It's Duke University Hospital and I've contacted a Constitutional lawyer. He's passed my information on to a group of lawyers that may be able to help so hopefully I hear from one of them soon.

Update: thank you all for the prayers! She tested negative for Covid-19 and they let me in. What really upset me was they said that I couldn't come in, not because I might have it, but to protect me, a visitor, from her. I drove her there, live with her, and we do other things together, so this was maddening. Her symptoms were mild shortness of breath and a pretty elevated heart rate. I'm glad they tested her but the risk was more likely a complication with the pregnancy or with her heart and I needed to be there if that was the case. Thank God for your prayers, everything is looking good at this time with the baby and they're just trying to determine why her heart rate was elevated all day to 130-160 bpm resting, but whatever it is should hopefully be manageable.

I haven't heard from one of the lawyers and that may go nowhere. I'm not as rabid anymore but that policy is stupid and if anything happened to my wife or child while I sat in my car for over an hour, I would never forgive them, so if I hear back from a lawyer I will still discuss this with them because someone else could be in the exact situation I was worried might happen to me.

Update again: my wife is still in the hospital and they think she has arrythmia so we're just praying that it's a more common case of arrythmia that just requires some medication, but her and the baby are otherwise doing great.

One of the lawyers called me back today and said because they ended up letting me in when she tested negative, any action is not worth the headache to pursue in his opinion but he said that what they did was illegal according to medical restriction statutes. I assumed he meant NC statues but they could be Federal, I'm not sure. He said they did not have the right to bypass existing medical restriction laws that make exceptions for spouses just because she had symptoms of Covid. If something had happened to my wife or child while I was waiting outside, he said he would have recommended suing the hospital for denying me entry.

If anyone is in a worse situation than this, call a lawyer, even if they can't do anything right away, we have a legal system in place and you don't have to stand by and be trampled by hospitals who think they can make policy regardless of the law. The lawyer told me that hospitals have legal teams to craft these policies according to their interpretation of medical statue laws but they may be interpreting wrong. In this case, maybe the policy is sound but the implementation was illegal given the situation.

On a side note, the hoslital staff has been excellent and the lady who was screening at the front apologized to me. I understand her situation because, like any corporation or large group, people at the top make decisions and the ones who enforce those decisions at the ground level take the brunt of the backlash. Its not fair to shoot the messenger but there wasn't a clear way to request an exemption or talk to someone else.