When the pandemic hit in the spring, many hospitals went into lockdown and restricted the number of patient visitors. For pregnant women, that meant having to give birth without the support network they had envisioned.
First-time mom Reign Edwards gave birth to her son on May 24, 2020, but during labor, COVID-19 added to her pregnancy-related stress.
A Stressful Pregnancy
The last couple months of my pregnancy were kind of stressful. I took quite a few childbirth classes. I took a couple of parenting classes. And since COVID has kind of taken over, all of my classes had been online.
My baby shower had to be canceled because the venue got closed down due to COVID, that was a bummer to me. My mother, she still threw me a virtual baby shower, and that made up for my shower being canceled.
FaceTime is Better Than Nothing
It wasn’t really until the day of my last doctor’s appointment that a lot of stuff really affected me dealing with COVID and everything, it really affected my labor alot.
At that doctor’s appointment, they realized that my blood pressure had went up. For my blood pressure to spike all of a sudden was a concern to my midwife so she sent us into labor and delivery. My midwife, she was not allowed to come to my labor anymore because she’s pregnant herself. They then notified me that I could no longer do a water birth due to COVID.
The only person that was allowed to be with me during the birth was my partner. I had my mom and my doula on FaceTime. It wasn’t, you know, as helpful as the real people being there, but FaceTime was better than nothing.
A Baby Boy Goes Home
He was taken straight to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) right after he was born too. I’m just glad he’s out of there. I was so happy the moment when I finally got him in my room at least, and I was even happier when we got to leave.
He’s great, he’s about to be four months now. It’s just amazing to watch something that you created just learning and moving around. I think it’s awesome.
