(playful music) - We were nervous that
I was gonna get or he was gonna get it.
Spouses weren't allowed to come to the hospital.
I was just terrified this pregnancy wasn't gonna end
with me having a baby.
- [Doctor] Ready?
Last push.
- [Nurse] Deep breath.
Last push, you got the baby!
Down here.
- [Doctor] And look, here it comes!
- [Nurse] Look, look, look, look, look!
- Hi, my name's Stephanie Gandelman,
I live in Jersey City, New Jersey
with my husband and my baby, Jake,
who's two weeks old.
I have an online boutique called 6th Borough Boutique,
and I'm gonna share my story about having my baby.
(calm music)
So, it's been quite a process to say the least.
After trying naturally to have a baby for about a year,
I went to the gynecologist,
who referred me to RMA, which is a fertility specialist,
to see why we, you know, weren't conceiving naturally.
And after going and getting some tests done,
I found that I had a low follicle count,
so then we started our IVF journey.
I did my first egg retrieval, we got two good embryos,
we did a transfer, I got pregnant
and then, a week later, I had a miscarriage.
Eight days later, had another miscarriage
and then, nine days later, I had another miscarriage.
It was really, really hard
and I just, you know, had to keep going
and basically truck along and do another embryo transfer.
So, after doing, you know, three egg retrievals
and four transfers, I got pregnant with my baby, Jake.
I honestly was just waiting
for another miscarriage to happen,
and it didn't.
People kept asking me, "Are you so excited?"
And I really wasn't, I was just terrified.
I was terrified that I was going to
have another miscarriage, that this pregnancy
wasn't gonna end with me having a baby.
So, literally until the moment
that I held my baby in my hands,
I wasn't excited, I wasn't anything except scared.
So, enter the coronavirus pandemic.
(tense music)
When my husband and I first, you know,
learned of the coronavirus, we were pretty nervous
because I was, you know, very pregnant
and we were nervous that I was gonna get it
or he was gonna get it.
So, for about two weeks before I gave birth,
I had been pretty much quarantined in my apartment.
As I got closer and closer to my due date,
a lot of things were changing at the doctors that I went to.
My husband was no longer allowed
to come with me to my appointments,
so my last sonogram, I went to by myself,
my last checkup before the baby came, I went to by myself.
My original plan was to go full term,
you know, hopefully have my water birth naturally.
But with the state of the hospitals
being what they were about two weeks ago,
I decided I should probably get in and get out.
At that point, they were already
discharging moms and babies after 24 hours
if they were both healthy,
just so that you weren't spending a lot of time in hospital
and you didn't increase your chances of getting coronavirus.
So, at 39 weeks, I decided I was going to get induced
and about four days before the 27th,
which was the date of my induction,
we got an email from our doctor and from our hospital
saying that spouses weren't allowed to come to the hospital.
They weren't allowed to be there
for labor, delivery or postpartum
and I was gonna have to do this alone.
I was sad, I was sad for my husband
that he wasn't gonna be there for the birth of our son
and he was really sad that he wasn't gonna be able
to be there for me.
But, in all honesty, as long as my baby was safe,
that was all I kept thinking about
and, of course, it saddened me that he couldn't be there
but it wasn't the end of the world
and I just tried to think about, you know,
at the end of this, I'm going to have my baby
so, whatever it is, we've just gotta get through it.
So, the date came when it was time
for me to go to the hospital.
And my husband took me, dropped me off,
we got there at like 1 A.M.
He was okay, we had kind of, you know, come to terms
with what was gonna happen,
and I'd given him a whole list of things to do
while I was in the hospital.
I guess you could say a perk of him not being there with me
was by the time I came back, the bassinet the built,
the apartment was baby ready, let's say.
But when my husband dropped me off,
he pulled straight up, right in front of the hospital.
He just, you know, said he loved me and that I could do this
and gave me a hug and a kiss and that was it.
I went into the hospital by myself.
(sad music)
I got there and they asked me if I had any symptoms.
I didn't, so I didn't get tested for corona.
They took me to my room, where I stayed
until I delivered the baby.
I had to wear a mask the whole time
as did all of the doctors and the nurses.
It was hard to wear the mask at first,
it was hard to breathe, it was hard to drink water,
it was hard to sleep, but I kinda got used to it
the longer I wore it,
I guess with, you know, as with anything else.
While I was there, the nurses were
taking amazing care of me.
I had a button, every time I pushed the button,
someone would come in, you know, see how I was doing,
always in good spirits and, you know, their whole world
had turned upside down also
but they were really there for me
and just so like supportive and wonderful
and if it wasn't for them, I really don't know
what I would have done,
especially considering my husband wasn't there.
So, even though my husband wasn't physically there,
I set up the computer with Zoom
and put him on a little rolly table
so he was a little, you know,
husband robot in the delivery room,
so it was really comforting to have him there.
I wasn't sure at first, you know,
how comforting could it really be
for him to be there on video
but it really was, it was kind of like he was there.
My original birth plan was to have my husband in the room
and my mom and my sister and my sister-in-law,
but obviously that didn't happen.
I thought would be, you know, like a fun little party.
But, you know, corona had other plans.
So, I had to settle for my robot of a husband.
So, they induced labor.
After about eight hours after having the epidural,
the doctor came in and told me I was,
you know, ready to push.
So, I was like, great, you know,
I'll just push out the baby, easy breezy, no problem.
But I was very wrong.
We started pushing, I pushed for about
two, two and a half hours
and then the doctor told me that
we were gonna need a little help
and she was gonna need to go in with clamps
to help get out the baby.
I guess this was a pretty big deal
because the room was flooded with
about six to eight more doctors and nurses.
So, about 15 minutes after pushing some more,
the doctor said, "Okay, one more push."
And we got him out.
So, I pushed one more time and he came out.
- [Doctor] Ready?
Last push.
- [Nurse] Deep breath.
Last push, you got the baby!
Down here.
- [Doctor] And look, here it comes!
- [Nurse] Look, look, look, look, look!
- [Doctor] Whatever it is, we have...
- [Nurse] Yay!
(baby cries)
- [Stephanie] And they put him on my chest.
And told my husband that it was a boy.
- [Nurse] Marty, it's a boy!
- [Nurse] Yeah! - [Nurse] It's a boy!
- [Doctor] Definitely a boy.
- [Nurse] Definitely.
- They had to take him from me so that the doctors
could test his breathing for five minutes.
It was a really long five minutes,
I think I kind of blacked out.
I was in shock.
And then, finally they gave him back to me
and put him back on my chest
and said, "He's perfect, everything is good."
- [Nurse] He's perfect!
He's perfect.
- And that's when I just lost it.
This was, you know, the moment that I've been thinking about
for years, you know, when I was gonna
be holding my healthy child
and I just cried a lot.
The nurse, you know, brought Marty over to me on the laptop
and I cried and he cried.
And, you know, he was really there with me
in that moment, you know?
It was amazing.
So then, after, you know, we video chatted our families
and then some of our friends
and then the epidural started to wear off
and I started to feel a lot of pain.
Because they went in with clamps,
they had to give me a bigger push
of medicine towards the end,
so I was very numb on the bottom
so I couldn't get out of bed for
about two hours after I gave birth
and it was painful.
I couldn't walk, so my baby was, you know,
in the little bassinet
but I couldn't even walk to go get him,
I had to have a nurse bring him to me to hold
and it was really hard.
In that moment, it would've been wonderful
to have a husband, you know, to help me but I didn't.
But it was okay, and then finally,
after the two hours were done,
they put me in a wheelchair
and they were gonna wheel me to postpartum.
(calm music)
You could tell that the hospital was very different
than it usually is.
All of the patients were only in their room,
no walking round in the hallways.
They tried to have you have as little contact as possible,
so you had, you know, your nurse that you were assigned to
and that's basically it.
And at this point, they were corona testing
every mom that had given birth
and then splitting them up in postpartum on floors,
so there was a floor for moms who tested positive
and floor for moms who tested negative.
So, I was on the floor for people who tested negative,
I had the biggest angel of a nurse,
I really don't know what I would've done without her.
I could barely walk and I had this baby
that I needed to take care of.
So, she helped me go to the bathroom,
she prepared basically these diaper ice packs
that they make for you in the hospital
to, you know, make you feel better down there.
I had some tearing.
It was hard to walk, it was hard to sleep,
it was hard to pick up my baby.
She was so wonderful
and made my experience 10 times better.
Once I got to postpartum, they said
I didn't have to wear my mask the whole time
if I didn't want to,
but I kinda figured it's better safe than sorry
so I did wear it, you know,
even when I was sleeping, I wore it.
I slept on and off throughout the night
and then, finally, it became the next day.
We had to stay for 24 hours after I gave birth
and once five o'clock came around,
we were gonna get picked up by my husband
and I just kept thinking of how excited I was
for, you know, my husband to meet his son.
So, five o'clock came, he was waiting outside for us
and he was just so happy and excited to meet our little guy,
he was so happy to see me and hug me
and know I was okay and I really was okay.
And then he just went straight into dad mode.
He, you know, took Jake from my arms,
put him in the car seat like he had done it
a million times before.
And then we went home to Jersey City.
(upbeat music)
So, our plan was originally to go to my parents',
who live in Forest Hills with my sister,
so that, you know, they could help us
and we could all, you know,
enjoy the first few weeks together.
But due to coronavirus, that changed.
I was nervous that we got infected in the hospital
and I wouldn't wanna bring that back to my parents.
So, we decided we were just gonna, you know,
be our little family of three in Jersey City.
We're really enjoying our time
and, you know, we're still making
great memories with our son.
It's sad that, you know, he hasn't met his grandparents,
he hasn't met his aunts and uncles and his cousins
or, you know, any of our best friends.
But, you know, he's healthy and he's here
and we've been waiting for him for so long
and he really is just such a blessing
and such a light in this time
and, you know, the world is like literally
falling apart around us, yet we guiltily feel so happy
and so blessed that we, you know, finally have this baby
that we've been wishing for years.
You know, to any pregnant moms out there,
this is still gonna be the best thing you've ever done.
The day you have your baby is still gonna be
the best day of your life.
And, you know, you kind of,
as long as you don't lose sight of
the happiness that this is going to bring you,
you'll be okay.
And...
Yeah.
And now we're just, we're so happy.
And thank you for listening to my story.
(cheerful music)