Life in the Time of Corona

personalmaternity

Jul 6

When I found out that I was going to have a baby, I knew that I wanted to try and document the labour and delivery. I anticipated it being difficult, what I didn’t anticipate was it also happening during a global pandemic.

The challenge of giving birth in a foreign country where my handle on the language is tenuous at best had already been looming for the entirety of the pregnancy, then COVID-19 hit. Prague shut down. We were told not to come to the hospital beforehand, so all those normal pre-birth classes/tours/etc were not available to us. For a time, fathers weren’t allowed at the delivery. Luckily, that restriction was lifted by the time it was relevant for us. However, after delivery, I was on my own. No visitors for the entirety of my hospital stay.

Everyone’s birth story is different. Mine was, well, more intense than I care to revisit. In fact, it’s taken me over a month to even get up the wits to look at the photos I made. There are large gaps in time which I not only didn’t photograph, but also of which I have no recollection.

The following is what I could capture. 17 hours of labour and delivery from my perspective, followed by three days of a hospital stay straight out of a Kesey novel.

29 May 2020