My waters went in mid April, at 26 weeks pregnant. I was rushed to hospital, alone, and luckily baby was okay and the labour could be stopped. Over the next 7 weeks, I had 5 more hospital admissions with bleeds and contractions. Each time, I was alone, with no visitors allowed.
DS finally arrived at 34w 1d, after an induction, following another large bleed.
DH was only allowed in to support me once I was 4cm dilated, however he nearly missed the birth, as I went from 3-10cm within an hour. I called him when it was suddenly seem that I was fully dilated, and he rushed to the hospital, to see DS born with one push. DS was then rushed away to NICU.
In NICU (in June), the staff were remarking on how quiet they were. DS was the only baby in a room designed for 4. They agreed that partially, this may be due to women not under the stress of working/less physical stress from working at home.
However, sadly, they also said that the babies that they were getting, were much sicker than usual. And they believed that this was due to women either not being able to access physical antenatal care (rather than phone appointments), or being unwilling to come to hospital "just in case" to check out reduced movements, especially as they would have to come.on completely alone.
In all, I spent a total of 17 days in hospital, alone, pregnant, bleeding and contracting, and then once DS was born, 15 days alone in NICU with a newborn. DH was allowed to visit briefly, but couldn't bring DD, which meant that we (me and DH) could not see DS together at the same time, as there was no one to have DD.
We were the lucky ones, DS is now thriving. But we've also been abandoned by the health visitors, he is supposed be weighed every two weeks, and the health visitor hasn't answered my messages for 7 weeks now. Thankfully, DS is my second, and we're not having any feeding issues.
All in all, it's been a shit storm.