Spotlight

Rocio Olbes Ressano: How Toddlers and Babies Brought Season of Change

by Bianca Salonga
December 14, 2021

Parenthood can change a life beyond imagination. For Rocio Olbes Ressano Garcia who gave birth to twins at the height of a pandemic, the drastic shifts altered her world.

Rocio Olbes Ressano is a first-time pandemic parent in every sense of the term. She gave birth to twin boys just as the pandemic was going into full swing. She recounts, “They were born the day Wuhan closed down. I remember laying in the hospital after giving birth and watching as Wuhan went on lockdown.” Internally, Rocio was equal parts worried and in a state of motherhood bliss. “Little did I know it would be our perpetual state. In a sense, we do not know what it is like to be parents in a non-pandemic world,” the first time mom intimates.

Parenthood changes her

Throughout most of her pregnancy, Rocio knew that parenthood would bring drastic change. That she brought her children into this world at a time like 2020, threw her by surprise. “All my expectations and daydreams of being a young mother with my sons obviously did not happen as I imagined.” There have been limited playdates and zero first trips abroad since Fonsi and Fede were born. Uninterrupted bonding and precious firsts at home, however, define their earliest memories.

“It has its silver linings as we have spent all of this time together as a family. My husband travelled a lot for work and now he has been home for over a year. He has spent every day with the twins and as a married couple, we have never spent this much time together,” explains Rocio. Now a mother, Rocio has more to look forward to in the post-pandemic future. “I cannot wait to take my sons out… They have had little exposure to the beauty of this world and to people.”

A gentler, kinder, and more compassionate world

As she and the twins look forward to better days, a sense of gratitude consistently fills their days. Rocio ends, “Motherhood and COVID have changed my perspective and priorities completely. We have all learned that nothing is more important than family and that perhaps, we all had so many distractions… We may never go back to the world we once knew, but I believe we can have an ever better one—more gentle, kind, and compassionate.”