Real Talk With Ruthie: Vol. 1
Ruthie Ackerman is the Editor-in-Chief of Poppy Seed Health, an award-winning journalist and writer, and a new mama. Ruthie has spent her career focused on women's leadership, most recently having served as the Deputy Editor at ForbesWomen. She has been published in Glamour, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Salon, Slate, Newsweek, and more. Ruthie earned a Master's in Journalism from NYU, and recently graduated to 'new mom' with the birth of her daughter, Clementine, in late 2020. In this column, Ruthie will be sharing her tips, tools, and tidbits she wishes she would've known before giving birth.
When I first got pregnant in December of 2019, there wasn’t a global pandemic. I had other very real fears, though: miscarrying, having something wrong with my baby, coming down with a health issue myself, or even dying in childbirth.
What wasn’t on my mind was whether or not my partner, Rob, could be by my side when we had the ultrasounds to hear the baby’s heartbeat - and learn if our baby was healthy. Of course he’d be next to me holding my hand. Of course we’d smile together as we looked at the tiny blob on the screen that would eventually become our baby.
We had tried to have a baby for over a year, struggling through two rounds of IVF that resulted in no normal embryos and a failed attempt at using the eggs I froze at 35. Now at 42 I was finally pregnant. Little did I know that three months later our entire world would look completely different as COVID-19 devastated every corner of the globe.
The day before my 20-week anatomy scan - the all-important ultrasound that would tell us whether the baby has chromosomal abnormalities or other defects - I received a call from the nurse at the OB’s office telling me that Rob couldn’t come with me because of the new safety precautions around COVID-19. The next day as the technician put the cold jelly on my stomach and our baby’s image flashed onto the screen, I thought to myself: Rob should be here. Rob should be holding my hand right now. Rob should be seeing his baby.
Then again, we were the lucky ones. One of my friends whose due date was in March had to be induced early so her husband could be there when she gave birth. Her hospital was about to change the rules so that partners and doulas couldn’t accompany pregnant womxn because of the risk of contracting COVID-19. Another friend’s husband was allowed in the room during her C-section, but was forced to leave just 20 minutes after she gave birth. She asked if he could help her get settled in the recovery room since she was still in pain and the answer was a resounding no. In a city with one of the best healthcare systems in the country, womxn were left to experience what should have been one of the best moments of their lives alone.
Now I know that Rob and I were fortunate to get pregnant at all. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine announced early in the pandemic that all fertility clinics should suspend new fertility cycles and cancel those in progress. I can’t even imagine how traumatizing that must have been for the womxn and families struggling to conceive. Even a one month delay can mean the difference between having a child and not.
There is so much I wish I had known about being pregnant - and becoming a mom - in a pandemic: that my family wouldn’t get to meet our baby in the first months of her life; that I would be alone throughout many of the pregnancy milestones, my friends locked inside their apartments as I was locked inside mine; that those first months after she was born would be harder than I ever imagined and we would have to go through it in isolation.
But not everything about this time has been doom and gloom. Our friends have stepped up in incredible ways, sending care packages, flowers, food and even hosting a Zoom baby shower with 50 of our nearest and dearest. Rob and I have been able to be home with the baby throughout the first few months of her life, which means we have been here for every milestone: rolling over, her first bites of solid food, her hilarious attempts at talking. Life has slowed down and the change of pace has given me the space to find my footing as a new mom without the distractions of “normal” life.
In the next few months I will have some decisions to make about whether or not to get the vaccine and how to continue protecting myself and our family from the new variants that are cropping up around the world. But what I’m most looking forward to is the day when we can tell Clementine that she was born long ago during a pandemic and she says, “Cool story, Mom,” and asks whether she can go back outside and play.