Pregnant during the pandemic: How a Gilpin family coped
Editor’s note: This is the final story in a series highlighting five people whose lives were reshaped by the coronavirus pandemic.
When Shera Rugh-Arner and her husband, Jason, found out she was pregnant, they were a bit concerned.
The January news was exciting because they were welcoming a new child into the world, but they were also nervous.
It had nothing to do with coronavirus, though, which had yet to make any headway into the public consciousness.
They were concerned because they already had five kids — all boys. And their Gilpin house isn’t that big.
“I have three biological sons already. (Jason has) two. We have five together. We’re able to add one more,” Rugh-Arner said.
But it would be only a couple more months before the covid-19 pandemic shut everything down in March.
That made what should have been an exciting time one that became miserable.
“The corona seriously ruined this pregnancy,” Rugh-Arner said. “I didn’t enjoy it very much.”
Rugh-Arner said the most difficult part of the pregnancy was being alone outside of her house.
She felt like a single mom during doctor’s appointments because her husband wasn’t allowed to go with her.
“He had to sit in the truck out in the parking lot, and I had to FaceTime him from inside the ultrasound room just so he could see (the baby) on the ultrasound screen and find out the gender with me,” said Rugh-Arner, 34, of Gilpin.
“That’s how we celebrated. Over FaceTime.”
Jason was able to go to just two doctor’s appointments with his wife before pandemic mitigation efforts started.
The experience was difficult and annoying, he said.
“You sit in the parking lot. You’re not even allowed to go to a doctor’s appointment,” Jason, 38, said. “Then the ultrasounds and the later ultrasounds when you get to see what the baby actually is looking like — you get to see it on a piece of paper. It’s not like watching it on the screen.”
Being alone during ultrasounds was new for Rugh-Arner. Loved ones were able to go with her for her other kids.
“It was hard because you can’t really show emotion to an ultrasound tech. You want to cry when you hear the gender of your baby … and then you can’t,” Rugh-Arner said.
The coronavirus prevented some people from attending Rugh-Arner’s baby shower, which originally was going to be held indoors at a fire hall. It had to be moved to a park. Fewer people attended because it was blistering hot that day.
Gender-reveal joy
One thing the coronavirus didn’t prevent was a gender reveal party.
Rugh-Arner didn’t do gender reveal parties with her other children. She wanted to do something fun and new.
The boys all were involved in the reveal.
“We let the boys all pop (confetti bombs), and they all popped blue ones,” Rugh-Arner said. “Then we just said, ‘Just kidding!’ and I popped a pink one behind my husband’s back.”
The boys — Drake Long, Mason Arner, Zane Long, Brayden Arner, Alvie Eshelman II — were going to have a baby sister.
The family was going to have the gender reveal party outside, but it ended up raining so they moved it inside. They entertained a house full of people.
Rugh-Arner said she was never too concerned with the coronavirus.
“In my opinion, (I) don’t think it’s as bad as they make it out to be,” said Rugh-Arner, who was interviewed in November before the most recent surge.
And baby makes eight
Scarlette Arner was born at 9:46 a.m. Aug. 19, at ACMH Hospital in East Franklin.
Scarlette was delivered via cesarean section (C-section), like all of Rugh-Arner’s other children.
Rugh-Arner enjoyed being able to have “skin time” with her daughter. Skin time is when a baby is placed on the mother’s chest right after birth. That doesn’t normally happen when babies are delivered via C-section, Rugh-Arner said.
She was able to cuddle Scarlette for 10 minutes before baby and Dad were whisked away to the nursery and she was brought to the recovery room.
She thinks that could possibly be because the nurses have seen how the pandemic is affecting pregnancies and births.
“I’ve never cried after having one of my boys. I cried then. ’Cause you just had that instant connection,” Rugh-Arner said. “I think, and it’s not even just the pandemic, just in C-section deliveries you lose a lot of connection doing it that way.”
After birth, quarantine
While Scarlette’s birth followed the same routine as her sons, one thing that was different was Rugh-Arner and her husband were quarantined in her room after she gave birth.
Packing for the hospital felt more like packing for the beach because they weren’t allowed to leave once they arrived, Rugh-Arner said.
They were advised to bring snacks, drinks, shower supplies and clothes. So they brought two suitcases, a cooler and a car seat for Scarlette.
“Once you get into your room, you can’t leave labor and delivery,” Rugh-Arner said. “So if we forgot anything, we were pretty much screwed.”
The couple was in the hospital for three days. Rugh-Arner spent the first day in bed recovering from the procedure. The next day, she was able to get up and walk around, but she couldn’t leave her room. So she walked around the bed.
“We literally felt on house arrest,” Rugh-Arner said. “We couldn’t do anything.”
“It was weird,” Jason said.
The third day, Rugh-Arner was able to walk in the hallway with Scarlette. She just had to have a face mask on.
“We were so excited,” Rugh-Arner said, “like we’re not in jail anymore!”
Rugh-Arner would advise other women going through pandemic pregnancies to bring a support system with them to doctor’s appointments.
She and her husband followed the mitigation rules, and he didn’t come. But she said other women brought their husbands or children’s fathers with them. And they were allowed to attend the appointments with them.
“It annoyed me,” Rugh-Arner said. “For future reference, I would tell everybody (to) still take them.”
Keepsakes of the times
The family is making a keepsake box for Scarlette to let her know she was born during a pandemic.
Inside will be photos of Scarlette being held by her brothers (the boys wearing masks), of her and her parents (her parents wearing masks) and newspaper articles.
Rugh-Arner said she snaps a selfie with Scarlette each time they go to a doctor’s appointment so they can count the months until the pandemic is over.
Mom, of course, always has a mask on.
“Most likely she’ll be wearing a face mask before this is all gone, I feel,” Rugh-Arner said of her daughter. “It’s not going away anytime soon.”
Once the pandemic subsides and a few years pass, Rugh-Arner envisions Scarlette as a girl simply being a kid in a normal world.
“I hope she plays all the ‘boy sports,’ ” she said.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.