New baby is ‘almost a private adventure’
Couples have more time for parenting, but can’t share with family and friends
When Farrar and Thomas Lannon left the hospital to bring home baby Una, the parking lot was empty. It was “ghost-like,” Farrar said, a stark contrast from what it looked like when they had arrived.
The Lannons welcomed Una on March 12 at St. Luke’s Hospital-Anderson Campus. It was just three days before St. Luke’s announced it would be restricting most visitors because of rising coronavirus cases across Pennsylvania. And doctors told the Lannons that the birthing process would’ve looked different if Una had held off a little longer.
“It’s this ‘Twilight Zone’ world we entered into with our new child,” Farrar said. “The world was completely different in three days.”
Babies like Una who were born in the past five months have spent their entire lives in a pandemic. For some families, that means their little ones are yet to have their first hug from grandparents or visit from neighbors. But it has also meant that some parents have had more time to bond with their babies.
The Lannons had just moved to Easton from New York, where Thomas got a job as the director of special collections and college archives at Lafayette College. But when they brought Una home from the hospital, all the students had already left for spring break. It felt like a deserted place, Thomas said. Everything was empty.
“It was like we were the only
three people in the world,” Farrar added.
As the family eased into COVID-19 restrictions, Thomas started working from home, which meant that he’d have more time with Una during her first few months, even while juggling Zoom meetings in the home office.
“It made me feel, like, blessed,” Thomas said. “It gave me a paternity leave.”
Thomas Parker, superintendent of the Allentown School District, said he was also able to spend some extra time with his new daughter, Tamsin, in her first month. But raising a new baby and transitioning the school district into digital learning at the same time was challenging, he said, and he ended up having to spend more time at work.
Like the Lannons, the Parkers were in the hospital at the start of the pandemic. Tamsin was born on March 10. She was premature and spent two weeks in Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest before she was ready to go to their home in the West End.
While they were in the hospital, visiting protocols were evolving. Parker used to visit with his then-12-year-older daughter every day, but soon, she wasn’t allowed to visit.
Perhaps the greatest challenge, Parker said, was the social isolation that came with welcoming a newborn while much of the world was in quarantine.
“For parents that are experiencing a new child but not able to experience it with their family, it’s absolutely challenging,” he said.
Parker had looked forward to sharing little Tamsin with everyone, showing her off and parading her around Allentown.
“That’s what’s missing for a lot of families right now,” he said.
“It’s almost a private adventure.”
When Sierra Fogal found out she was pregnant, she thought of when she’d be able to pass around the youngest family member and “let her be raised by a village.” Those she considered family would be able to hold and play with baby Zara, Fogal said.
Zara was born on April 25 and made her first appearance at the family business, Pocono Whitewater Rafting in Jim Thorpe, when she was about 2 weeks old, before it opened to the public. Fogal had planned to bring Zara to work, since that’s where she was raised. Fogal’s parents work there, along with her husband, Reed Confer, and uncle. Fogal followed through with her plan to bring Zara to work, but she had limit Zara’s contact with people.
“To this day, the only people that hold her are my parents and my brother and her babysitter,” Fogal said. “All of these other people that are here, they just kind of see her from a distance.”
For Fogal, everyday life is one of the greatest challenges in raising Zara amid COVID-19. After doctors advised Fogal to buy some children’s Tylenol in case Zara’s latest vaccines caused a fever, she headed to Target — then felt guilty about it.
“I am not an anxious person,” she said. “I left there just feeling like so anxious and that I put my daughter’s life in danger just from going to Target.”
Farrar said friends who had babies before the pandemic warned her about the anxiety that might come with having a newborn, especially in the evenings when the baby is sleeping. The coronavirus, and the onslaught of bad news associated with it, added another layer, she said.
Dr. Amanda Flicker, chief of obstetrics for Lehigh Valley Health Network, said there initially were concerns about COVID-19 and pregnancy, and if a mother could pass on the virus in utero. There’s still a lot of unknown, Flicker said, but there is some comfort in preliminary information suggesting children and newborns are less likely to be infected.
But now, she said, there are emerging concerns about mental health, as postpartum women already are at increased risk of feeling isolated, anxious and depressed without the pandemic.
Flicker recommends that parents use virtual platforms to connect and share the baby without increasing risk.
The Lannons have engaged in a lot of Zoom meet-ups and Facetime calls with family, who are scattered across the world — from Santa Fe to China.
To remember these unprecedented times and their baby’s first months, the Lannons keep a scrapbook, with newspaper clippings of masked people and documentation of Una’s first, quiet Fourth of July.
“Maybe, in the future, when she looks at it, she’ll say, like, ‘Wow, I was born in a really strange crisis in the world,” Thomas said.
Parker said that his side of the family, some of whom live in Mississippi and Texas, haven’t been able to meet Tamsin physically, either. Her grandmother has yet to pinch her cheeks, he added.
Still, Tamsin’s journey into the world is “the ultimate silver lining.”
“In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, there’s a new life in the world that brings a new energy and spirit,” Parker said. “There’s no fear, there’s no trepidation. She’s here and smiling.”