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Reading this while waiting at Mt Maunganui testing station with two sick children in the back seat ☹

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Sending you so much love Lauren. Is there anything you need? I know I'm in Welly but if there's anything I can help with just let me know x

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The karakia is a big help thank you Emily ❤

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Thanks for writing this. Its been on my mind a lot - how to care for my toddler and/or newborn if they get Covid. Is there any advice if the mother is immuno-compromised and gets Covid but still needs to care for a newborn? I guess contact the hospital specialist?

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Kia ora Jana - I would contact the hospital specialist or your care team and make a plan with them. If you become so unwell you need help, they could admit you with your baby, and you could see if a family member or friend could be part of your plan to look after your toddler. Either way - talking to professionals could help you see your options. We have discussed and planned for both of us being so sick that we can't look after Eddie...Planning in advance seems to be the most important thing... Arohanui my friend.

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Thank you so much for this post. Such stress and this answered and reassured on so many things. Different ball game when you're playing on behalf of your kids!! Much love and best wishes for the next wee while in our lives xx

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Thank you for sharing your common sense and awhi x

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Thank you for writing this! The questions rattling around in my head for weeks now are: What do we do if one of us gets it? How do we keep from spreading it to each other, or is it hopeless to try? If its me or my partner do we try to isolate from the other of us and also from our kid? What do we do if our 9 y.o. gets it? Do we try to keep him isolated from us? That seems impractical and also just too awful for him. I think you've answered some of these questions. It sounds like the advice is to pick one of you to be your kid's carer, and then you both try to isolate from others in the household?

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Yes that’s the advice ❤️ I tried to keep in mind that some people don’t have the ability to do that if they’re single parents or live in crowded housing etc while balancing mental health needs and disability and neurodivergency of tamariki and their parent/caregiver/whānau x I know it feels so scary right now, there’s no right or wrong answers ❤️

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This karakia is so centering, thank you for sharing

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Thank you so much for this ❤️

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Isolating at home now, day 6 with our positive case (age 9, one jab only). After a day of fever and headaches and learning a friend in class tested positive, she then tested positive and joined her school's cluster (we're in Auckland).

But no symptoms since for her, and none for us. We are still testing negative (both parents with 3 jabs). Mild symptoms give me great hope. Also what gives me hope is that despite spending 6 days with a positive COVID case, my unvaccinated 4-year-old is just jumping around and singing songs and still testing negative.

Hang in there folks. The thing I was most scared of for two years... happened. It's ok, so far. Both kids have no pre-existing conditions (that we know of). But I think they will be OK. Vaccines seem to help, as even with one jab it seems to protect the kiddo from terrible symptoms and from spreading it (since she is not coughing or sneezing on us). I will be holding my breath through the rest of this outbreak. But it's OK so far... I hope the same is reported from anyone else who ecounters this.

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Kia ora Emily, I'm not sure who provided the isolation time periods, however it seems to be out of date. For household contacts the requirement is now that they only need to isolate for the 10days after the first person tests positive, not 10days after any subsequent infection. IIRC from a 1 o'clock media briefing, this is due to most household contacts becoming symptomatic within those 10days, if they are going to. I found the isolation requirements on the covid19 website https://covid19.govt.nz/isolation-and-care/how-to-self-isolate/#when-you-are-a-household-contact

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Ok so the way I read this (after stressing a great deal about how stressful it seems that a person could test positive on day 9 then be out in public on day 10) if a second person in your household tests positive, but you’re still not, you carry on with the original 10 days. But if you yourself test positive, your 10 days resets.

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Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to stress you! Yes, infected person resets, but no one else. Was worried that people were going to panic and stress bout work (and money). But completely my fault for not making sure all of the details were clear in my message. 💜

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That’s ok! It’s all a weird time eh!?

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Hey thanks - I think people can decide which advice to follow thanks so much for sharing info ❤️

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Great info ❤️ Can't help laughing at all the Tamaiti typos though, keep imagining a tiny Tamaiti 🤣

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In my house it's always been taitamaiti but the common usage is Tamaiti so *shrugs* so not a typo, just a dialect difference?

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Ah yes, I see that now. The different dialects confuse me at times :-)

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