Newborns make isolation far more bearable
Like most of us, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about life before COVID-19, and looking forward to what it might be like when we’re finally on the other side of this public health emergency.
But half the members of my household have lived their entire lives under this global pandemic.
They were, however, unavailable to comment for this column.
That’s because our new twins Leo and Francesca are just three weeks old, and they’re not saying much of anything yet.
While the deadly COVID-19 pandemic has effectively brought much of the world to a standstill, one constant is people keep having babies. As did we.
Ours is not a story of hardship. We’re very fortunate. We know many Vancouverites faced far greater challenges before the pandemic, which in many cases, have only been exacerbated now. But, as thousands of British Columbians are now seeing, raising a newborn (or two) during a pandemic does pose its own set of challenges and joys. Any first-time parent can expect their world to change, but the scarcity of official information available for B.C. parents now raising infants in this unprecedented environment adds to the feeling of entering uncharted waters.
Our household unit — my wife Megan, our twins, and me — has been cocooned in our two-bedroom townhouse since leaving the hospital two weeks ago, handwashing obsessively and largely cut off from the outside world.
Ever since we learned last year that Megan was carrying two babies, we’ve heard from friends and many perfect strangers that raising twin newborns is very difficult. I can now confirm, through my own on-the-ground reporting, those reports were accurate.
But although we’d expected raising twins to be tough, we counted ourselves lucky we wouldn’t be alone: we’re blessed with close family nearby who were eager to pitch in with laundry, cooking, diapers, whatever. Of course, during Megan’s pregnancy, the coronavirus evolved from something that didn’t exist, to a virus affecting the other side of the world, to a full-blown public health emergency here.
New labour ward restrictions meant no visitors during our six-day hospital stay. During the discharge process, a nurse asked if we would have additional support after heading home, before answering her own question. The pandemic means we’re on our own, at least for a while.
That’s been hard for our many family members who live nearby, including siblings, my in-laws, and my parents who have been unable to hold their first grandchildren, instead forced to settle for a distant view from the sidewalk. Luckily, modern technology makes it easy for family and friends to see the babies — and for us to see other adults — through video calls.
Still, it’s impossible to change a diaper via FaceTime, no matter how strong your wireless connection.
Friends have dropped groceries at our door, and necessities like toilet paper and wine.
With deliveries of homecooked lasagna, oxtail stew, pad Thai, and fresh loaves of bread — a huge surge in home baking being one apparent side-effect of the pandemic — we’ve actually been eating very well during self-isolation.
Even in regular times, some level of isolation is often part of the experience for new parents, with mothers facing particular challenges. But moms currently on maternity leave tell me that, whether this is their first child or third, the level of isolation now is very different from what they experienced before the pandemic.
Happily, available research suggests COVID-19 has a low infection rate in children, and most kids who develop the disease have mild symptoms if any, with very few becoming critically ill.
But as for how parents can minimize the risks to their infants — and mitigate the risk those children pose in shedding the virus to others — very little information appears to be publicly available to new B.C. parents.
Over five days last week, I corresponded with the B.C. Ministry of Health, the University of B.C., and B.C. Children’s Hospital, seeking an interview or written responses about what parents of newborns should do during the pandemic. No experts or information were available.
It’s understandable, of course, that health experts are busy these days and may not have much time for interviews. But when a Children’s Hospital representative directed me to available public resources, there was info about pregnancy and giving birth during the COVID-19 pandemic, but nothing addressing my questions about newborns.
B.C. averages more than 3,500 births a month, so we’re not the only ones going through this. I’m not even the only one in our newsroom.
After fellow reporter Cheryl Chan and her husband Phil had their first child in early January, they hunkered down with baby Hana for a period of winter self-isolation, two months before the World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus a pandemic. They had been looking forward to getting out with Hana and seeing lots of friends in the spring, Chan said, but with the pandemic, it obviously hasn’t worked out that way.
Even while Chan’s family mostly stayed home during those early weeks after Hana’s birth, they enjoyed visits from grandparents and aunts, who were able to help out. But now those visits have been cut off.
Fellow reporter Harrison Mooney and his wife Toni welcomed their second child last month, the day before provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry declared a public health emergency.
Similar to our twins, Mooney said the closest visit his new son Remy has enjoyed with his grandmother so far has been waving through their home’s front window, “as though he’s in baby jail.”
The family had been preparing for isolation, “expecting the doomsday of two (kids) under two (years),” Mooney said. “We were a little bit prepared, but obviously you can’t quite prepare for this. Nobody was prepared to be this isolated.”
Last month, sports reporter Patrick Johnston was in Arizona covering the Canucks when the NHL announced the season was suspended. As he headed home, Johnston learned he would need to isolate himself from his pregnant wife Candice and twoyear-old daughter Molly upon his return to Vancouver.
Johnston holed up in the basement of his parents’ house for the next two weeks, a strange and frustrating experience.
“All you want to do is hug your kid and hug your wife,” said Johnston. “You want to be a good husband and a good father, but you feel completely helpless.”
There are bright sides to this story. For one, while many new parents experience the fear of missing out on parties, concerts, and fun events during those early weeks and months, we’re not missing much. Everything is cancelled.
The situation is also forcing us — or, I should say, it’s allowing us — to spend lots of time as a family unit. Just the four of us.
And, perhaps, a longer-term silver lining could be that our babies are raised by parents who have learned to not take for granted simple but important things: Sunday pasta with grandparents, a pub visit, throwing the ball around in the park.
Maybe the grown-ups in Francesca and Leo’s world can even pass along a better understanding of the connections we share, not only with kin, but with the broader community, how intertwined our success or failure can be. An appreciation, too, for the vital work of health-care workers, first responders and all those who serve the public in such a crisis, and perhaps also for the workers who are less often lionized but whose labour we rely upon in good times and bad: those who mop hospital floors, drive trucks, collect garbage and stock grocery shelves.
Of course, that will be up to us, not Frankie and Leo. In the meantime, we have to change a lot of diapers before we can think about changing the world.