Melissa Rauch: ‘I Never Thought I’d Be Giving Birth During a Pandemic’

I remember quite vividly begging my parents, as only a tween can, to drop me off as far from the entrance of the Freehold Mall as possible. Everyone knows you look way cooler walking through glass double doors by yourself, and there were some hot eighth-graders that didn't know I existed at a Cinnabon on the business end of those doors. Cut to 20-something (fine, almost 30) years later, standing at a very different glass entryway, and coolness be damned—all I wanted was someone holding my hand, and by my side. Granted these were now hospital doors, and I was headed in to birth a child solo versus shop for scrunchies, but there’s still something about being “dropped off” someplace that feels so familiarly casual despite the gravity of being in the midst of a pandemic. Although the hospital I was delivering at did allow birth partners, my husband had to stay home with our daughter since our original plan of having family come to town—as well as our backup plans—were no longer options due to COVID-19.

In the weeks leading up to my due date, I had been so fearful of how this would all go down. I’d had good days where I’d felt optimistic—“I can do this!”—and other days of complete “What kind of fresh hell are we living in?!” panic. The anxiety over giving birth without an advocate and support system in tow, compounded with the exposure concerns of walking into a hospital during a pandemic, were a lot to process. So I tried my best to prepare for a scenario I never thought I’d face: filling my hospital bag with disinfecting wipes and practicing labor breathing in a mask like I was training for a dystopian marathon.

Being pregnant has historically been fraught with angst for women, especially for those, like myself, who’ve previously experienced pregnancy loss. The times we are currently living in ratcheted my worry to another level. But one day, as I was letting my mind go down a spiral of “Holy F, I will be alone in labor,” a thought came into my head: But I won’t be alone. I have a partner. The same one that’s been listening to my heartbeat inside me for nine months. I know that may sound odd to some, and you may be an expectant mama thinking, Screw you, Rauch, an unborn baby isn’t a birthing partner! I want someone to scream things like, “F you for getting me into this” at while they’re spoon-feeding me ice chips. Take your hippie-dippie granola thoughts and shove them! And that’s fair. I hear you. But, nonetheless, it somehow helped me. I found comfort in the idea that this would be our first adventure together. So I tried my best to hold on to that as I said goodbyes to my husband and daughter and walked myself into the hospital, masked up, clumsily balancing my bags and birthing ball like I was doing a knocked-up Mr. Bean bit.

I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times during the intensity of labor that I craved the comfort of my husband being there with me physically. I don’t want to sugarcoat it; it’s an inherently difficult situation and there were moments I felt every feeling in the book of feelings—so much so that my feelings were having major feelings.

But here’s the great thing I realized about birth: It is never going to take a backseat to anything. No matter what is going down, when one human is coming out of another human it becomes the main focus—there’s no other choice. No pandemic, or fear of being alone, or anger over not having a partner there to bitch-slap through the whole hellish gauntlet of labor gets airtime. I had a job to do. The nurses, the doctor, and my husband (who joined on FaceTime to see the birth of our son) ultimately made me feel safe and protected.

I will forever be in awe of our medical professionals on the front lines. My anxiety over being in a hospital melted away as each of them shared with me how hypervigilant they are in order to keep mamas and babies safe, amping up their already intense cleaning routines and safety precautions. As a result, my coronavirus-induced fantasies of doing a water birth into a tub of Purell quickly became a distant memory.

I’m writing this because I spent countless hours leading up to my labor anticipating what birthing in the time of COVID-19 would look like. And I know other expectant mothers are feeling the same, whether you will be able to have your partner with you or not. So, to them, I’d like to say that it’s okay to grieve how you thought things would be. I had such feelings of guilt that I should just be grateful for a healthy pregnancy rather than focus on the less than ideal situation surrounding it. But those two feelings aren’t mutually exclusive—you can be thankful to be on the verge of having a baby and pissed that you have to deal with this unfair shit show.

Although none of us has a crystal ball to predict how our children will be brought into this surreal world, there are some things I do know. Namely, you are stronger than you think—more than you ever imagined possible. And also my perineum hurts the same excruciating amount that it did after my last birth. So the good news is that some things about birthing are exactly the same, pandemic or not.

You are not alone. All of us “pandemamamas,” as I like to call us, are in this together. Just as I reminded myself, you can do this, you will do this, and you will do so with the fierceness of all the powerful warrior women before you who have brought life—and hope—into this world during the most unfathomable of times. As I look into my son’s eyes, I am filled with that hope. And dreams of dropping him at the mall, where, if he so desires, I will happily park as far away as possible.

Melissa Rauch is an actor, writer, and producer best known for her role as Bernadette on The Big Bang Theory.

Originally Appeared on Glamour