The postpartum room has a certain glow to it. It is a smaller space, with a couch and a TV, fewer machines, softer lighting, and a slower way of living. It is tender yet messy, with gentle noises all around and an arguably better bed. My room had all of that with a view of the busy highway and the rise of the golden morning sun. I assume every room on the mother-baby unit looks alike with a differing view, but mine was missing one thing: a baby in a bassinet.
I would hear a symphony of baby cries through the walls and echoing in the hallways. I imagined mothers trying to breastfeed and fathers attempting skin-to-skin. As I walked to the refreshment area, I’d peek into the nursery and watch the nurses do their assessments on newborns as proud parents looked on. After searching for crackers that never got refilled, I’d head back to my room and listen to the lullaby playing on the hospital speakers announcing another baby on the way to the unit. I’d watch a nurse push a tired, yet happy mom in the wheelchair, a swaddled newborn in her arms, and a proud dad carrying all the bags walk past my room. I closed my door with a gentle click, walked deeper into my room, and watched the cars zooming by on the highway over the empty couch. I watched the busy world outside as I sat on my crumpled bed sheets in the quietest room I’ve ever known.
I thought I’d deliver at 38 weeks, but at my 34-week appointment, everything changed. My midwife planned on me having a 37-week induction for gestational hypertension. I didn’t know I would deliver four days later. It wasn’t by choice, nor was it spontaneous. It was to save our lives.
High blood pressure in pregnancy is not a stranger to me, as I’ve dealt with it twice in three of my previous pregnancies, but this time my numbers were severe enough to admit me. It was enough for Maternal Fetal Medicine to diagnose me with preeclampsia without features. I looked through watery eyes at the OB hospitalist as he mentioned magnesium and induction of labor. I thought, “You can’t do this; I’m 34 weeks.” I didn’t have a choice, not anymore, at least. I was having a baby, and that was it.
I luckily had 10 minutes of skin-to-skin with my 4th daughter before the NICU nurse took her away. I got to stare at her beautiful eyes, trace her delicate face, and stroke her silky black hair. No golden hour, no attempts to latch, nothing. Just me and my husband in a big room with a steady clicking of an IV bag and a blood pressure cuff inflating every 10 minutes. Instead of being wheeled to mother baby with the trill of the beloved lullaby, I was wheeled to the opposite side of the hospital floor where my baby was attached to wires and tubes with the constant sounds of alarms dinging and pinging. I held her one last time before going to my own room, far away from hers. No baby in my arms and my husband with two bags, into the quiet room I’d call home for what I thought would be three nights that turned into five.
While my baby was safe in the NICU, I was taming my own monsters in my room. After delivering, I had to stay on the magnesium drip for 24 hours. If you’ve never been on the magnesium drip, count yourself as lucky, but let me try to describe what it feels like. It’s like walking into a hot room looking for a place to sit down. The farther you walk, the heavier you feel; a wave of exhaustion overcomes your body, and you can barely stay awake. It becomes increasingly taxing, and you need supplemental oxygen just to keep you afloat. And then every hour a nurse comes in to strike your kneecap with a small hammer and push back on your feet. You are also expected to push out a watermelon, then keep enduring while recovering and trying to breastfeed. Finally, you get uncontrollable shakes when the 24 hours are over.
After all that, you’re still living in a fog and praying it’ll be over soon. It wasn’t for me, though. Every day I felt like I was in prison, and I didn’t know if I’d ever go home. These blood pressures were supposed to resolve after delivery, but my numbers kept climbing. I had meltdowns and panic attacks every day; I felt so defeated. I didn’t want to see my baby; I preferred to stay in my room and cry and wished it wasn’t this way. I would watch the same families who arrived on the unit with their babies leave with their car seat between them. It was then that I realized I wouldn’t have that moment because when the time comes, I’ll be leaving without a baby. In the quietest room I’ve ever been in, it was the loudest and loneliest in my head.
These four walls may have held beautiful memories of families starting their new chapter together, but for me, they held every pleading cry, imploring prayer, and unanswered question. It watched not one, but two IV lines infiltrate, and just when I thought I was in the clear, I needed another line to push medications. The walls witnessed the blood pressure cuff squeeze every bit of fight out of me, for 10 minutes for an hour, then 15 minutes for an hour, then 30 minutes, then every hour for 4 hours. The walls quietly observed me rubbing my bruised arms, and my once fighting spirit disintegrated. The walls judged me as I answered every text message with “I’m ok” when, in fact, I was barely hanging on. These walls saw the worst of me, but they also gave me something important.
These four walls gave me a safe place to grieve the labor and postpartum I once imagined.
While the walls held me up, social work visited every day to talk things out, the Eucharistic minister prayed with me, and the lactation consultants encouraged me. Because while I was losing a fighting battle inside my head, my health care team made sure I was winning in everything else. Having a history of postpartum depression, I want to believe they kept an extra eye on me, but I also believe they did this because they truly care about every mother on the floor. My nurses constantly checked on me, some sat with me, and some prayed over me. All of them would go to the NICU to visit my baby when I couldn’t and give me the updates I wish I could hear firsthand. And when I could make it to my baby’s bedside, the NICU nurses continued to care for me. They asked me how I was, if I was getting rest, and constantly reminded me that my mental health mattered too. I wasn’t even their patient, but they treated me as one. It wasn’t just family-centered care; they were treating the human spirit.
After five nights, I finally left this room. The room that watched Boy Meets World and Friends with me every day. It saw me eat the cottage cheese fruit platter every morning and an oatmeal cookie for dessert at dinner. The room that heard me celebrate when my pressures finally leveled out and patiently listened as I received my discharge instructions.
This room held every cry and appreciated every hug to each nurse. If these walls could talk, they could tell my whole story: all my deepest emotions, the good, the bad, and the ugly. But some things aren’t meant to be said, or some things don’t need a reply. Sometimes you just need to be heard. These four walls did more than just support a building, give a place a room, or divide a space. They listened.
As I walked towards the door, I didn’t turn around for one last look. This room absorbed the best and worst of me. And I, in turn, absorbed everything it offered to me. With one bag over my shoulder and no car seat in sight, I walked away from the quietest room I’ve ever known, and with me I shouldered the grief I was never meant to carry.
