Meet Magnus Devon

Our beautiful baby boy Magnus Devon Howell was born on 22nd December 2020 at Victoria Hospital on Mahe. Weighing a tiny but perfect 2.7kg. My smallest baby!

We are so happy to have another little island baby!

Pregnant In A Pandemic

It has honestly been so surreal to be pregnant and have a baby in these weird times we have been living in.

I am definitely lucky enough that being in the Seychelles, where cases were extreemly low or non existant up until December, my pregnancy wasn’t too badly affected. Apart from the pretty major factor of not being able to travel or people come to us. We had planned on being in the UK for the Summer, but obviously that couldnt happen.

Throughout most of my pregnancy we were not in strict lockdown so day to day life was pretty normal, aside from needing to wear a mask to my appointments.

I had a few little experiences with anxiety on and off throughout being pregnant. This had actually started during our first lockdown, before I was pregnant. I imagine that most people had varying levels of anxiety over this year though! Mostly it was just me getting caught up in I guess the drama of it all, I spent so much time reading the news and the numbers of cases all over the world. It was pretty hard to get away from it all though, even over here.

It was definitely hard as we got closer to the time and it really sunk in my parents weren’t going to be able to be here.

But I don’t mean to paint a negative picture, I had a healthy pregnancy and I was really very fine! Honestly, Magnus has really been our little piece of golden positivity amongst a year of doom and gloom.

On Mahe

When we got to Mahe to have Magnus all of a sudden a few community cases were announced, I think it was around 15.

We had been more ‘on guard’ on Mahe anyway since that is where almost all of the cases had been up to that point. Our plan had always very much been to keep to ourselves and just have some time as the four of us before baby arrived! We were all in need of a bit of a holiday since the year had been so crazy!

Our time on Mahe therefore consisted of lazy days, little trips to the beach here and there and not an awful lot else! I’ll be honest, that was more than fine with me!!

Born In A Pandemic

As with the other two boys, Magnus was born via C-Section. This time I was not really given an option having already had 2 ceasarians.

We were not sure what the rules were going to be and I had been trying to mentally prepare myself to spend the whole time in hospital alone! I was so relieved that Mark was able to be with me the day Magnus arrived which was wonderful.

There was a new rule in place about no children on the ward (or any ward at the hospital) I assumed this was Covid related.

Obviously, no family had been able to make it over this time and so we weren’t so sure how we were going to manage with the boys. Luckily for us, some wonderful friends really stepped in to help us out. Meaning Mark could be with me.

The very kind midwives did let Arthur and Freddie come in for a short visit to meet Magnus the day he was born. It was honestly the absolute best moment of my life! Weird that all his first photos with his daddy and brothers are with them wearing masks!!

Going Home

As it was Christmas (and I think because of covid) the hospital was keen to get people out as soon as possible. I was actually released a day earlier than I had been with Freddie which meant I got to leave hospital on Christmas Eve. I honestly couldn’t have been happier that we all got to be together for Christmas.

We spent Christmas Day on Mahe. Which, was a bit of a blur for me! Mark was amazing and really did everything for us all. On Boxing Day which is also Mark’s birthday, we headed back to Praslin. The boat was the busiest I have ever seen it and I was very relieved to be off it!

And now, we are a family of 5! We couldn’t be happier.

In some ways Magnus feels a bit like our little secret baby! None of our family have met him, no one saw me the whole time I was pregnant and yet here he is, 3 months old now and we can’t imagine our life without him.

I’ll write soon about how we are settling in together. For now I’ll leave you with another picture that already seems like forever ago, look at this tiny little guy!!!