At 34, I Won’t Be Fertile Forever. Should I Get Pregnant Amid The Coronavirus Crisis?
Three years ago, I had a miscarriage. It happened while I was on a family vacation in California, causing my husband and me to trade wine tours and beach days for blood draws and ultrasounds. Then, two years ago, my textbook pregnancy took a high-risk turn, requiring months of bedrest, weekly scans and a long stay in the hospital. So if anyone knows the importance of being able to roll into an emergency room in the middle of a pregnancy crisis, it’s me.
And yet, in the eye of a pandemic, when there’s never been a worse time to leave home, let alone to need medical care, a dangerous thought has been burrowing in my brain.
Should we try to get pregnant again?
As my husband, Emmett, and I walk slowly up and down our block with our 18-month-old toddler in tow, I raise the question.
“Have you seen those articles about how people expect there to be a COVID baby boom in nine months?” I ask, by way of an opener.
“Yeah, and they’ll all name their kids Corona,” he laughs.
“Well, what do you think of that?”
He stops mid-stride and looks up at me. “What, you want to have a baby named Corona?”
“Maybe,” I say. I’m trying to be coy, but it comes out sounding vaguely threatening. Of course I don’t want to name this hypothetical infant after a global pandemic. Or a beer brand, for that matter. I’m a reasonable person.
Or am I? Because what reasonable person, given my medical history and the moment we’re living in, would ever consider this?
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Good reasons abound to not try to get pregnant at this time, and I force myself to write them down, as if the act of committing them to paper could exert the...
