Ahhhh, naive Alex. Remember this post of mine from last March thinking COVID was just being blown out of proportion?!? Gosh how I wish I was right.
Here we are nearly 11 months later and we are still very very much in a pandemic and battling COVID every.single.day.
I haven't actually written a ton on COVID since probably last summer because, well, it's fucking depressing. It's been such a tough, emotionally-draining year in so many regards and while blogging has always been my outlet, I just haven't felt compelled to write about my COVID thoughts. Mostly because I've been so exhausted and so so so frustrated with restrictions (at the hospital, tanking my birth clients' birth snaps this past year) and not being able to do like ANYTHING that gah, I just haven't had the motivation to write about it.
Until now.
Last week something magical happened...
I got my first COVID vaccine!!
And I truly could not have been happier. And, being totally transparent, the day after the vaccine I had some body aches (mostly my arms and legs felt like I worked out too hard) and then the next day I had the worst headache of my life (but thanks to ibuprofen it wasn't too bad) -- but gosh, I'll take these symptoms because I know it's my body churning up immunity to fight off COVID if it comes close.
But after I shared ^^^ that pic on social media, I got a few {snarky} messages basically being like "WOW. Didn't know photographers were top of the line for the vaccine right now."
And that killed me.
Like SO MUCH. Because a friend had just sent me this article which was spot on and made me feel much better about getting my vaccine when it was offered to me...and then I was met with some not so thrilled messages on social media.
I then took back to social media to address these overall...
Today gave me so much hope. In oh-so-many ways. But I literally was bursting with happiness when that needle poked into my arm — because I finally felt a little sigh of relief (tbh won’t feel the even bigger one till like a month from now when that 95%+ immunity is in full force) after such a wild and crazy and heartbreakingly past 10+ months. And I’m not in healthcare - so why did I get the vaccine in January when it’s so early in its roll out?! Because babies don’t wait. Babies are being born every single day and COVID or not, their stories are needing to be documented, even amongst visitor restrictions. And with that comes the one thing that I am so well versed in - loss. Loss waits for no one, no pandemic, no visitor restrictions, NO ONE. It keeps happening. As much as I hope and pray that it would stop, it doesn’t. And I’ve been there. And those pictures of our sweet Clark are all I have of him of his time with us. And because of him, I put my own grief aside and strive to capture those SO NEEDED memories for families that are faced with the same circumstances we were…pandemic times or not. So that is why I got the vaccine today: so I am able to be there safely for these families welcoming their babes into this world…some of them saying hello and see you later all at the same time 💙
That about sums it up.
I got my vaccine for my clients...especially for my clients that can't reschedule their photos, because babies wait for no one. And sometimes those babies are ones that are born sleeping, born with fatal conditions, born with only a brief time here on earth with their families. And those are the ones that SO SO SO need to be captured, pandemic or not. And now having this vaccine (and come about 3ish weeks from now 95% immunity!) I feel so so so much better being able to service these families (and just all of my photo clients!) from here on out.
So truly, TAKE THAT COVID.
You're dead to me.
I trust science and this vaccine that this is the beginning of the end, the light at the end of the tunnel that for almost a year we've been looking for. And I'll take it.
