We had a healthy baby boy a month ago this coming Thursday. We delivered in McKinney, TX for reference. Our experience was a good, but interesting one. We have a 2.5 year old daughter so we're not to far removed from a more "normal" birthing experience so I'll share what we went through here.
When this thing really took off in mid-March our OB told us to quarantine as much as possible just because of the unknowns and how immuno-compromised a pregnant mother is. Luckily my wife isn't working currently and I can work from home so we were able to just lock ourselves in our house until delivery - almost 2 months exactly.
As far as the hospitcal experience goes, my wife wasn't required to take a test but recommended. Our girl was breached so she was a C-Section and while she was a candidate for VBAC this go around, this little monster was measuring at 9 lbs so we scheduled a C-section one week before our delivery date. So we knew we were going in on May 14th for a scheduled C-section and my wife went in two days before for a free covid test (the brain extraction variant) that came back negative. They were screening every single person that entered the hospital through a funneled side entrance, checking temperatures of every person that entered.
Only 1 other person was allowed to be in the delivery room and stay with her, but I was able to come and go as I pleased which was nice because I was able to go put our 2.5 year old to sleep for nap and bedtime so I was leaving twice a day and coming right back. But I had to get screened every time I re-entered.
The hospital was eerily quiet. I think it was a combination of people who might normally show up to a hospital for something completely unwarranted not showing up for fear of covid patients and also people actually just locking themselves in their patient rooms. We were discharged about 48 hours exactly after a C-section which was a day earlier than our first "normal" stay in the hospital for the older kid.
Overall, we had a pleasant experience. The hospital took it very serious as I never saw any staff unmasked. And I will say, as a dad I think it's pretty common that your most draining role is to be the gatekeeper for visitors and not having to mess with that at all was wonderful! But it definitely helped that this wasn't our first kid. For those of you about to deliver number one during this whole mess, all I can say is make the most of it and enjoy the "quiet" time you're going to get with your newborn and best of luck! If I can answer any questions feel free to fire away.
