Ah yes, I'm sure my 7-months-pregnant wife would agree that this has been a lovely, low-stress time. Wouldn't have it any other way.
The past few months have been some of the most emotionally stressful in recent memory. Even work-wise -- less of a commute, sure, but unless you already had a job that was compatible with working from home, the transition by itself has been anything but easy and relaxing. Not to mention the incredibly sharp rise in unemployment, the lack of physical social interaction, the fear (or reality) that your parents/grandparents contact the virus, etc etc.
And as for physical stress, exercise is generally good, not bad for one's health, including during pregnancy. Unless your job involves doing physically taxing work, which you continue to do even while pregnant, it's a little hard to imagine how being forced to stay indoors would be particularly good for your overall physical health.
- Can't go to the hospital for ultrasound or other routine procedures; the hospital is too dangerous. Gotta fly pretty much blind.
- Haven't met any other first-time parents, haven't been able to do PEP classes. We feel pretty alone.
- Going to need to take parental leave... indefinitely? Early childcare doesn't look like an option. But can we risk our jobs by taking a lot of leave? Maybe we have to.
- We can't see her parents since they work in the healthcare industry. She has a great relationship with her mom, so this is really tough while pregnant.
- Nobody really knows how bad CoVID is for a newborn, or what its effect on gestation is. It's easy to get sucked into spirals of terror about this. While we'd (probably) be fine if we caught it, the effects on the baby, even from asymptomatic infection, are unknown, and there are hints of brain damage which are _really_ scary.
So, it's pretty damn stressful, at least for us.
That can lead to you worrying about and optimising for lots of things that won't matter too much in the grand scheme of things.
I can tell you from first hand experience that you are not in control. You will know you are in a truly stressful situation when you've forgetten about all of the items you've listed above because you're standing there watching, not sure what is going on, just hoping that everything is going to be ok.
I hope you never get to that point and in the meantime try enjoy the ride. I wish you and your family all the best!
There's a need for a lot of sensitivity in this conversation. It's easy for us to armchair-expert this to death... that isn't necessarily a good thing.
The stress continues after the baby is born too - regular check-ups, midwife visits, getting vaccinations, emergencies etc all now come with a brand new stress factor of "Am I or my baby going to contract COVID by <doing something that was totally normal in the past> and end up in intendive care? Or maybe will I contract COVID and give it to my spouse/family?" Even having relatives visit their new grandchild/niece/nephew/cousin/etc feels like a risk, but there is a lot of pressure from friends and family to get hands-on baby time.
Babies cannot wear PPE either.
I've certainly got some more grey hairs now!