As we look back over the incredibly challenging times we faced as mothers navigating the COVID-19 crisis, the experiences moms had navigating pregnancy, delivery and postpartum has been vastly different from pre-pandemic pregnancies. We had contributors deliver healthy babies during the pandemic, each with very different experiences dependent on ever changing learnings and policies developed.
We’re sharing their family’s unique stories through this new series, Pandemic Pregnancy Diaries, as a way to celebrate the courage they had navigating unprecedented times. Read on for Amy’s experience, who delivered in January 2021 at Mercy Gilbert.
XO,
EVM
I found out I was pregnant with our second baby on May 2, 2020. Even though we had just had a baby less than 18 months prior, I knew this would be a very different experience given that the world had recently shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Besides wearing a mask, my midwife appointments didn’t feel too different from what I experienced during my first pregnancy, and by some miracle, thankfully my husband was allowed to attend ultrasounds.
Where I really felt the effects of the pandemic was not getting to visit with family as much as we would have without COVID-19. We don’t have any family in Arizona, and we really felt that in the early days of navigating my morning sickness with an active toddler and trying to quarantine to minimize the spread of the virus. There were some loooong days!
(Side note: whoever created the term “morning sickness” clearly never had it, because it’s all day long! Ha!)
My son arrived on January 9, 2021, in the peak of the “second wave” of large case numbers.
In the weeks before my due date, I was running through various scenarios as I realized that things would be impacted if either we or the friends we planned to leave our daughter with tested positive with COVID right as I was preparing to give birth.
I’m a planner, so although I always go into labor with open hands and an open mind, it helped ease my nerves to have back up plans A, B and C should COVID become a factor.
I remember coming to terms with the fact that I might have to give birth without my husband, something multiple women in my January 2021 mama groups experienced, if he needed to stay home with my daughter because of COVID.
Thankfully, that did not end up happening and I was able to have both my husband and my doula beside me while giving birth.
I’m grateful I mentally prepared for the unknown, because while I was able to have my husband with me, I was not able to have my epidural due to a really fast birth. It ended up being an amazing and empowering unmedicated experience, but had you told me beforehand that I would be giving birth without pain medication, I may have chosen that over my husband, ha!
COVID threw our whole world into unprecedented times. I am so impressed at how every parent has had to navigate this stressful time while taking care of littles.
Whether you welcomed a new baby into the world or not, you are a ROCKSTAR for parenting through a pandemic! Just like my unexpected unmedicated birth experience, 2020 showed all of us just how strong we really are. 
One final note: I feel grateful that I had my entire pregnancy to prepare for a COVID birth. I have friends who had mere weeks to adjust to the idea of giving birth in a mask, or had their entire birth plan thrown out the window when their doula wasn’t allowed into their hospital.
I have so much respect for any woman who had to quickly adapt to ever changing pandemic protocols, especially those who feel they did not get the birth experience they wanted because of it.
