H eadlines
Motherhood Continued from Page 1
appointments. The circum-
stances were enough to give
many women pause; a report
from the Brookings Institution
released in June estimated a
13% reduction in 2021 births,
compared to 2019.

What was supposed to be a
“magical time” for women like
Allison Teich instead felt quite
different. Teich, 35, a teacher with the
School District of Philadelphia,
found out that she was pregnant
with her second child, a boy,
on March 27. Her doctor told
her that she’d been pregnant for
about four weeks. Her son Jaxon
was born on Nov. 25, brought into
a world shaped by the pandemic.

Teich feels fortunate to
have had a more conventional
pregnancy experience in the past
— morning sickness aside, there’s
a certain charm to everyone’s
excitement about your condi-
tion, and it’s nice to have doors
held open for you here and there.

Still, it also means that she knew
what she was missing when the
Teich family went into lockdown
in March.

At that time, Teich began
remote work,
simultane- ously tending to other people’s
children, her soon-to-be child,
and her 2-year-old daughter
Parker. Matters were complicated
further by the fact that Teich was
initially pregnant with twins, one
of whom was lost early on.

Stressful as it all was, Teich
feels fortunate to have given
birth to a healthy boy, one who
was able to be brought into the
global community of Jews via
an adapted brit milah.

“When I found out, I wasn’t
disappointed. I was thrilled,
despite the state of the world,”
Teich said. “We have been
wanting this baby.”
For women who’d already
had children, pregnancy during
COVID could be compared to
their last go-round. For first-
timers like Rachel Keiser, 31, it
was a different story.

Keiser found out that she
was pregnant in January. She
and her husband, who live in
Philadelphia, were able to tell
their parents and siblings the
good news in person. A future
filled with babyproof furniture
shopping seemed imminent.

The most memorable
shopping experience of Keiser’s
pregnancy, however, might
have been the massive grocery-
and-supplies shop that she and
husband made on March 13 —
a panicked stock-up repeated
in supermarkets all over the
country. They ended up picking
out a stroller online.

It’s not just the loss of giddy
shopping expeditions that nag
at Keiser, whose son, Bradley,
was born on Sept. 11. She didn’t
get to sit on the porch at the
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Thanks to Susan and Neil’s deep commitment to the Jewish community, their
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DECEMBER 17, 2020
JEWISH EXPONENT
Jenn Reiss Sillman and her newly expanded family prepare for a trip to
Costco. Photo by Jenn Reiss Sillman
family house in Ventnor, New
Jersey, talking about what was
to come; she had to share the
excitement with her friends
via FaceTime; there was no
brit milah, only a non-ritual
medical procedure that loved
ones watched on their devices.

“We just missed out on
so many things during the
pregnancy that I had looked
forward to,” Keiser said.

If there’s one thing that
Keiser does feel grateful for,
besides Bradley’s health, it’s
that she was able to have her
husband with her in the room
when she gave birth, something
she’d worried about. Now, she’s
getting to know baby Bradley,
and getting ready for the day
that he can be properly intro-
duced to loved ones.

Jenn Reiss Sillman, director
of Jewish student life at West
Chester University Hillel, found
herself in a similar spot. She
learned that she was pregnant at
the end of December 2019, with
an Aug. 28, 2020, due date. She
was elated.

In late February, the director
of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention’s
National Center
for Immunization and Respiratory
Diseases told reporters in a
now-infamous interview that
she had briefed her family on
the gravity of the coronavirus,
telling them that they “ought
to be preparing for significant
disruption to our lives.”
It was around this time that
Reiss Sillman told her boss that
she wasn’t so sure that she felt
comfortable returning to work
in person after spring break for
WCU students. In the end, the
world made the decision for
her, and Reiss Sillman found
herself working from home.

Initially, it seemed like a pretty
good deal.

“At first I felt really blessed. I
was like, ‘Wow, how lucky am I, I
don’t worry about getting myself
sick, I’m not in a position where
I’m an essential worker,’” Reiss
Sillman recalled. “And then it
started to set in when I started
growing a stomach and my
friends didn’t see it. My family
barely saw it. I didn’t get to go
out and do the normal shopping
a new mom gets to do where she
picks everything out.”
Reiss Sillman wonders about
the world that her daughter,
Hannah, has been brought
into. Regardless, she is excited
for Hannah and the world to
become mutually acquainted. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM