CLEVELAND, Ohio- Hannah Lockard says a year ago, she never would have imagined that today she’d be celebrating her first mother’s day.
- Lockard is celebrating her first Mothers Day
- She says she also never would have imagined she would be pregnant, and giving birth during a global health pandemic.
- The experience of pregnancy and child birth during such an uncertain time has reminded her what’s most important
“My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for three years, so it was a big surprise and very exciting.” Lockhard says.
Lockard says she also never would have imagined she would be pregnant and giving birth during a global health pandemic.
“I mean, it definitely was difficult because I work in health also. I work in a skilled nursing facility, so I was really nervous being pregnant just to protect the baby to keep him safe. I was nervous being around patients that was nervous with admissions that were coming from the hospital.” She says.
During her pregnancy, Lockard developed a pregnancy complication, which ultimately led her to give birth to her baby boy Liam on April 14th, two months before her due date.
She’s been by Liam’s side at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital for the last 25 days.
“He’s no longer in the intensive care unit; this is like a transitional unit. But he was born with a lot of respiratory issues, respiratory failure. He was on a ventilator for a few weeks, and just some different complications that come along with prematurity. But now he’s down to just needing a tiny bit of supplemental oxygen, and over in this unit, we’re going to be working a lot on him learning how to eat and get bigger and get ready to go home.” Lockhard says.
She says the experience of pregnancy and childbirth during such an uncertain time has reminded her what’s most important and what mother’s day really means.
“It’ll just be me and my son. So I guess that’s kind of what it’s meant to be, you know to celebrate moms but I’m just so thankful to be a mom because like I said I didn’t know if that would ever happened a year ago so it’ll be good to spend it with him.” Lockhard says.