Sabrina and Thomas Hernandez with their new son, River Jean Hernandez, at the Ochsner Baptist NICU. Photo provided by Sabrina Hernandez
Care in the Time of COVID Sabrina Hernandez shares her experience with delivering a son while sick with the novel coronavirus By Topher Balfer
A diagnosis of COVID-19 comes with its share of anxiety and uncertainty for even the healthiest of individuals, but for Sabrina Hernandez — who is asthmatic and, at the time of contracting the virus, was seven months pregnant — the stakes were even higher. As soon as the pandemic started to spread across the country in early March, Sabrina and her husband, Thomas Hernandez, fell into a new routine that would minimize Sabrina’s time outside their home. She was able to work remotely, and Thomas handled all the household errands. The only place Sabrina traveled was to and
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from her aunt’s home to drop off her oldest son for daycare. It seemed a relatively low-risk arrangement; Sabrina’s aunt has multiple comorbidities for COVID and was exercising extreme caution as well. “We live in a very small community, and my husband and I thought it would be safe if I only went to my aunt’s house to drop my son off and pick him up daily,” Sabrina said. “But on Monday, March 23, my aunt called me to ask if I could keep my son at home since she was having trouble with her allergies.” Later that weekend, Sabrina’s asthma also took a turn for the worse but, like her
aunt, she initially chalked it up to allergies. However, her symptoms continued to worsen, and Sabrina soon realized what she was experiencing wasn’t like her previous asthma attacks — instead of concentrated flare-ups, this was “a prolonged inability to breathe efficiently.” Sabrina met with an allergist, who screened her for COVID and found that no other symptoms were present. At the time, rapid tests were not available, so Sabrina’s allergist modified her allergy and asthma medications and sent her home. “By March 24, I had stopped being able to keep water down and was running
