The pandemic babies are turning 1: How 5 new moms got through a year of isolation and chaos

• The pandemic changed the way people live, and for mothers, it came with a new set of challenges.
• Five mothers spoke to Insider about the past year of raising infants.
• The moms grieved the loss of what should have been, and marveled at the strength they had.

On March 28, 2020, Jennifer Thompson gave birth to her son alone.

The normal hallmarks of delivery - a bustling circus of family, medical personnel, and hospital photos - were nowhere to be found. Instead, Thompson lay in her hospital bed by herself, with her husband, Trevor, on FaceTime to keep her company.

About two weeks before, on March 7, she developed a sore throat and a cough so bad she thought it "was going to cause my water to break." By March 13 she was in the emergency room. A positive COVID-19 result arrived on March 22.

By the time she reached the hospital to give birth, it had been two weeks since she'd developed symptoms. But the hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, barred Thompson from having visitors, which meant Trevor wouldn't be present for the birth of his son, Hollis.

"I let myself feel that moment for about a minute. I started to cry. Then I was, like, 'OK, let's do this,'" the 41-year-old told Insider. Trevor watched via FaceTime as Hollis came into the world.

Over the past year, millions of mothers welcomed babies into a world filled with isolation, sickness, and uncertainty. Although vaccinations in the US are trending upward, the world continues to grapple with the fallout from the pandemic.

As their babies now begin to walk and talk, Insider spoke with five new moms about grief, perseverance, and how the peculiar act of marking "firsts" evolved during a crisis.

"It attests to the strength that you have as a mom," Justine Jackson, who gave birth to her daughter, Rosie, on March 30 of last year, told Insider. "You were strong not because you wanted to be or you chose to be, but because you had to be."

Welcoming a baby in an uncertain world

In a matter of three days, Kelsey Nixon drafted six birthing plans.

The 36-year-old mother of two had planned to welcome her third child late last March with the help of Megan Blackhurst, her gestational surrogate.

Two weeks earlier, the World Health Organization had officially declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. As it reached the US, the hospital setting was changing drastically and expectant parents were caught in the lurch. In New York, for example, some hospitals barred visitors and mothers gave birth in isolation. Other hospitals across the country shifted to a one-visitor policy.

As news of the spreading virus trickled to Idaho, where Nixon had planned to welcome her daughter into the world, fear set in.

Nixon didn't want the momentous event - for her family and Blackhurst's - to happen without everyone present. The families decided to switch from a hospital birth to one at home, which guaranteed that both families could attend.

Nixon was part of a growing population of families changing their birth plans in response to the pandemic. Theresa Gildner, a professor at Dartmouth College, led the "COVID‐19 and Reproductive Effects (CARE)" study, which surveyed pregnant women about their birthing plans in April of last year. About 45% of the 1,400 mothers said their plans changed in some way; 81 mothers said they switched from hospital birth to home birth.

"From the get-go, it just was so atypical in an already atypical situation," Nixon told Insider. "It forced us to throw our expectations out the window and adjust."

The families prepared for a home birth, and they waited for Blackhurst's water to break. Days passed, then weeks. When nearly two weeks passed after Blackhurst's due date with no sign of labor, the doctors decided to induce pregnancy in the hospital. Once again, the families adapted. At the time, the hospital had a one-visitor policy, so only Nixon joined Blackhurst for the birth of her daughter, Penelope Egan, on April 11.

Nixon described the birth as "sacred" and completely different from the birth of her previous child, Nora.

"With my daughter Nora, the doctor joked that it was like Mardi Gras in there because we had so many people in the room," Nixon said.

Across the country, Justine Jackson was giving birth to Rosie in Portland, Oregon. In those moments, Jackson said she felt overwhelmed. Her mother was supposed to be present for Rosie's birth, but she died suddenly a few months earlier.

"I remember thinking, 'How many people felt the weight of that absence of their loved one?'" she said of birthing moms, like her, who couldn't have all their support present in the hospital.

Parking-lot introductions and window meet-and-greets

In his mother's arms, in the cold parking lot of Beaumont Hospital in Michigan, Hollis Thompson, who was by that time 24 hours old, finally met his father in person.

As they left the parking lot, the Thompsons arrived home to a new challenge: navigating newborn care without the help of family.

New parents typically welcome support from extended family and friends after birth, but for many the pandemic put a six-foot barrier in the way of that help. In-person support, often a key lifeline for parents, suddenly vanished.

New moms couldn't turn to their own moms for in-person advice. Parents couldn't hand off crying babies to excited aunts and uncles. Moments of escape were impossible to find.

"At that point the world was so afraid of COVID that we didn't allow anybody in our home," Thompson said. "If people wanted to see him, they saw him through the glass in the front door or through the windows."

Much was still unknown about the coronavirus in the spring of 2020, and all five mothers who spoke with Insider said they drastically cut back on the visitors they welcomed into their homes. Some saw the forced isolation as a silver lining after the physical and mental toll of giving birth.

"It gave me the time to heal without feeling like I had to entertain," said Thompson, who remembered creating appointments for friends and family to visit her son, Mack, when he was born two years ago.

But constant physical isolation - with its onslaught of Zoom, phone calls, and FaceTime - had its downsides. For new mothers, isolation was the biggest challenge, said Jessica Dashevsky, a clinical supervisor at Maternity Care Coalition, an organization that works to improve the health and well-being of pregnant women and families.

Part of Dashevsky's role involves leading a team in Philadelphia that provides in-home health and social services to families. As the program pivoted to a virtual platform, she saw the challenges mothers faced through a computer screen.

Pinsi Lei, a first-time mom in New York who gave birth to son Charley Lei Lorenzen on March 13, thinks access to an in-person expert could've made a big difference when it came to her struggles with breastfeeding.

Lei turned to ready-to-feed formula. But shipping was delayed, so Lei relied on pharmacies, which had purchase limits on the formula. Every day Lei, her husband, and any available neighbors would trek to the Walgreens to purchase their allotted amount. When that wasn't enough, she hopped on Facebook groups asking other mothers in the Upper West Side if they had any formula to spare.

"We were living meal to meal for a little bit," the 30-year-old told Insider. "It was super stressful."

Entering survival mode

Jackson, Lei, and others described those first few months as "survival mode."

"Between the lack of support, the stress of the pandemic, and her colic, I definitely went through a lot of postpartum depression," Jackson said.

Jackson isn't alone. Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston surveyed pregnant women during the coronavirus and found that 36% had significant levels of depression - a number that hovered around 15% prepandemic.

On top of raising an infant in a pandemic, mothers faced the same challenges as the rest of the world - the fear of losing their loved ones, prolonged isolation, and a cratering economy.

Those challenges often resulted in increased stress for pregnant and infant mothers.

At the early stages of the pandemic, Dr. Wanjiku Njoroge, the medical director of the Young Child Clinic at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and her colleagues at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania wanted to look at resilience and stress in pregnant mothers across the city.

They surveyed women at different stages in their pregnancy with different socioeconomic, educational, and racial backgrounds.

"What we know about stress generally is that a little bit of stress is OK, but a lot of stress is problematic," Njoroge said.

Njoroge said the survey showed that mothers had higher levels of stress and anxiety, but they also had increased levels of resilience.

In Njoroge's survey, Black pregnant women reported a greater likelihood of having their employment negatively affected and had more concerns about a lasting economic burden, along with more symptoms of depression, loneliness, isolation, and distress when compared to white non-Latinx women.

When Melissa Koch reflects on the first few months of the pandemic, they were filled with stress and uncertainty. A week before Koch's due date, her HR representative rang. Koch said she assumed it was to discuss maternity leave.

Instead, Koch was laid off.

Koch's husband, Ryan, had planned to be the primary caretaker. Now Koch was facing a major unexpected life shift. Fortunately, Ryan was able to continue working, and Koch started preparing mentally to be a stay-at-home mother.

"We had to rally," she told Insider. On March 22, Koch gave birth to twin girls, Nora and Maeve. As she came home from the hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, reality set in that she would be home awhile.

Realizing there's no end in sight

The mothers who spoke with Insider said that while they were quick to realize they would be giving birth during a pandemic, they did not anticipate an entire year spent raising pandemic babies.

Self-care was down the drain, and the mothers often found their only respite was in the shower. Lei purchased fancy body wash and lotion to add a little extra luxury.

"It was not a year of self-care," Nixon said. "It was a year of survival."

Isolation also provided some partners with a window into the endless work of raising an infant.

Nixon said her husband, Robby Egan, who worked 9 to 5, was able to be a much bigger part of Penny's first year of life because he worked from home. It made him more aware of the balancing act Nixon faced with parenting and her career.

"It's done wonders for our marriage just as far as awareness goes for creating kind of equal responsibilities in parenting," Nixon said.

Jackson's husband, Chris, had a similar revelation. Both of Jackson's daughters had colic, but when Eleanor, who is now 3, was born, Chris was at school teaching. This time, he experienced firsthand the toll nonstop crying can take on a family.

"It opened his eyes to what it was like the first time," Jackson said. "He just had this new understanding and appreciation for what I went through."

Coping with a year of missed firsts

Thompson had been looking forward to hospital photos, while Koch had wanted a Christmas card with Santa Claus. Adventures to the zoo or aquarium also would've been part of each family's routine.

The things mothers were able to do looked drastically different than they'd anticipated. Thompson did manage to get pictures with Santa Claus, but Santa was sitting behind a plastic shield.

To fill the gap of missed firsts, families celebrated small milestones. The first smile or first steps were cherished even more in the Nixon household.

"Other years, maybe I wouldn't have noticed some of those things as much, or we wouldn't have celebrated them as much," Nixon said.

They also took comfort in knowing that their babies wouldn't remember their strange first years of life. "It's more sadness for me than it is for her," Nixon said.

As they reflected on the past year, each recognized the challenges they faced, admired the strength they found to persevere, and found moments of joy, unity, and laughter.

Now their pandemic babies are celebrating their first birthdays, and spring is bringing warmth and sunshine.

The vaccine rollout is gaining speed across the US, and grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends are receiving shots and reconnecting.

Thompson celebrated Hollis' first birthday with a drive-by birthday party and Jackson hosted a cake smash for Rosie.

The moms are looking forward to the kisses from grandparents, Sunday brunches with friends, and a sense of normality they hope will arrive soon.

"There were so many facets of chaos," Koch said. "I just have to tell myself that my children are beautiful and they're healthy. What more could you ask for in a pandemic?"