First-time parenthood isn’t for the faint of heart. From finding out that there’s a baby on the way to delivery day — and long after that — moms and dads-to-be wrestle with new worries.
But expecting baby No. 1 amid the coronavirus outbreak adds an extra level of fear, as actor Joshua Jackson knows all too well.
The former “Dawson’s Creek” star and wife Jodie Turner-Smith are expecting their first bundle of joy, a baby girl, to arrive any day now. In a new interview, Jackson admits the timing has transformed the experience.
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"I've never been a parent before, so I'm not quite sure how much of this is just first baby anxiety and how much of this is pandemic anxiety,” he said in a chat with Buzzfeed News’ “AM to DM.” “But for us, in this house, it’s just the two of us leaning on each other, (being) open, about like, ‘Yeah, man, it’s stressful! This is a lot to deal with.’”
But they’re making the best of the situation.
“We, like everyone else, are just trying to figure this thing out on a day-by-day basis,” he added. “So the only times we are really out of the house are to get food or go for a walk around the block.”
The 41-year-old, who gave the remote interview from his home, said that he and his 33-year-old wife “were kind of social distancing anyway,” as they were in “the nesting phase” as news of the pandemic progressed.
"The only real difficult part right now is how to interface with the medical community,” he said. “Obviously we have to, and we are just trying to take that one day by day, to try to figure out what the best and healthiest way.”
That’s a common refrain among expecting parents these days.
Last week, NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt Jr. spoke about the same concerns, as he and his wife, Amy, await their second child.
“Due to the restrictions on all nonessential visits, we can’t really go and do the check-ups like we typically would,” the two-time Daytona 500 winner explained on his “Dale Jr. Download” podcast. “It’s making us a little bit nervous. But other than that, I just tell Amy, ‘Well, it’s kind of like the old days. This is just going to be a different process, and we can just hope that everything’s going the way it needs to be going.’”
However, Jackson, who now stars in Hulu’s “Little Fires Everywhere,” seems sure of that last part, when it comes to his family.
“My wife is healthy, my baby is healthy, so we’re doing OK,” he said.