CHARLOTTE, N.C. — At 7 months pregnant, WCNC's very own reporter Billie Jean Shaw is getting ready to deliver during a pandemic.
“I never in my life thought that I would be celebrating the birth of my baby girl in this way," Shaw said an interview with WCNC anchor Sarah French.
Shaw's firstborn will be 2 years old when her baby sister arrives. The closer you get to your due date, the more frequent your doctor appointments become.
“About two weeks ago I went to my doctor’s appointment as I am getting close to the end of my pregnancy and I learned that would be my last time seeing my doctor in person,” Shaw said. “My questions are how are you going to listen to my baby’s heartbeat? What’s going to happen? Is the baby turning around the way she is supposed to? Is her heart rate going up? I’m not a doctor I don’t know.”
But there's also something else weighing heavily on Shaw and her family.
"There’s a possibility I may be delivering alone," she said. "Delivery is such a beautiful thing I think that I should be able to celebrate that moment with my husband and my daughter and knowing that I may be going through that alone is terrifying for me. I have spoken to a midwife and a Doula, and they are inundated right now with so many women concerned just like me about delivering in a hospital, not only because their husbands won’t be there but because you just don’t know who may have it. What if the person who’s helping you deliver your baby maybe they are asymptomatic and don’t know it?”
But until her little one arrives, she says she'll just have to take it one day at a time.
“I get emotional thinking about it and talking about it because I really don’t know what’s going to happen," Shaw said, holding back tears. "I just pray for a safe delivery and I can’t wait until things get back to normal again.”
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