I could never have predicted giving birth in lockdown

Giving birth in the middle of a global pandemic wasn’t something I could ever have predicted when two blue lines appeared on my pregnancy test in August 2019, yet it’s something – like Carrie Symonds – I was unwittingly forced to do.

As my due date approached, it rapidly dawned on me I was going to be giving birth at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, with no way of preparing for it. Services like home births were withdrawn, only to be reinstated two days later, and rules on birthing partners were put in place, then relaxed, then put in place again; things felt unpredictable, and I was terrified of having to give birth alone.

Up until this point, everything about these final weeks of pregnancy had been entirely different from what I’d experienced with my first three children. By the time I went into labour on April 20 one birth partner – in my case, my husband, Rob – was allowed for active labour and birth. We had planned a water birth at the Royal Sussex in Brighton – which went down the plughole when coronavirus guidelines were introduced forbidding midwives to put their hands in water.

I was allowed to labour in water, though, which meant I had to stand up and out of the pool between contractions to allow my midwife to listen to the baby’s heartbeat and take my pulse without putting her hands in the water.

It was either that or I couldn’t use the pool at all.

I quickly learnt to communicate with eye signals because I couldn’t see the rest of my midwife, who was decked out in PPE gear – she was wearing goggles during the birth. It was strange at first, but after hours in labour I became used to it.

Violet had to be monitored for 12 hours after she was born, which meant an overnight stay on the post-natal ward, where birth partners and visitors are banned. Although I was on my own and Rob missed out on her first night, I actually welcomed the chance to spend some one-on-one time with my baby.

But I feel desperately sorry for first-time mums for whom all this is new and who need that extra support.

One mum on my ward had had a caesarean, meaning she couldn’t do anything – she couldn’t lift her baby to comfort, feed or change it, and had to ring for the midwife every time she needed help. The call bells ring until

‘I feel desperately sorry for first time mums for whom all this is new and who need that extra support’

the midwives respond, and because they have to change PPE gear between patients, their response time is longer than usual, meaning bells were constantly ringing. None of us got a wink of sleep.

Other than my parents, who came to look after our other children while I was in hospital, Violet has been unable to meet her paternal grandparents or aunts and uncles, and we have no idea when we’ll be able to introduce her.

Hopefully, she’ll still be little enough for them to enjoy those newborn snuggles, but I worry that both she and they are missing out on what is such a such a precious period.

Violet’s middle name is Hope in a nod to the unprecedented time in which she entered the world, and a reminder that life goes on. I hope when all this is over the NHS and the midwives who helped anxious mums like me bring new life into the world get the superhero recognition they deserve.