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Good morning. Three years ago, in the run-up to Easter, my husband and I announced that we were going to be having a baby and in the autumn of 2017, we gave birth to a beautiful bouncing baby boy. The labour was long and tiring and traumatic, but I’ll forever be grateful for those precious moments of holding my son in my arms for the first time and soon afterwards being surrounded by friends and family, who would drop by to visit him too. In this strange period we’re in, mothers giving birth are having to do so in alien surroundings. Restrictions due to Covid-19 mean women are having to give birth alone, isolated from their partners and relatives, surrounded by doctors in protective equipment. In the days following the birth of our son, my husband and I found ourselves in a hazy love bubble; punctuated by night feeds and nappy changes and the heavenly smell of newborn baby. I can’t imagine what it’s like for those women who are having to self-isolate with their babies for two weeks before being reunited with their partners. Earlier this month, an image representing the strangeness of new life in the age of Covid-19 went viral. The photo was of a baby in Ireland called Faolan, being held up to a window by his father, so his grandfather could take a look at his first grandchild through the glass. No touch, no kiss on the forehead, no curling of little hands around a granddad’s fingers. This time we’re in feels a little bit like pregnancy. Though it’s uncomfortable and scary, to me it feels like we’re in that quiet waiting period, the limbo before the thing we’re waiting for becomes a reality. That pregnant pause to me feels poignant, as we stand looking into the unknown of what our world will look like afterwards and hope it’ll be ok. As the book of Romans says: “The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Hope that’s seen is no hope at all, it says, and asks ‘who hopes for what they already have’? When it comes to Coronavirus, prime minister Boris Johnson has said things will get worse before they get better. Every pregnant woman knows she’ll face the pain of childbirth, but hopes that on the other side will come beauty. As Christians head into Holy Week, I’ll be reading again accounts of the disciples watching things get really, really bad for Jesus. They’re about to watch the person they’d given everything up for slaughtered. But the Christian hope celebrated at Easter is that though what comes next is painful, it’s what comes afterwards that matters. We’re in the in-between bit; the now and the not yet, and look forward to something glorious when this bit is over.