For the first two weeks of the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown, Stacey Brell cried herself to sleep most nights.
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Brell was separated from her now 10-week-old son Armani-John Selwyn who, having been born 15 weeks premature, had to stay in the care of Rotorua Hospital while she went into lockdown to look after her two other children, aged 18 months and 11.
Her partner is an essential worker.
For two weeks the only interactions she had with her newborn son were photos and talking and reading to him via video call.
For two weeks she missed out on all the little things that strengthen the bond between mother and child: bath time, feeding, even changing nappies.
"I probably cried every night. I'd be okay during the day because I have the other kids and I'd keep my mind busy but it was at night-time, when I had that downtime and I went to bed, that I'd cry - just missing him and wanting to be there with him."
Armani-John was born on January 30. He was 15 weeks early and weighed 952 grams. He spent the next two months fighting for his life in Waikato Hospital's Newborn Intensive Care Unit before being moved to Rotorua Hospital, where he has spent the past two weeks in the care of staff, separated from his mother.
However, the situation improved recently. The need for him to learn how to be breastfed led the hospital to grant Brell daily access to her son. While having to leave him again each time breaks her heart anew, on Thursday, April 9 she finally held her son in her arms again.
"It was just awesome, just getting to hold him and see him for the first time. It was quite emotional, I got a bit teary-eyed on my way to the hospital.
"I can only go in once a day, I'm not allowed in and out and there's a big protocol I have to go through each time to make sure it's safe. I normally do dinner and stuff here for the other kids and then spend a few hours with him in the evening. We read stories, talk, cuddle. I got to bath him for the first time, that was really cool.
"It does put everything in perspective, you do take these things for granted, all those little things that you don't think too much of when they're home with you. Now it's something I look forward to."
She described the two weeks apart as one of the hardest things she'd ever had to go through but said the hospital staff had been "amazing" and she was able to cope by reminding herself she was doing the right thing.
"The nurses would send me photos mostly every night and one of them would video call me when she was on, probably every other night, and set her phone up in his crib, so I was able to talk to him and read stories.
"I just had to reassure myself that he was in the safest place and being really well looked after. I had a friend in there with her baby and she would tell me the nurses were taking really good care of him and they all really love him up there.
"I'm so grateful and so blessed, [the staff] are all just amazing. They've all been so accommodating and really pushed for me to be able to see him again during this time. I'm very blessed," Brell said.
She said seeing others not taking lockdown seriously was "really frustrating".
"It kind of seems like life has just gone back to normal outside now, you see all the cars, people walking around and groups of teenagers hanging out. Just stay home, it's not going to last forever but it is going to last a long time if people don't stay home."
• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website