Covid pregnancy: The loneliness of labouring alone

When the Government was planning its 'Living with Covid-19' strategy, pregnant women were forgotten about. It's not good enough. 

Only after the lack of a plan for maternity services was raised by opposition parties did the HSE draft a set of guidelines. Picture: Pexels

She runs through the familiar questions while pointing the revolver like thermometer at my forehead.

“Have you had any symptoms?” No.

“Been in contact with anyone who’s travelled?” No.

“Been a close contact of anyone with Covid?” No.

The thermometer beeps.

“You know where to go?” Yes.

I check in at reception and am told to sit and wait until the ward is ready for me. A multitude of feelings run riot around my body as I try to get comfortable on the chair. The physical — pain in my lower back, swollen hands and feet; baby thumping my bladder; and the emotional — giant lump in my throat, anxiety, and apprehension, and a glimmer of hope that this will soon be over. By the end of the day, I will have welcomed my second daughter into the world.

I hear a noise and turn my head. There is another woman as round as I am being admitted. She is swallowing sobs into her mask and making herself as small as possible so the rest of us can pretend we don’t see her pain. She is my kin in this moment. How she looks is how I feel.

It takes every ounce of strength I have not to reach out and comfort her. I try to offer a reassuring smile and remember I am wearing a mask too. I try to think of something to say but I don’t trust myself to speak. I am barely keeping it together myself. I turn my head away and my heart breaks listening to her cry. It is a heartbreak I have felt often over the past few months. A heartbreak that is laced with red hot anger as the familiar refrain passes through my mind — how can they do this to us? Why do they think this is ok? How is this allowed?

I am brought up to the ward and told they will come and prep me for surgery soon, but it will be hours yet before anything happens. I have at least four hours to wait. On my own. My husband is at home waiting too. He will only be allowed in when I am called down to theatre. 

I spend some of the time on the phone to him, just to hear his voice. To be reassured by the person who loves me most in the world, who is as nervous and excited as I am. 

Our first daughter arrived in 2018, after a tortuous induction, long labour, and eventual emergency Caesarean section. The memories of it are vivid in our minds. We are scared. We are anxious. We are not allowed be together. If I had given birth in Dublin, he would be with me holding my hand. How is that fair? Most of the time I close my eyes and pretend I am somewhere else.

I am in the operating theatre about to receive the epidural. My husband is waiting outside (standard practice even before Covid). A nurse asks sharply “where is the baby’s hat?” I have forgotten it up on the ward. She tuts loudly and moves on to her next task, paying me no further attention. And it is the tipping point. Months of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear manifest and I am inconsolable, sitting sobbing on the operating table, arms wrapped protectively around my bump, unable to catch my breath. The theatre nurses hold my hand and rub my arm. Eventually, I am calm enough for the needle to go into my spine. I lie down and am strapped to the table that is shaped like a crucifix. My husband is allowed in. I am crying again.

An hour or so later, the three of us are in the recovery room trying to make the most of our time together. The midwife encourages me to feed the baby and of course I do, but I see the longing in my husband’s face. He knows this is his only time with our daughter, to hold her, to drink in her newborn smell, to introduce himself. And sure enough they arrive all too soon to tell us they are bringing me back to the ward. 

As quick as lighting my bed is being moved. I have to ask them to stop in the corridor so we can say goodbye. The tears come back again as I am wheeled through the hospital. I spend the next three days, like the other women on the ward, hidden behind a blue curtain, counting down the hours until my escape. I feel like a prisoner.

And despite all of this I think to myself that I am one of the lucky ones. It is not my first time giving birth. How cruel that for those who are, this is their first experience. I wonder will there be an increase in one-child families as a result? I think of the women who receive devastating news at their appointments with no one there to catch them as they fall apart. I wonder if those scars will ever heal. It is all so barbaric and all so unnecessary.

When the Government published their flagship guidelines document Resilience and Recovery 2020-2021. Plan for Living with Covid-19 — maternity services weren’t mentioned once in 60 pages. Women — equal citizens in this Republic — had been forgotten about. Again. And it is not good enough. We deserve so much better at one of the most vulnerable healthcare moments in our lives.

Hospital management hide behind their statements of wanting to ‘minimise footfall’ and ignore the more challenging questions: What additional risk has been identified if a partner from the same household attends with the pregnant patient? Why are Covid tests not being offered to patients and partners? Why are they going against the advice of the World Health Organisation on this issue?

While there has been some movement in some hospitals, especially in the area of pregnancy loss, in the main women are still labouring alone and still receiving devastating diagnoses on their own.

Only after the lack of a plan for maternity services was raised by opposition parties did the HSE draft a set of guidelines. Unfortunately, they read like a retrospective justification for the restrictions that were introduced in March rather than a coherent policy. And while there has been some movement in some hospitals, especially in the area of pregnancy loss, in the main women are still labouring alone and still receiving devastating diagnoses on their own, while their support system waits outside in the cold, the length and breadth of the country. We will be living with Covid for a long time yet, and this cruelty has to end. Help us. Support us. Campaign with us.

• Linda Kelly gave birth to her second child in July 2020 in Cork University Maternity Hospital.
• Tomorrow, December 3, a petition signed by more than 50,000 people will be submitted to the HSE to review the restrictions currently in place for those attending maternity services.