The pandemic has separated millions of families across the globe, as stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines have proven to be the best way of ensuring safety from the virus. But what if the person you were separated from was your newborn baby, who was pulled from you just moments after they entered the world? That's the heartbreaking reality New York mom Iris Nolasco recently had to endure, after a positive COVID-19 diagnosis last month sent her to the ER at just 30 weeks pregnant.
Nolasco told ABC News that she first started experiencing body aches on March 15.
Soon after came the headaches. Still, her symptoms seemed mild, and were easy to shrug off.
"It was the beginning of all this news and I thought it was psychological," she told the outlet earlier this month. But things soon took a turn, as her cough worsened into something she could no longer ignore.
Nolasco called her doctor, who urged her to go to the hospital, and she soon found herself at Maimonides Medical Center, in Brooklyn, New York. Once there, she met Dr. Viktoriya London, a fellow in maternal fetal medicine, reports Good Morning America.
The mom-to-be was prescribed antibiotics for sinusitis and given a coronavirus swab to check for the virus.
Then, she self-quarantined, and patiently waited for the results.
Several days passed before Nolasco got the news she'd been dreading: She was positive for the coronavirus, and she was petrified.
"I just prayed to God to protect my baby," she told ABC News.
At first, Nolasco attempted to recover at home, touching base with London daily on her progress. But it wasn't long until she began having trouble breathing, and was admitted to the hospital.
On March 27, doctors decided to have her undergo an emergency C-section, in order to protect the life of her unborn baby.
Her daughter, Isabella Michelle, was born soon after, but was instantly taken to the ICU.
In a matter of moments, Nolasco had experienced a nightmare that so many pregnant women are hoping not to face right now: She'd given birth entirely on her own, without her fiance by her side — and her baby had been whisked away without so much as a glimpse of her.
Then, she was wheeled away herself.
Things became so scary, that Nolasco told ABC her fiance was beginning to say his goodbyes over the phone.
"He was saying goodbye to me like, 'I love you. I'm not ready to lose you.' It's just hard," Nolasco, who also has two teenage sons, recalled.
But miraculously, as the days progressed, she began to see an improvement in her condition. At the same time, Isabella was growing stronger by the day, too.
Nolasco felt lucky to be able to track her baby's progress through a camera the hospital installed in the ICU. And even luckier when she was deemed healthy enough to return home to recover on April 2.
But for 25 days, the mother couldn't visit, hold, or even breastfeed her infant if she wanted. And the emotional toll this took was agonizing.
"We've been waiting for too long," Nolasco told ABC. "I knew that she was in good hands but the pain, missing her, wanting to hold her, you can't explain how much it hurts."
Finally, on Monday, April 20, mother and daughter were reunited.
"It was a mix of emotions," Nolasco told ABC of the happy reunion. "I was excited … I was [also] kind of confused when I saw her, I didn't even know if I was allowed to touch her."
But ultimately, she said, it was "amazing" to hold her daughter.
"She was so tiny, but just beautiful," the mother shared.
But perhaps the best news of all came this week, when Isabella Michelle was reportedly approved to return home on April 21.
"I'm still scared, but I have faith that God will — same way God protected us until now — he will continue doing it," Nolasco told the outlet.
Sadly, Nolasco isn't the only mother to suffer a painful separation from her newborn due to COVID-19.
Johana Mendoza Chancay, who spoke with CNN's Chris Cuomo on Tuesday, says she hasn't been in the same room with her baby since she gave birth in a medically induced coma in March.
Chancay was diagnosed with the coronavirus in late March, and thought she could ride it out at home, until her symptoms worsened. When she visited a nearby hospital in her home state of Connecticut, she received some shocking news: To ensure the safety of her baby, she would have to be placed in a coma and undergo an emergency C-section, just like Nolasco.
"It was told to me right away and that's when I called my family and told them 'hey, I'm going under,'" she told Cuomo Prime Time. "And that's the last time they heard from me."
Chancay had given birth at just 26 weeks, which left her daughter, Zion, in a vulnerable state.
Chancay told the host that she is now recovering from the virus at home, but still has a long road ahead — one that involves daily physical therapy.
Most heartbreaking of all, of course, is the fact that she can't be physically present to mother her child, who remains in the NICU. In fact, doctors don't expect baby Zion to go home until sometime around her due date, July 8.
In the meantime, she says she's trying to come to terms with a basic, yet heartbreaking fact: "I am a mom, she's just not here," Chancay shared.
