At 20 weeks of pregnancy, we were told by our provider that my husband could not join me for the anatomy ultrasound, “due to the ongoing pandemic.” This, for those who are unfamiliar, is the scan at which most parents learn the sex of their unborn child; it is the time when the technician carefully counts fingers and toes and parents get to watch the little baby rolling around in her mother’s belly for the first time up close. It is, for many, a rite of passage in the pregnancy, and for us as first-time parents, a moment we had been anticipating for weeks.
It was at this moment that we began to think about a home birth. Not because we were afraid of overcrowded hospitals, but because we were learning that pandemic regulations were still being held above all else: even familial bonds, even trust in the mother to decide how to respond to various risks to her and her baby. We found a midwife, bought some books, joined a birth class, and started to plan to have our baby in our two-bedroom apartment.