While I was pregnant with my son, I was an executive at Spotify. I was traveling so much [while] pregnant. Like even the time in which you’re not supposed to be traveling, I was flying and because I knew I had to get it in before like I was going to give birth. I was basically hoping and praying, I was not gonna give birth on the plane. I’ll never forget that it was like my last flight before delivery and I flew to Los Angeles for like, 24 hours.

I remember holding my stomach on the plane. I was saying, please just rock with me this last trip. I promise you, after this I’m gonna sit down. I distinctly remember talking to him like all right, just work with me. I gave birth to my son Gavin on January 12, 2020. He is my Capricorn baby. He is a double Capricorn: He has a Capricorn sun and a Capricorn rising. It is crazy [laughs] but I love it.

Our plans were to raise our kid in New York City because my partner Darrell and I are both from Harlem, even though Darrell lived in New Jersey at that time. I thought we were going to have a city kid, who was raised surrounded by this great support system. My family owns and runs the oldest funeral home in Harlem. We also have an apartment building above the funeral home.

That support system consisted of my brother being my next-door neighbor, my mother downstairs, my father next to my mother, because they’re divorced, but they randomly live next to each other. Then I had a step grandmother and an aunt and uncle upstairs, not to mention my partner’s mother lives is only like a 20-minute walk away. As far as I was concerned, we had this great village.

I was excited to activate that village so my son could easily go from one family member’s home to another as a child. And that’s what happened at first.

Then, the pandemic hit and our world was turned upside down. It was turned upside down for everyone.

We were trying to figure this out this whole, new world. You’re watching CNN nervously every single night, trying to figure out, ‘Is this real?’ Everybody’s talking about stockpiling. I’m like, wait, what does that mean?

At the same time, there’s this naivety of like, this will only last three weeks, so we’ll be good. But remember, my family owns a funeral home.

And funeral homes staff [which was my family], as well as hospital workers were considered essential responders. Living on top of a first responder location, we literally had so many bodies coming in, that we had to buy an extra freezer and have it specially made and brought into our facility because we couldn’t house that many bodies. So, everybody else’s experience is one way, and in my family’s experience it was a completely different story. And as such, because my family is all hands-on deck for the funeral home, there’s so much exposure from going upstairs and downstairs from the elevator to the stairwell.

My mother was afraid because I had this new infant child that could be exposed to [COVID]. She was like, “Absolutely not. You need to go to New Jersey.” It was my mother who said, “You have to go and protect this child.”

And then my world became moving into Darrell’s place in New Jersey, dealing with COVID and dealing with postpartum anxiety.

When we moved to Jersey, Darrell didn’t have time to make accommodations for us. It was more of, get what you can, and go.

It was extremely hard for me, because I had these lofty dreams of being with my family and them helping me adjust to motherhood and things like breastfeeding and now, I felt like it was in a prison because of the quarantine. Plus, I was isolated in a state that I not familiar with and I had no community.

I had to figure a lot out by myself. I watched a lot of YouTube videos and leaned on trusted friends who also happened to be music executives. I also had my line sisters [of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.] and my Spelman sisters. They all helped me out a lot.

I’ll never forget my first Mother’s Day. I was sitting in the house. It just another day. It kind of sucked. I remember laying with my son and the doorbell rings. It was my mother, my brother, my sister-in-law, and my nephew. When I tell you I bawled. I just melted. I cried profusely. The fact that they even thought of me and made the trek.

They said we wanted to come and support you; we can social distance outside. So, we sat on the lawn, brought out chairs from inside the house, and sat far away from each other. Gavin was out there too. It was about an hour or so, but I remember it felt so good. It just felt like a warm hug to know I wasn’t forgotten. That was such an awesome moment that I’ll never forget.

When Gavin turned 18 months, we considered having him go to school. We couldn’t even visit most schools in person; we had to do virtual tours. Imagine deciding where to put your child in school and you can’t even go visit. You can’t see if the place is trash because they could just not show you certain rooms.

I didn’t like the circumstances, but it was becoming a lot for us in terms of being able to work. Darrell was also working from home; he works in the legal field. Gavin was getting so active during that period too, there’s something about COVID babies, because he became more advanced. Like he’s hearing me and his father on work calls all the time so although I didn’t realize it then, but I think it helped build his vocabulary faster. He’s hearing me having conversations with my boss, there’s no baby talk, I’m working. I was not doing the Mommy and me time often; I was like in survival mode. You’re kind of like my assistant. He had no choice. We’re trying to keep a job.

So, he had to start school. I remember my colleague’s mother made him this little African print face mask. I was like, “How do I protect this child?”

As time went on, things got more lenient with the rules around social distancing, masks and stuff. It is kinda a blur now. But he transitioned well into school. And as he transitioned into school, he also transitioned into being a big brother in 2024. The interesting thing about that was that is it was all planned. I did IVF. I intentionally wanted a daughter. It was a family affair. Gavin was so excited to be a big brother. And now he’s like, “This is my sister!” He’s so proud.

Gavin is involved in extra-curricular activities like swimming; he’s a great big brother to his sister Gyasi and he’s ready for first grade. He’ll be going to a new school, and we just moved into a new house in a new town. He’s very self-assured though. He’s not intimidated by older kids. Like this summer, I had reservations about him adjusting to the camp we put him in, but he thrived there. He’s like, “Mommy, it’s okay.”

So, as my COVID first baby prepares to start first grade, I will keep that same energy. He will be okay and he will thrive.  

Read the original article on Essence.