. I was there when she woke up, we spent much of our days outside in the warming spring weather, and I nursed her and tucked her in for naps and at bedtime. We were lucky, we did not face financial crisis or unemployment, nor did we or our loved ones fall seriously ill. The result was time at home together as a family. While the restrictions and isolations of covid did mount over time, and stress of restrictions were certainly felt during my second pregnancy for my baby boy born in May of 2021, by and large, our lives just kept moving. We adjusted, we kept a small circle of trusted friends and family, and we were cautious. But when it came down to it, covid to me will always be marked by extra time with my daughter, time that I would not have had if the pandemic did not change everything about our lives. I wouldn’t trade the extra moments of her laughter, dancing, snuggles, or silliness for the world.

This is a news story from The New York Times by Catherine Pearson. Due to the nationwide baby formula shortage, new methods of obtaining milk have come about. One of those ways is sharing extra breast milk. There is some risk involved in getting donor breast milk. Informal sharing means that it won't get checked for things like HIV or hepatitis B. There are some health benefits to using donor milk though. One of them is immunity to COVID. For example, mothers who have been infected with COVID or have received the vaccine can pass down those antibodies to babies through their milk.

It started for me when I returned from a business trip in Europe in March 2020. I had to fly through Germany to get home. Early in the pandemic a new country got added to the no-fly list. When I got back home, I went to work for a few days and then was told from my manager that Germany just got put on the list that if you have been there, you had to quarantine, so I couldn't come to work even though I had already been there for 3 days. So, I worked from home the rest of the week. The next week was spring break and I had it off anyway. We had plans to go to Disneyland. We decided to go and had a two-day pass. We went to the park Thursday and were resting Friday and planned to use our second pass the next day when we got notified through the Disney App that the next day would be the last day the park would be open. Almost 10 minutes later our church sent an email that services would be cancelled for the foreseeable future. My husband and I decided it was best to go home even though we still had a day at Disney. It was sinking in that this wasn’t just a few days of inconvenience. It was serious and we should head home. The next few months were hectic, scary, annoying and lonely. My son was in kindergarten and had to miss a lot of first milestones. School at home for a Kindergartner was a joke, but the time we got to spend time together as a family was nice. My work was accommodating and provided everything I needed at home. Two years later I am still working from home. I gained 15 pounds but I am back to what I was when this all started. Things are getting back to normal now, but inflation is insane and the supply chain is a nightmare. I spent some of the evening today searching for formula for my sister-in-law in Utah. A formula shortage. Something as vital as feeding babies is hard to find. Additionally, Russia invaded Ukraine just over a month ago, so even though the pandemic has settled down, the world hasn’t. God bless us.

This text was meant to capture the feelings surrounding my life while pregnant during Covid. It is a bit unstructured, but so was the Covid-19 experience.

In this story I share how life changed for all people. How the pandemic changed lives and how lots of people experienced loss in significant ways. In this contribution I shared a reflection on my experience at the start of the pandemic and how life is post the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.

It's been over two years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and I’m beginning to doubt that life will ever go back to what we once knew. Even with restrictions lightened, things are far from “normal”. A lot has changed in my life during this time and the pandemic has come with many struggles. One of the biggest of these for me has been raising young children in our new modern world. My kids are at a curious age where they’d like to explore their world and see new things, an age where social interaction is especially crucial. When COVID first struck I had a young son so I found myself with the concern of not only my health but his as well. In June of 2021 I had my second child, and while I am so grateful for this new addition to our family, having a baby mid-pandemic is tough. I experienced the same obvious concerns for my child's health once again. No parent wants to imagine their child with any illness. I remember feeling so paranoid that they would end up getting sick, or that myself or my fiance would catch it and eventually pass it along to them. It took two years for us all to catch it, but we did, and it sucked. In the beginning it was scary, most people had no idea what we were dealing with. The idea of a life threatening virus was horrifying and caused mass confusion. I found myself with a mask on my face and a bottle of hand sanitizer as well as some Lysol wipes in my pocket at all times. I was afraid to take my son in public because I didn’t want him to be exposed. With time, the paranoia has died down while remaining vigilant to combat germs but still I wonder if this is the new “normal”.

My story touches on the importance of who holds the power over your life. Ultimately it is written to give an account to future generations so we never go back there again.

This is an Instagram post by asianyouthcenterorg. This post is giving information on vaccinations and pregnancy. It says that Pfizer and Moderna are the most recommended vaccines for expecting mothers.

This is a news story from Scary Mommy by Samm Burnham Davidson. This is a story written from the point-of-view of someone who has experienced some of the negative social effects of COVID. She says that before the pandemic, social media posts that annoyed her would only be mildly so, but with COVID and lockdowns, she started to feel senses of inadequacy compared to other parents. She thought that she needed to overhaul her entire wardrobe, her son should get ice skates, and that her four-year-old needs to learn to ride a two-wheeler bike. She has three young kids, and a 2020 baby. She describes feeling very isolated and the exposure to social media made her feel like she had to measure up to some imaginary standard of parenting, like trying to forgo all plastic toys for Christmas to help the environment. This is a good story for the perspective of mothers with many kids to take care of, resulting in even more isolation than what would happen for adults with no kids, as kids caused her to stay home more even before COVID.

Back in April 2020, just after the whole Covid-19 outbreak began, it was probably one of the worst days of my life. For starters, I'm the son of one of the greatest mothers on this talent, I love my mother so much and would put anything aside for her every need. My mother's birthday is April 8th, so it's actually coming up this Friday, which is why I share this story with you. During the covid outbreak and til this moment, I have never had a positive covid test, not saying I may or might've not had it is beyond me. Unfortunately during the start of the outbreak in the Houston area, my mother was one of those unlucky people who caught covid early on and what made it worse was, it was about 2 days before her birthday. She was miserable from several illnesses attacking her body all at once, and there was nothing we could do for her except pray and wait. My mother laid in bed on her bday the entire day, she was running a fever, shivering from chills, and throwing up nearly every hour. She lost a lot of weight from this incident too and I was appalled by it all. On her birthday, I sat right outside her bedroom door the entire day and just talked with her while each of us wore a mask to try and prevent the spread within our own house. I would do anything for my mom, and I could tell that me staying with her all day to keep her company was something she most definitely enjoyed!

This is a news story from The Columbus Dispatch by Megan Henry. This story is about the rising fears of new mothers as COVID has increased their chances of dying. In 2020, motherhood mortality rate increased by 20% in the United States. There were also large disparities in who died, with Black women dying three times the rate of White women during pregnancy. Dr. Jason Melillo, an OB-GYN for OhioHealth claims that COVID is the main culprit for the rise in pregnancy related deaths. Pregnant women are more prone to complications from COVID, with things such as blood clots, stillbirth, and preeclampsia happening more often. This concern has made some couples only deciding on pregnancy until they have both been vaccinated. Dr. Melillo hopes that over time, mortality rates associated with pregnant women will go down.

A comic strip about Covid-19

This is an opinion piece by Erin Loder for the Pacific Daily News. This opinion piece details the benefits that COVID-19 has brought for working mothers. Loder, a working mother herself, describes having a more flexible schedule to help take care of kids. She says that in the workforce, women often get penalized for having kids much more often than men do, and with working from home, she is allowed to take more time for her kids and save money by not having to pay for daycare as often. Overall, she sees this as a positive turn for working mothers, since the pandemic has given women opportunities to raise their families more as they work. I found this opinion piece a nice take, as it brings out some of the positives women have experienced due to changes having to be made in work-life balance for many people out there.

When my son started Kindergarten remotely in August of 2020, I was required to work remotely for the first time ever. It was the hardest year for both myself and my son. Being that it was his first school year, I needed to split my time between fulfilling my job requirements and helping him learn how to use the computer properly.

On March 25, 2020 Governor Polis ordered a state-wide stay at home order for Colorado. By this time, my family was already limiting our time outside the house to work or errands. My daughter, Kat, has severe asthma, so we knew we had to limit our exposure as much as possible. Previous midnight trips to the emergency room were full of her wheezing out tiny gulps of air, the beeps and blips of the machine keeping track of her heart rate, and the guttural growl of the blood pressure cuff as it tightened around her arm. These were the sounds I first heard when the stories of a new, novel virus came out, the sounds that stayed most in my mind the more I heard about rising cases. The first week in April the movie theater where Kat worked closed down. My son, Gabe, left his job a few days later. I cried that day, not from sadness but relief. And not a quick cry, but the loud sobs that make your shoulders shake. The next day was a major shift for us. Instead of leaving the house to work, they came to work for me instead. My cross stitch shop was already a full-time business. Now that many people were staying home, the US saw a return to basics (baking and crafting), and my shop exploded with more orders than I could fathom. There is something that satisfies most of us in having that tactile experience, whether it be the feel of flour (soft and powdery) as you knead your bread or the stabstab of your needle piercing your fabric. Though there was the stress of craft stores closing and supply chain delays, long work hours, and boxes of hoops stacked in the living room, there was mostly the sound of the Beatles and loads of laughter. Kat has a high-pitched giggle (she snorts when she really gets going), Gabe a deep laugh rich in tone. Someone came up with the adage that laughter is the best medicine. I couldn’t say who created the saying, but the sound of laughter in my house during the April 2020 lockdown in Colorado kept myself and my children in positive spirits. In fact, our lives have been forever changed by that April. They are back to their old jobs, but we still keep mostly at home and with each other. We have family game nights and cook together and keep the laughter going strong.

I gave birth to my first child two months into the COVID-19 pandemic, and so to me, memories of this time are centered around life as a new parent. Because we live in a different state than most of our family, and because we had a newborn (whose immune systems are not well-developed the first several weeks of life) in a global pandemic, we did not go anywhere. I had a few months off of work and school to care for my son, so my experience of COVID-19 to that point was time spent just with my son. As any parent knows, those first few weeks are an exhausting blur consisting of the never-ending cycle of feeding your baby, changing them, and helping them sleep. But the sensory memories from this time of my life that have stuck with me the most involve the feeling of holding my baby; feeling his head on my shoulder, hearing his tiny little breaths and occasional squeaky coos in my ear, noticing the sweet smell of his baby shampoo on his head, feeling him stretch and reposition from time to time. Though it seemed like the days when he would sleep independently would never come, little did I know how quickly they would, and how much I would miss these quiet moments. When he started getting the hang of napping, I suddenly had these open stretches of time in my day, which I was not used to. What to do to fill this time, especially in the midst of a pandemic and with a baby to boot? Like many people, I developed a baking hobby while my little one napped. Now I associated his nap time with the sticky feel of flour and butter on my hands as I kneaded dough for soda bread, the smell of buttery, sugary deliciousness coming from the oven as scones were baking. On my husband’s birthday, I produced my most time-consuming bake so far: a strawberry rhubarb pie. This one required some cooperation on the part of my little guy, whose giggles I heard as he batted at toys in his baby swing while I chopped and prepped the filling and made the pie crust. The finished product wasn’t necessarily perfect, but I was proud of it, and the memory of making it will always stick with me since it is a representative snapshot of that moment in time, a few months into a global pandemic with my young son.

Interview with Kasie Meyers by Jack Halls. In this interview, Kasie Meyers discusses how COVID has impacted her role as a nurse and the changes she and her colleagues face. She also discusses her journey as a student and how covid has impacted her studies, she touches on her role as a mother and the difficulties that have been heightened because of the pandemic. She expresses how her relationships with friends and family have changed and also discusses her view on the government and its handling of the pandemic.

Cassie Nyhus was born and raised in Hayward, Wisconsin. She now lives in Bloomer, Wisconsin and works in Rice Lake, Wisconsin in the Radiology department. In this interview Cassie dives deep into what it’s like to work in the healthcare field during a pandemic and her experiences firsthand with the people she has seen and the way these events have changed her workplace. She also touches on her thoughts on people’s rights during this pandemic, and talks heavily about her own personal situation of the stresses that come with being pregnant and soon to be a mother during a global pandemic.

Parmjit Kaur Singh is a hard-working immigrant from Punjab, India. She came here when she got married and had two boys by the name of Harpreet Singh and Gurpreet Singh. She currently lives in Eau Claire, Wisconsin with her family and owns a convenience store in town. She enjoys drinking tea, watching Indian soap operas, gardening, and spending time with her family. In this interview, she gives her thoughts on Covid-19, its impact on her business, and also how it has been devastating to her native country of India.

Catherine Lee may have been born in Maine, but she currently lives in Eau Claire, Wisconsin with her husband and two kids. She works at the Center for International Education at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and discusses how COVID-19 has affected that job, along with her family life and mental health. She shares how living through the pandemic with her family has changed her views on what is important and how she sees the future of her job. She also talks about her children in school and why she was glad to see her daughter go to kindergarten. Catherine shares that she urges more people to get vaccinated.

Jody Pabich lives in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and works as a senior safety manager at the corporate office of a nationwide big box retailer. Jody directly handled all of the COVID-19 protocols for her company across the country, and talks about how counties, states, and the country have been handling the pandemic differently. She explains how her family and friends have dealt with COVID-19, addressing health concerns about her daughter, mental health concerns about her friends, and the politics and distrust of media. She describes how her community has come together to support each other and local businesses. She also discusses her experience with and concerns about the vaccines. She talks about how her experiences have made her value life and experience more than she did before COVID-19.

March 19th 2020 started off as a very normal day, I very clearly remember dropping off my son at school and heading into the office for work. I was a Senior Purchasing Agent at a fairly large IT solutions company and we were busy preparing for the Fiscal Year End as it was only a week and a half away. At around 10 am, my phone buzzed, I looked down and noticed it was an email notification from my son’s school which was fairly uncommon during school hours. I quickly opened it up and saw that the schools were going to be shut down for two whole weeks, which was absurd to me at the time, I had never heard of such a thing happening. I quickly let my supervisor know in hopes of being able to work from home. At the time we were piloting working from home one assigned day per week to see if we could make it a long term perk. She quickly approved me to stay home with my son, I am a single mother, and we all know how expensive childcare in California is. Moments later, I heard everyone who was in the office shuffle into the breakroom to watch a press conference on the news. President Trump was on the podium announcing that he was issuing a “Stay at home” order for the whole country. I immediately got chills down my spine and was in complete panic wondering how dangerous the Covid-19 virus truly was. I then quickly grabbed my phone to text in my family’s group text to check in on them. We all thought that it was absurd but understood that it was for everyone’s safety. Next, there was panic in what seemed like every corner of the United States, as almost no one had enough supplies to cover their entire families for two weeks without going to the stores. This caused complete havoc! For some reason, the hot commodity at the time was toilet paper. It was flying off the shelves and obsolete for some time. My mother and I went to stand in line the next morning at 4:45am in hopes of getting enough food and basic necessities to last our family. Upon arrive at the store about five minutes later there were a hundred people in line waiting for the store to open. Inside the store, people were dashing to get whatever they could and manners were completely out the window. It seemed very apocalyptic. Little did we know that the lockdown would not end for six months. I personally lost an aunt and very good family friend to the virus. Even today, December 10th, 2021, there are mask mandates, and now variants of the virus. Although there is only a vaccine, not a cure, we are learning how to safely navigate life again.

My name is Niki, I'm 38 and live in Clovis CA. In March of 2020, I was about 8 and a half months pregnant with my son, Tate. I went to school part time, majoring in Early Childhood Development. I was also a stay at home Mom to my then 3 year old daughter, Quinn. She’s my driving force in school because she is on the autism spectrum. In March she was just beginning to talk and have real words,and her brother was coming, it was an exciting time. My husband Mike, is what they call an over the road trucker. Meaning he was gone all week and home for 30 hours over the weekend. The situation was not ideal for us, but it worked to give me the freedom to be with Quinn to take her to the therapies she needed. Then Covid came to the US. Everyone was forced inside. School shut down. The daycare closed. All therapies were put on hold. Everyone was told to wear a mask and sanitize everything. My baby shower was canceled too many people, myself included, were too scared to get together. Mike was not allowed to come home, in fear of being exposed or exposing us. He had to stay on the truck and keep delivering supplies. Then the hospital called and said I needed to prepare that the beds might fill up in the maternity wards with Covid cases and I might need to do a home birth. Could I find someone to assist me ? I had no one! We had only lived here for a year and I haven't made many friends. I had my Mom but she’s older, not able to deliver a baby and quarantined for her health. My sister lived kinda close but she was with her family and was quarantined like everyone else.I had my three-year-old who only had 4 real words !! Then the hospitals call and say “ Don’t worry you can give birth here, no one can be with you and we might take your baby from you right away and keep them from you for about two weeks to make sure they dont have Covid '' Um No ! Home birth sounds good right about now. I had the worst dreams up until my son’s birth. Thankfully, there were beds open in the maternity ward. Thankfully my husband's dispatch got him home just in time for Tate’s arrival. The hospitals allowed one support person in the room for the birth, so he was there. It was the scariest experience. I begged everyone to not take my baby. The hospital didn’t look like a hospital. Everything was covered in white plastic from ceiling to floors. Everyone had on masks and face coverings. It was a scene from a scifi movie.It was one of the scariest times of my life. Amidst all the chaos and stress my beautiful chunky completely healthy son made his entrance into this world on April 29th, 2020. We stayed in the hospital for two days and no one took him from me. I made sure of that. We went home and adjusted to life with a newborn and living with Covid like everyone else. Its been a year and a half and the hospitals have not changed the rules about only allowing one support person in the delivery room. I try to share as much information to expecting mothers as I can. There are no in and out privileges anymore.Once you are in the hospital, you have to stay there. You need to pack snacks! Or you can have food delivered to the hospital. Still can't have visitors. Have an extensive “go bag” ready for when it’s time to go. I hope with all the advances with the vaccine and lowering cases and people being more conscious of their health the hospitals will relax a little on the support team numbers for expecting moms soon. That’s my Covid19 share.