First time parents with herpes

hi all,

I am new to discovering this forum (not to having herpes though, 9 years strong), and i have recently become a first time mom. i opted into having a c section because i was too scared at the possibility of spreading it to my baby, and even then we still had a scare while at the hospital. i feel like being a mom with herpes made my postpartum experience literal hell. we washed our hands so much they were cracked and bleeding. every pimple or redness that we saw on our baby had me going off the deep end. our poor pediatrician had to have been sick of seeing me. then we found out you can spread it to your hands and that was another spiral and frankly still is, especially after developing eczema on our hands. we are constantly wondering is this it? did it somehow spread to our hands even though we have had it for years and it’s rare? our luck is awful so it wouldn’t surprise us. we have hsv2 but i have fully convinced myself we also get cold does even though neither of us can say with absolute confidence we have ever even had one, so we don’t kiss our baby bc we are scared about that what if? what if we do and we didn’t know and we were shedding and our baby gets it? i have never had so many pimples or issues with my lips until i gave birth and it has me convinced every little twinge or itch or pain is a cold sore. only when it doesn’t blister or swell after a few days am i able to breathe a sigh of relief.

i just hate being terrified all the time. my breastmilk dried up so quickly bc i could not eat or function which just added another sense of failure to me being a new parent. we are both wildly content with having hsv2 but just are absolutely petrified of giving it to our baby. anyone else a parent with hsv that has some words of encouragement? i really need it as i am also suffering with a really bad eczema flair up on my hand that has me once again convinced it’s whitlow🫩