BIRTH STORY
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF HAVING LOCKDOWN BABIES By Ella Diprose 28 February 2020: The first COVID-19 case is reported in New Zealand. I was 30 weeks pregnant with our first child and until now had been quite oblivious to what was starting to happen around the world with this virus. Soon words like self isolation, alert levels and lockdown would become a part of our everyday vocab, and this would change my whole experience of being a first time mum. 19 March 2020: Our borders close to all but New Zealand citizens and permanent residents. I was now 37 weeks pregnant and had finished up at work and was at home on maternity leave getting ready for the arrival of our baby girl. I was ready by now for her to come, I was feeling very big and uncomfortable but also so excited to meet her. 21 March 2020: The Government introduces the 4-tiered Alert Level system to help combat COVID-19. The Prime Minister announces that New Zealand is at Alert Level 2. This is when it became very real, instead of blissfully pottering about my
house “nesting” and folding baby clothes, I was now watching the daily TV updates and checking for what each change in alert level meant for Palmerston North Hospital and what it would look like for me giving birth and afterwards. 23 March 2020: The Prime Minister announces New Zealand has moved to Alert Level 3, effective immediately. In 48 hours, New Zealand will move to Alert Level 4. This would have been the night for our last CBE class at the Parents Centre but instead it had to be via Zoom, another term I had never heard of before this year. Little did I know, there would be lots of Zoom meetings, classes and appointments in our future. 6 April 2020, my due date, and we had been in Level 4 lockdown for 2 weeks. Our baby girl hadn’t made an early appearance yet and I was now trying all the tricks to get labour started. 3 days later about 1am I woke up with what felt like period cramps or twinges. Could this be it? Everyone said I would just know when it was
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