I became a new mom during the pandemic. Here’s how I found peace and connection

After years of trying to grow our family, we welcomed a healthy baby boy in May of 2020. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would have my long-awaited newborn in the middle of the largest global crisis our generation has ever known.

And that feels very heavy to say. But the pandemic was a heavy thing. And becoming a mother has been a beautiful, but a heavy thing. Both experiences were very isolating, and the combination of the two was staggering for me. But now that we are regaining some normalcy, here are a few things I found that helped me find connection and peace in the midst of isolation and uncertainty.

I often worried about my little boy and his social development because he spent most of his earliest days very isolated from others. It was just the two of us at home, and our house was very quiet during the day. He only had a handful of interactions with more than two people at a time for almost the first two years of his life.

But in December 2020, I decided that I want to be more intentional about praying out loud. And maybe it was silly, but if my baby only heard the voices of my husband and me, I wanted him to hear us talking to him, talking to each other, and talking to God. And I attribute my best, most (relatively) peaceful days to those mornings when I started my day with a verbal prayer while my baby was nearby.

In a 2009 General Conference talk, President Thomas S. Monson said, “To those within the sound of my voice who are struggling with challenges and difficulties large and small, prayer is the provider of spiritual strength; it is the passport to peace. . . . Miracles are wrought through prayer.”

As a new mother to a young child, “challenges and difficulties large and small” basically felt like my daily life, and a “passport to peace” was a welcome respite and a treasured blessing for me. And maybe that will make a difference for the little boy sleeping in my arms, too.

This is true all the time for parents, but I think it was especially important while in the middle of a global crisis. I tried to really cut myself some slack because so much of our “normal” lives were anything but normal.

The 2020 general conference talk from President Joy D. Jones felt especially poignant. She said, “Women wear many hats, but it is impossible, and unnecessary, to wear them all at once. The Spirit helps us determine which work to focus on today.”

And Sister Sharon Eubank’s 2018 BYU Women’s Conference address also rang true for me: “It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all we are asked to do, but doing better doesn’t always mean doing more. You don’t have to do it all, you are never done, and you can be okay with that. As we seek the Lord’s will and strive to do it, we are assured that every small effort is accepted.”

Midway through the pandemic, I really tried to be more intentional about taking a step back and acknowledging that these “many hats” I was wearing were. (and still are) incredibly challenging. With motherhood has come a huge identity shift, and with the pandemic, most of our societal norms went out the window. Comparing my life now to my life pre-pandemic, almost everything has been turned on its head. Remembering that makes it a lot easier to be at peace with my mental, physical, and emotional limitations and, like Sister Eubank says, do more to “seek the Lord.”

Being so isolated with a new baby and in the midst of a pandemic, I found myself retreating to social media to find just a sliver of connection with others. But some of it had an adverse effect on my life. All its political unrest, violence, and hate we saw for those two years—not to mention the isolation, frustration, and added stress that came with the pandemic—made social media a hotbed of emotional posting. On top of that, the idealized reality and debilitating comparisons that Elder Gary E. Stevenson talks about aren’t all that helpful for a struggling new mom.

With Elder Stevenson’s counsel that success in life comes from meaningfully connecting with others and adding light to their lives, I tried to make my media usage less about mindless scrolling and more about the real reason I go there in the first place: connection. I intentionally did more to engage with people. I spent more time on social media platforms that are strictly for sending messages to others. I called friends and family. I video chatted with loved ones across the country. And I let my little guy share the screen so he would start to recognize faces and so others could celebrate him and his growth with me even from afar.

I recently came across this beautiful quote from President Thomas S. Monson:

I can’t think of a time in my life when discouragement and frustration were so universally widespread. But service has always been a great antidote to fear and low moments in my life, and I’ve been grateful for the promptings I received to serve others—even in my currently very limited capacity—because it did (and does) always make me feel a little bit lighter.

I love the quote from President Henry B. Eyring’s district president that he shared in a 2018 conference talk: “Hal, when you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble, and you will be right more than half the time.” That feels especially, if not more, true now.

I have lots of feelings about the pandemic, as most of us probably do. I feel loss over the people my baby didn’t get to meet, the events we had alone instead of surrounded by loved ones, the things we dreamt of doing with our new baby that we simply couldn’t. I still feel sadness that those closest to me barely knew my son as a baby, and I feel resentment that so many first-time mom and new baby experiences were taken from us. And—maybe more than anything—I still worry how the COVID-19 pandemic and isolation and the very different nature of my baby’s important first year of life will permanently affect him and his future.

And then I have to take a step back. Because years from now, we will all mourn the things we lost, and we will all be forever affected by the events of the pandemic. I have a sister who was denied a formal graduation ceremony from an impressive graduate program after years of hard work. I know people who had weddings canceled or pared down to a fraction of what was planned to accommodate social gathering limitations. And then I have friends who lost loved ones to COVID-19, and, on top of devastating loss, were denied an opportunity to honor and celebrate the lives of those important people in what we would call a “normal” way.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s talk from last October general conference was one of my favorites. He said, “COVID and cancer, doubt and dismay, financial trouble and family trials. When will these burdens be lifted? The answer is ‘by and by.’ And whether that be a short period or a long one is not always ours to say, but by the grace of God, the blessings will come to those who hold fast to the gospel of Jesus Christ. That issue was settled in a very private garden and on a very public hill in Jerusalem long ago.”

I’ve since found peace, not in comparing losses or having a “well, someone always has it worse than you” attitude but letting myself mourn those important missed opportunities, and not dwelling on, but acknowledging and respecting my own emotions surrounding a globally hard experience, and giving my heaviest pains and sorrow over to the Savior.

On that same note, the hymn “Count Your Blessings” is full of wise counsel, and I truly have so much to be grateful for. Like Hannah, “For this child I prayed,” and he is a wonderful, beautiful blessing. If nothing else, I will always be grateful that 2020 brought him into our lives (one upside to isolation was that I didn’t have to share his best snuggles and giggles).

And while I might not yet be “singing as the days go by,” as I’ve done more to remember the things God has blessed me with, my doubts have started to fly, and I have been personally blessed with more peace, more hope, more courage, more patience, more compassion, and more love. And all those attributes are things the world—and any new mom—could certainly use more of.

Lead image by Rachel Henderson Photography

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on LDSLiving.com in January 2021.