COMMUNITY MAGAZINE April 2021

26 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Going to the hospital to have a baby is a very exciting, emotional, and sometimes stressful venture. During a global pandemic all those emotions drastically increase. New moms-to-be set to give birth between late March and early May 2020 had just two options: either stress and worry, or don’t think about it and trust that it’ll work out. Pretty much anything they thought they had planned for the birth of their 2020 child and what followed post birth, went straight out the window as soon as COVID-19 hit our shores. Hospitals were constantly changing their procedure and policies for labor and delivery, and since you don’t choose your child’s birthday, you just didn’t know which set of rules would be in force when the baby started knocking on the door, ready to emerge into what had become a crazy world. All women have birth stories, some more fascinating than others, but none can compare to the stories of babies delivered amid the pandemic chaos. When the doctors and nurses need to consider the possibility that you’ve contracted a highly contagious and potentially deadly virus, tensions are sky high, and nothing is normal. Many of our community women had this (hopefully) once-in-a lifetime experience. Here are some of their stories.  Moms of Pandemic Babies Share Their Stories FRIEDA SCHWEKY Jenny Jajati I gave birth at NYU hospital at the height of the pandemic, on April 1, 2020. I was instructed to bring only one person to the hospital, but this was my first child, so we brought my mom along anyway, hoping they’d let her in. Long story short, they didn’t. My temperature was checked, as was my husband’s. It was still early, so there were no COVID tests available, and masks weren’t yet required. After a grueling four hours, my son was born, and he didn’t leave my side the entire time. No nursery. My husband was allowed to stay as long as he was healthy and in the same room as us. If he left the room, he would have to leave the hospital and would not be allowed to return. After no sleep the entire first night, my husband was worn down and had a fever. They made him leave and held me an extra day for observation.  My son’s berit was like nothing I had ever imagined it would be. Only six people attended – my husband and me, my in-laws, and my parents. My siblings were instructed to stay upstairs, and my siblings-in-law stood outside and peered in through the window. As the berit took place on the first day of Pesach, there were no pictures taken, and no Zoom for all the family and friends who should have been there. If I had to take one lesson from this experience, it’s that you really need your mom during labor. I couldn’t control that, and if I had to choose again, I’d probably still choose my husband so he wouldn’t have to wait for me to get out of the hospital to meet his son. But nonetheless, it was hard, and I wished my mom was with me.