My Musings

Crazy Thought of the Day

Logical (adjective): Expected or sensible, under the circumstances

Crazy thought of the day:

I need to catch Covid-19

No, this is not the suicidal confession of a mad woman, it’s the rational thought of a fairly logical one.

Today marks 9 months since Summer died. 9 months: enough time to have a baby, synonymous with it, in fact. I think it’s safe to say that back in March, I would have thought I’d have been pregnant again by now. So it’s no wonder my brain’s gone on this crazy path today.

One of the things that has struck me as quite ironic about this whole ‘journey’ is how for all three pregnancies, I’ve gone in for my first appointment with a midwife, only be to be told that I’m “low risk”. That’s because; I don’t smoke, I drink alcohol within moderation, I’ve never taken recreational drugs, I eat healthily, exercise regularly and my BMI is 22.5 (“normal” weight). I have no pre-existing medical issues, so I take no regular medication or supplements and I never see the GP. I am – from a medical perspective –  relatively low maintenance. I should be a textbook, straightforward pregnancy. Hence the irony: the only issues, investigations or surgery I have EVER had, have been in relation to baby loss and fertility.

I’ve been thinking about the Covid-19 vaccine and I’m a proponent for both it’s use and dissemination. I think it’s wonderful that the first non-trial developed world Covid-19 vaccine was administered, here in the UK to a 91 year old lady! I am thrilled that the first man to be vaccinated was 81 year old William Shakespeare – what a name and what an awesome fact of the day!

There have been many debates and surveys about whether people would take a vaccine, and as an advocate for it, my three personal reasons for taking one would be:

1) For the community aspect, so I don’t catch it and pass it on to others
2) So I don’t get ill and have a particularly bad reaction
3) I think having had the vaccine will become ‘the passport’ to be allowed to travel, in the short to medium term

Source: BBC

Given that in patient terms, I am lucky and medically low-risk, I’m not on the immediate list to be vaccinated – and rightly so. As I’ve said, there’s no reason for it to be rolled out to me. Here’s the kicker though: I’ve recently realised that I’m not going to be vaccinated in 2021 due to my fertility journey either.

Official guidance from the UK government currently states (as at 09/12/20):

  • If you are planning to get pregnant in the next 3 months, you should delay your vaccination.
  • If you know you are not pregnant you can start the two-dose course now and you should avoid getting pregnant until at least 2 months after the second dose.

I immediately read this and thought: this is another way my Life is On Hold. It’s a complete chicken-and-egg situation: you don’t get the vaccine, because you hope you’ll fall pregnant within 3 months, but then when you don’t get pregnant, you’ll have missed a perfect opportunity to take the vaccine. We’re already taking a one-year break, I don’t want to have to add another few months on top of that – not getting any younger here! And what if you can’t travel without a vaccine? What if my office won’t allow staff back in full-time, until they’ve taken the vaccine?

This made me think of a pregnant person I know. She’s very relaxed about her pregnancy. She’s frequently travelling through London to work in the office, when she could easily shield and work from home. When I asked her whether she was worried about her pregnancy and getting Covid, she replied “well, I’m fit and healthy, it should be ok”. Not gonna lie, stuff like this irritates me – this virus is brand new. We don’t really know how getting it can affect pregnancies / babies. It’s not really a risk I want to take.

Hence my opening thought: given that I am still healing from surgery and not medically allowed to try to conceive again, given that I wouldn’t want to catch Covid when pregnant and given that I won’t be able to get a vaccine (even when it’s rolled out to the general population) due to my wanting to start a family:

I need to catch Covid-19 in the next couple of months, just to get it over and done with.

What a completely bizarre state of affairs.


If you would like to receive email notifications of new blogs from this website, please sign-up here:


 

(2) Comments

  1. Claudia says:

    here, let me hold your hand while we sit this one out until one or the other happens x

  2. Karen Palmer says:

    Of course, you might have already had it and not noticed… Not that immunity necessarily lasts very long after infection ( longer after vaccine)… but I wonder whether, when you have reached the recovery stage after your op, it would be worth getting an antibody test…?
    And 9 months since your lovely Summer was born … still such early days but I wonder if it feels like forever as you’ve been through so much since then 💕 Much love to you xxx

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *