My Toddler Had Covid: Here's How It Went

 I wrote previously about what it was like having a baby at the onset of a global pandemic. I never expected to write a post about Max having Covid! I’ll get to the details, but so you don’t panic, the long story short is that he had Covid-19, he didn’t need to be hospitalized, he’s OK now. 

Pre-covid, Max wasn't one for snuggles and stillness

The Height of Panic

I remember in the early days, when Max was first born, I worried so much about this new, dangerous virus. I was anxious whenever Steve and my Dad left the house to go to the grocery store. They wore scarves around their mouths and gardening gloves on their hands. Steve would strip off his clothes and throw them in the washing machine as soon as he got home. 

All I could think about was whether my new child would even make it to his first birthday or would we all die a horrible death from this disastrous plague? 

At the time I craved real life stories. I would seek out stories of people who had caught Covid, or whose loved ones had. I wanted to know what it was really like, beyond a list of symptoms on a government website. What does it really feel like? 

I was also driven by the question of HOW? How did they get it? What choices were they making that ultimately ended up with them getting this horrible virus? What risks were they taking? How could I avoid it?

At times it was too much, reading about mothers whose relatively young and healthy husbands had died in such a scary way, often isolated and alone. I had to stop consuming any content about it. I was already stressed and anxious about my new tiny baby, I didn’t need to worry about the doom and gloom of the pandemic.

The Fear Levels Out

As time passed and we (as in, the world) learned more about Covid-19 and how to prevent the spread and protect ourselves, my fears lessened. I still felt very cautious, but no longer thought the whole world would end. 

I guess there’s only so much time one’s nervous system can stand to be in stressed mode.

When it was time for us to leave England, I worried that it was too soon. That we were putting Max at too high a risk flying internationally when he was less than 3 months old. Steve had done all the research and the reading, assuring me that it was our best option and we’d be fine. We had to go. 

And we were fine. And we flew from New York to Oakland a month later. And in the fall, I flew to Georgia to see my mom and help sort out my grandpa’s belongings after his death. I took Covid-19 tests after each trip. All negative. 

When I flew back from Georgia I was a lot more concerned. I had seen a lot of unmasked people - including staff in the Taco Bell my mom liked to eat at! 

“They’re breathing on our food!” I stressed to my mom. “Well, I’m still going to eat it,” she resigned. I still ate it too. 

When I came home, I spent a few days sleeping on a mattress in a spare room and wearing a mask around Max and other roommates. I finally got a negative test result and could go back to normal. 

Game Changing Vaccinations

We were thrilled when the vaccinations were rolled out. Anxiously awaiting our turn to get jabbed. Not one moment did I hesitate. 

I don’t understand the skepticism people have for science like this. Why would the government need to microchip us when they already track us through creepy surveillance anyway?! Some people are not sure of putting this in their body when it’s not FDA approved yet. Well, let me tell you, the FDA approves a lot of messed up stuff that I think shouldn’t go in our bodies! Half the time people don’t read the ingredients in their food, and if you do, do you really understand it?

On the other hand, members of Black and brown communities who are distrustful have cause: the government and the scientific establishment has a history of medical abuse (just to name a few: Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the theft of Henrietta Lacks cells for cancer research). That’s why there’s been so much effort by Black health experts, scientists and public figures to publicly express confidence in the vaccines, hoping to encourage other Black Americans to get vaccinated.

Daycare Decisions

We put Max into daycare in June, when my workload picked up and I needed more support than our part time in-house nanny. By this time Alameda county, where we live, had a really good vaccination rate, so we weren’t too worried about Covid.

We’d lived so long in this pandemic, it felt like we couldn’t keep him home forever. It was the right time for Max to start playing with other kids. 

For a few months, he went to a small Spanish immersion program at a woman’s home a short drive away. She, and a few part-time assistants, cared for 5 other children, ranging in ages from 9 months to 2 years. Max loved it there, and they loved Max! 

In September, Max was offered a spot in a Montessori daycare program that we had applied to months before. It also happened to be cheaper.

There would be more children here, and he would be there 4 days a week. Higher covid risk. But we felt that it was really unlikely for Max to catch it at school. Even with Delta the cases in Alameda county were going down, community spread was low. We felt pretty confident. The new daycare had only closed once in the past year and a half due to an outbreak.

Max started his new daycare on Monday, September 13. He did amazingly well. He played with other kids, he sang and danced and participated. I know this because during the “transition” for new kids they send home a written report each day. They even list the names of the kids he played with. I love information, so I immediately loved this. I would proudly snap photos of the report and share it with our family WhatsApp threads. The daycare director said this was the best toddler transition she had ever witnessed - he was always so happy. Go Max! Crushing it at daycare.

Max’s Covid-19 Experience

By Friday (9/17), Max seemed unwell. I took him to his swim class thinking exercise might be good for him and knowing how much he loves it. But once we were in the water, I noticed he was getting cold a lot quicker than usual, I started to worry he was more sick than I had thought. That night, he woke up crying a few times, but was quick to settle after a hug and back rub.

Max finding the energy to smile as we said goodbye to NY grandparents!

Saturday morning he was really tired, upset and just wanted to be held. I tried to keep him comforted by snuggling in my bed with him, reading books. With both of us having less sleep than ideal, Steve and I took turns taking care of Max. Steve’s parents were in town and they wanted to help, but also were wary of catching any of Max’s germs. They did what they could to support us.

That weekend, desperate to soothe him, we introduced Max to the wonders of Netflix. We thought maybe some TV could help distract him from his discomfort. He actually doesn’t fully appreciate Netflix though, he only ever wants to watch the movie Vivo repeatedly. Thankfully, Steve and I quite like it and we don’t yet mind that we’ve seen the same 3 or 4 favorite scenes about 50 times this week.  

We also noticed that Max was teething. He’s getting molars on the top and bottom. Both sides of his mouth had swollen mounds, and a few days later we could see and feel the teeth poking through.  Great timing body… right when he has this awful cold!

More Vivo!

We checked Max’s temperature a few times over the weekend, when he seemed hot to us, or most miserable. The highest it ever got to was 99.7F. No fever. I spoke to a pediatrician on Sunday afternoon. She walked us through symptoms and signs of COVID-19 in infants: rapid breathing, flaring nostrils, blue/grey skin, temperature over 100F. Max had none of these. I got the impression that she didn’t suspect Covid, but she booked a test for Max the next morning, just in case.

Sunday was probably the worst night for us. Max woke up crying at 11:30pm and we just couldn’t settle him. He wanted to be in our arms and out of his room. 

Steve and I took turns trying again and again to soothe him. We gave him a few toys, but nothing worked. Honestly, the cries when I put him in the pack ‘n’ play were like someone was hurting him. Really intense. 

In the end, I took my pillow and blanket and lay down on the floor next to his bed. He played and talked to me, and stood up trying to reach out for me. At least he had stopped crying. 

Suddenly, he was quiet, lying down. I didn’t move, thinking that maybe I had only blinked and he wasn’t really asleep yet. If I got up and he noticed, it could kick it all off again! I waited and listened to his gentle breathing. I slowly sat up to peer at him and could tell that he was really asleep. I glanced at the clock, it had been an hour since I went in there. 

I dragged myself back to bed, scowling at Steve peacefully asleep in comfort. Shouldn’t he have been the one to spend an hour on the floor? I’m the pregnant one! (Spoiler alert! I was going to post about being pregnant first… but this Covid thing kind of seems more timely...)

Testing, Testing, 1. 2. 3.

Monday was really challenging. Max was crying a lot. It was hard to get him to drink anything. We would make him a watery smoothie with berries and he would drink that. We also started putting pedialyte in his water and calling it juice! 

On the way to Max’s drive-through Covid test, we needed to get gas. Steve jumped out to fill up. When he pulled the gas nozzle out of the car it continued pumping everywhere. All over the car, all over the sidewalk, and all over him! He was SO mad. Enraged! 

Steve got some paper towels from inside (the clerk clearly did not care) and wiped himself and the car down as much as he could. He got back into the car and took some deep breaths to calm down. As I drove away, we bitched about how overpriced and crappy that gas station was and vowed never to return. 

We thought, OK, this won’t be great but we can put the windows down and it won’t be for too long. A few minutes later we got to the line of cars for the drive-through Covid testing. Steve took off his jeans and hung them out the window. He sat in the front seat in his underwear. It still smelled of gas, there was no escaping it. The line of cars stretched two blocks away from the parking garage. I dreaded the wait.

Max was getting restless. Time was creeping closer to his scheduled nap. This isn’t going to work, I thought. We can’t stay here with this gas smell and our upset baby. I decided quickly to find a rapid test site that we could go to instead. We’ll just pay and get results faster!

Within minutes I found a place, booked Max a test, and left the Kaiser testing line to drive to the other location. Sure it would cost us $50, but I was stressed, and desperate. Plus it was much closer to home so we could get Max into bed for a nap sooner.

What I didn’t realize, until Steve pointed it out (too late), was that this was an antigen test. The kind you can buy at Walgreens. Antigen tests look for the protein your body creates when it fights off Covid-19. Positive results are almost always accurate, but negatives have a greater chance of being a false negative. The PCR test actually detects the covid virus and is far more accurate.

Max tested negative. We shared the result with the daycare, mentioning that it was a rapid test, not a PCR test. They said they would accept it and Max could return to daycare the next day. At this time, I was pretty confident he just had a bad cold and was teething. Surely COVID would be worse, and other kids at daycare would have it too.

That afternoon, Steve took Max outside to play. But he was unsteady on his feet, a little more clumsy than usual. He fell and hit his head against the wooden deck, he really landed on his ear. By the time they came upstairs (Max in full floods of tears) his right ear was already greying with the bruise. It swelled up massively, like the size of my thumb. A week later, it’s still purple in places, but the swelling has subsided.

I emailed Max’s regular pediatrician with photos of his ear and informed her of his recent symptoms. She responded pretty quickly, told me to use infant ibuprofen for the ear and encouraged us to get a PCR test for Max just in case. She told us the line was shortest in the early mornings, so we booked one for 9:30am the next day, far from nap time.

Max coughed a lot that night again. They’re expected to cough more at night because of the lying down position. We tried raising his bed up at one end to help elevate his head (even though he moves around a lot!) and we used a humidifier in his room to help with congestion. I also did not sleep well, maybe it’s pregnancy insomnia, but I woke up at 3am and just could not sleep again until around 5am. 

Taking care of a sick baby on a bad night’s sleep is really hard! Especially because both Steve and I had a lot of work deadlines to meet that week. It was very stressful negotiating hand offs throughout the day so one of us could work while the other was with Max. Neither of us had the energy to work late into the night.

On Tuesday morning, we decided that even though we were convinced he didn’t have Covid, he was still a little snotty and coughing and we shouldn’t subject the other kids to this cold or flu germ. So we kept him home. When I called the daycare, they mentioned that they had sent a kid from Max’s class home from school on Friday because he had a fever. That kid had also tested negative for Covid. My confidence in our negative antigen test result grew. 

Let me just say, he didn’t have a fever, no difficulty breathing, his cough was productive, not a dry cough. His energy was sometimes low, other time seemed normal. I really didn’t suspect COVID. Also, he’s only ever had one cold in his life so far. I didn’t have much to compare to. I thought it was a regular, yet shitty, cold. In hindsight, maybe I was just so desperately wishing it was true.

On the weekend, he played with the neighbors, occasionally taking breaks to rest.

The Result

On Wednesday Max had coughed less overnight and seemed to be better that morning. Less snotty than previous mornings, he had a little more energy, was happier. Steve and I had spent Tuesday night trying to figure out how to make the decision to send him back to daycare. We knew that we can’t just keep him out because of a little snot and some sneezes - then kids would be out most of the year! So that morning, we took him to daycare. 

I spent most of Wednesday checking my emails and my Kaiser patient app to see if the results had come in. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. 

Max spent the day having an absolute blast at daycare. He was happy, he participated, ate and napped well. 

After putting Max to bed at 6:30, I went back to my computer to work. All of a sudden, I got a text message from the CA Dept. of Public Health. It said they were notified of my (meaning, Max’s) result. The text didn’t say the result was positive. But it was very unusual because I’d never received one of these before. 

I quickly checked my app and found a result under Max’s health records. “Abnormal” it read at the top, further down “COVID Detected!” (literally with a big red explanation mark!). 

Oh no.

I called the daycare and left a voicemail that night. I also emailed the director of the school. Turns out she had a busy evening and didn’t check any messages or emails that night. I called them again at 9am the next morning and informed one of the teachers. Within 30 minutes a text went out to all parents informing them that there had been a Covid exposure and the kids in Max’s class would have to be picked up immediately and begin to quarantine for 10 days. 

We felt, and still feel, absolutely terrible about our decision to send Max back to school. I try not to be too hard on myself, or Steve. We were under a lot of stress, worried about Max, work and weren’t sleeping well. We made the decision we thought was right at the time. As I said, we really just thought it was a bad cold. 

We also shared the result with our roommates and decided that Steve and I would keep Max in our bedroom. We would wear a mask every time we went into the communal spaces of the house. We’d also keep windows open for fresh air. One of our roommates who shares a bathroom with us began using the downstairs bathroom.

With the result, our pediatrician scheduled a phone appointment for early on Thursday morning. Steve got Max up but he didn’t really want to move much at all. He also wasn’t drinking or eating much. Steve was very worried. We knew Max wasn’t sick enough for the emergency room, but he wanted to know more. When we spoke to the doctor, she was just letting us know how to keep taking care of his symptoms and how long to quarantine for. Steve insisted that Max be checked by someone. 

“There is no one,” the doctor said.

“Well I’m going to keep calling and asking until there is,” he insisted. I cringed, I’m so used to folding to authority. Steve is not.

“Well, I guess it would be me. I think we can figure something out. I could see you in the parking lot between patients if you come to me,” the doctor finally agreed.

Waiting for the doctor. Do I look tired?

We waited in the parking lot for an hour, Max thankfully slept for most of it. Our pediatrician came out in full PPE and took Steve and Max to an area at the back of the building. She checked his lungs and blood oxygen levels. All good. She told Steve he was a good dad. He came back to the car, carrying Max and crying with relief. 

Recovering

The Alameda County Health Department called me with instructions for quarantining. Being stressed, under-slept and generally busy with a sick child made it hard to keep track of everything we were told about quarantining. I think someone told us that Max would quarantine until 9/27 and then Steve and I would have to quarantine for another 10 days. But then we were also told that because Steve and I were vaccinated, if we got negative test results and didn’t experience any symptoms, we wouldn’t have to quarantine after Max’s period ended. The county sent an email full of vague and generic information which made it very confusing to figure out what applied to us.

Max’s symptoms steadily improved. By the time his quarantine was over the only noticeable things was that he still coughed at night during his sleep, and he was more tired during the day. He couldn’t make it to his usual nap time at 12, so he often had two naps a day. He was a lot less snotty and not coughing as much during the day. 

But Wednesday and Thursday (almost two weeks after his first symptoms) we really noticed a difference. He was so much happier, loved playing, and could make it to 12pm for his one nap of the day. We also haven’t watched Vivo in days! 

I have noticed him coughing at night and in the early morning. At his 18 month checkup, conveniently scheduled right after his quarantine ended, the doctor told me that after any kind of coughing virus, the cough can last another 2-3 weeks. 

It’s been so nice to see him get back to normal. It certainly makes taking care of him more enjoyable and less stressful, even when I feel a pressure to get more work done. Luckily, Max’s former daycare provider was happy to take care of him for a few days at the end of this week. Giving Steve and me a much needed break and more time to focus on work.

Steve and I had second PCR tests this week to make sure we didn’t pick it up from him towards the end of his contagious period and both our tests were negative. Finally we could stop wearing a mask in the house and start hanging out with our roommates again.

Our roommates were such a huge help during the last week. They cooked food for us every night and sometimes would deliver it up to our room! We really missed our communal dinners, but it was also nice for me and Steve to have a bit more alone time in the evenings. Usually I do a lot of the cooking for the house, so it was great to take a break from that! 

Steve’s parents had been with us when Max first started his symptoms. They tested negative for Covid back in New York. All the roommates tested negative as well. Thank you science for vaccines!

Tell me you have a pandemic baby without telling me you have a pandemic baby.

Reflections

A lot of people have asked how/where Max got Covid, and I get it, they want to know how to avoid it for themselves or their child. Honestly, I can’t tell you. Our best guess is that he got it at daycare. Maybe there was an asymptomatic carrier. Max was the first to test positive, but apparently not the only one sick. We just don’t know much because it’s confidential. They aren’t keeping us updated with the number of kids who ended up getting sick.

Other than daycare, he hadn’t really been anywhere else. We did go to a queer vogue/ball dance off at Lake Merritt, 6 days before he got sick. It was an outside event, and pretty crowded. But because I had Max I didn’t get deep in the crowd, there was always plenty of space around us.  

When Max’s covid result came in positive, I really felt like I had failed him. Right from his birth my job has been to keep him healthy, and especially to protect him from Covid. I felt a lot of guilt and shame about that. As if I must have done something, made a choice that put him at risk. That I should have known.

But having experienced the past week spending all our time in a single room together isolated and quarantined, I realize and understand that I could never fully protect him from something I cannot see or control. 

Life is full of risks and choices and we have to do what’s best and what feels right to us. I don’t regret putting Max into daycare. He’s going back there on Monday when it reopens. Now he’s armed with some solid antibodies. 

Steve and I have come out the other side a little exhausted and in desperate need of R&R, but grateful for each other and our partnership. We’re hiring a babysitter for a few hours this weekend so the two of us can spend time together without Max!

Feeling better now. We'll keep the bedtime snuggles.