Day 4 Of Lockdown #COVID- 19

28th March 2020

Diary of a new mother 

My entire series of these 21 days will be based on my experience of being in this lockdown and staying home as a first-time mother of a 5-month-old baby, Anvay. 

Dear Diary,

Breathing in good health every single day is a boon for each one of us, now more, as we all are fighting an invisible enemy. We have heard of Swine-flu, H1N1, Ebola, Nipah, etc but never had any virus done such major damage to the entire world after the 1918 Spanish Flu, Influenza pandemic. An article by BBC gives a nice account of the history of pandemics. There are deaths happening in the world every day because of other diseases but this contagion is something that needs people to fight with. With health care professionals in the front line also being infected and vulnerable it sometimes reflects a dangerous dystopian future which we have seen in many movies. I wouldn’t want to discuss much on the statistics related to the death toll, positive case numbers, economy or the changing world because I guess the media is doing its job well. The newspapers have detailed coverage every single day on what is happening around. There have also been interesting movies like Contagion, Virus, Ebola, and documentaries like Pandemic, available on Amazon Prime and Netflix and have helped in delivering the message very strongly that not always what is shown in movies is fiction, the reality is not far away if ample precautions are not taken. 

I really wish all of this ends soon and there is a solution for this problem because as a healthcare professional myself I know how challenging it is to go do my duty post my maternity leave and also come back home to tend to an infant. Even though I won’t be in the frontline of defence, I will be working in a laboratory that is just adjacent to a COVID-19 testing lab. That thought makes me proud as well as a little jittery, but nevertheless listening to the song, Corona se darona ( Kutuki) made me feel good. I played it for Anvay as well. I know he won’t understand anything but the music and message behind the song is very good and the tune is entertaining as well. If we take ample precautions as prescribed by the guidelines we can definitely fight this unseen enemy. After playing this song and singing it many times to Anvay I felt better and shared it with many of my friends who have toddlers and are struggling to keep them engaged.

Today, Anvay slept pretty much well compared to the other days so I took out some time to make macaroni white cream pasta and also could make a WhatsApp video call to our friends who are in different parts of the city, country, and world. Since everyone was at home it was easy to check with their availability and connect with them.