Fatigue

"Have you experienced any symptoms associated with the novel coronavirus?" A young staff member asked as she scanned my forehead with a digital thermometer. "Coughing, fever, nausea..." The lower half of her face, like mine, was concealed behind a blue surgical mask. "Fatigue...?"

I shook my head, no, as she reached down to scan the forehead of my newborn son, asleep in his stroller. I couldn't answer any differently, or we'd be late to his well-check appointment. But in truth, the word fatigue didn't even begin to cover it.

One month earlier, I'd stumbled through those same automatic doors on hands and knees, roaring like a wild animal, my nightgown soaked in embryonic fluid. The hospital lobby had been deserted after-hours except for me and my husband, who'd crouched beside me and begged me not to have the baby on the floor. I'd alternately waddled, lunged, and crawled down the long hallway, past a row of wheelchairs that had been cordoned off, unhelpfully, until they could be sanitized according to COVID-19 requirements, and finally crawled up onto the triage table. By the time my husband had been cleared through the Labor and Delivery ward's extra COVID-19 security checks, I'd already pushed our son out into the world.

Now, as I pushed the baby's stroller toward the Pediatrics ward, my phone dinged. A text message from my mother read: "Thinking of you, Sweet Pea! How's my little grandson's appointment going?"

She'd been pestering me more than usual since the baby's birth, always wanting a picture or an update about his sleep. COVID-19 travel restrictions prevented her from flying across the country to visit, and she was devastated that after a month, she still hadn't met her grandson.

I considered answering her question truthfully. Fatigued, I typed into the message box. But I changed my mind. I deleted the text and returned my phone to the diaper bag without responding.

The chairs in the Pediatrics waiting room had been set up six feet apart from each other, for social distancing purposes, but all of them were empty. A gloved staff member behind a glass partition handed me a laminated questionnaire and a dry-erase marker with which to complete it, after wiping both down with disinfectant.

I gingerly lowered myself into a chair and used the dry-erase marker to check the appropriate boxes on the questionnaire. Most of the questions were about the baby's health and the ways we cared for him, but the final question asked me to rate my own mental health on a Likert scale. Over the past month, it wanted to know, how often had I experienced restlessness? Inability to concentrate? Lack of enjoyment? Fatigue?

I looked over at the baby slumbering with a mix of fondness and envy. The word fatigue meant nothing to him. Of course, wakeful nights were to be expected with a baby in the house, and we'd already gotten through long periods of sleeplessness with his older sister. But the heavy blanket of exhaustion that tugged at the corners of my consciousness, threatening to suffocate me, was born from more than a lack of sleep.

We'd been on lockdown in the state of California for six months, my three-year-old daughter's school was still shuttered, and I was more confident than ever in my lifelong aversion to full-time, stay-at-home parenthood. My family had been relatively lucky during the pandemic in that none of us had contracted COVID-19, nor had we lost our source of income due to statewide business closures, but my husband's job in the financial sector meant that his workload had increased due to his clients' stress. Since neither of our parents lived nearby and it was too risky to hire help, I'd taken on all childcare responsibilities.

As I'd grown more and more pregnant, the days spent entertaining a toddler on lockdown had grown longer and longer, and I'd become resentful. With no time alone to write and my creative projects on hold, I'd begun to worry that instead of giving birth, I might burst forth from my own body.

Worse than the resentment, though, was the sense that I was wrong for feeling it. I wanted to be grateful for the extra time with my daughter, when she would have otherwise been in school. I wanted to be the kind of mother my mother had been for me, but it wasn't coming naturally, and I didn't know how to force it.

The diaper bag dinged, and I put the questionnaire aside, annoyed at my mother for texting again. But when I read her message, I regretted having ignored her. It was as if she'd read my mind.

"I'm sorry," she wrote. "I should have asked how YOU are doing. I'm so very proud of you, Super Mom!"

The tone of her message was playful, but behind my surgical mask, I bit my lip to keep from crying. I'd never shared my insecurities with my mother, since I'd assumed she wouldn't understand; even I hadn't realized how desperate I'd been for reassurance. Maybe there was no such thing as a Super Mom, but I was doing my best and if my own mom was proud of me, then I could keep going.

"Thanks, Mom," I responded. "That means a lot. Can I call you later?"

I finished filling in the questionnaire's Likert scale. Over the past month, how often had I experienced fatigue?

Most days, I answered honestly. But next month would be different.