The Courage of Mothers

Warning: mention of child illness, childbirth, and blood

My valiant escape seemed like a much better idea five steps ago. I’d been quite confident the nurses had been exaggerating the whole thing about me being a ‘fall risk’. I’d had the baby while standing up just half an hour prior. If I could do that on two feet, then I could definitely make it to the end of the hall and through the doors by myself.

My Ann. My baby who had only ever known the warmth and safety of my womb was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in the adjoining ward. The entrance to which was at the end of the long hall in front of me.

I was going to go to her right now even if it killed me. Wasn’t this the kind of thing a mom should do? Abandon the locked wheelchair to reach my sick child? I’d never been a mom, but I certainly thought so. Yet adrenaline apparently could only take me so far.

I shuffle forward another step and lean into the wall for support. A woman in red too bright for this white corridor emerges from an intersecting hall. Her back to me a few feet ahead.

A lump catches in my throat, “Mom!”

She turns to me quickly. Stiletto heels click against the tile floor.

“What are you doing Rebecca? Sit down!”

Hair styled and neat, my mother’s long red coat covers her straight form and black suit pants. Despite the urgency of her steps, her movements are as graceful as ever.

“They took her,” my voice sounds almost pleading.

“She wasn’t breathing right. I only got to hold her for a second.” She reaches me and I grip her arm.

“I know,” she scowls, helping to steady me. “Harry called and told me to come find you. He’s with her doctors. Where is your nurse?”

Letting me go she hastily moves to retrieve the wheelchair only a few feet away.

“She left me here and told me to wait.”

I had begged her not to leave but apparently there were some forms she needed to sign. As if paperwork held any importance at a time like this.

“What are the doctors saying? Is she okay?” I ask.

In half a second she unlocks the wheels. I take a small moment to be embarrassed I didn't try that first.

Mom doesn’t meet my eyes, “They were saying she has too much fluid in her lungs. She needs extra oxygen for now.”

I feel my pounding heart drop, “Extra oxygen? Are her lungs okay? What else did he say?“

Wheeling behind my legs she grabs my shoulder and guides me back to sit. More force behind her hand than necessary.

“It’s a waiting game now. They need to observe her more. But for the moment, they think she’ll be just fine. That's all I know.”

I feel a rush of relief wash from my head to my feet.

Fine. They think she’ll be just fine.

But I can hear the unease in my mother’s voice. There is strain in her face. My panic begins to return. It's hot and uncomfortable in my chest.

Will be fine. But not fine now.

I talk so I don't have to think.

“I told Harry to follow her,” I say, voice rough and croaking. I’d said I wouldn’t scream during labor, but I had howled like a banshee.

“He wanted to stay with me. I told him he had to go. She can’t be alone, and they wouldn’t let me go with her. Please, I have to be with her.” I grab her arm again, pleading, “Take me to her. Please Mom.”

She nods, “Absolutely. Are you sure you’re ready to go right now?”

“Yes, I’ll be okay. Please.”

She raises a brow and looks me up and down.

I know I look horrible. Pale and sweaty. Hair disheveled. Only covered by a thin hospital gown. I haven’t slept since yesterday and my lower half is aching and beaten. Thirty hours of labor apparently did not look good on me.

But none of that is my priority right now.

“Okay”, is all she says.

I exhale in relief. I’ll be with my baby soon.

She starts pushing me down the hallway. I take in the scene in front of me for the first time.

The hall seems endless yet impossibly short. The doors positioned squarely in front of me yards away. They seem to consume space. Made more menacing by the blinding luminescent lighting. The creak of the wheels below me sound sharp and seem to echo in the space. I suddenly notice how cold I am and wrap my hands around my arms, left bare in the short sleeves of the gown.

Such a bleak place, I think, for mothers and babies to spend their first night.

Within seconds or minutes, we’ve made it to the entrance to the Neonatal Unit.

Warmth on my leg draws my gaze down. I look to see a small trail of blood running down my calf.

“I’m bleeding,” my voice sounds detached. Far away.

Mom huffs a small laugh, almost dismissive. “You just had a baby. Of course you’re bleeding.” She’d never been one for sympathy.

She stops right before the doors and pulls a hanging towel from the back of the chair. Carrying the rough and thin fabric in front of her, she comes before me to kneel. Understanding the plan I prop my arms on the chair handles and lift myself so she can shimmy it under me. A temporary fix.

Once it’s settled, I smooth over the gown and clean myself with her help. Trying to focus on primping instead of the bubbling tears. As I do, I catch sight of more dried blood on my thigh.

Seeing all the evidence of what has happened to my body, what was still happening, is overwhelming. The events of the previous two days come back in a flood I cannot stop. The pain. The screaming. Being laid bare before a room of people. Hours of strain while I split from the inside. And I had not even taken a second to comprehend the events that had ended just minutes ago.

I have always been young and healthy. I’ve never been this weak and broken before. It makes my sense of control feel all the more feeble.

I look up and meet my mom’s still hard gaze.

I wish she was the kind of person I could cry with. But she’d never been.

But the exhaustion. The consuming flood of emotions. It is too much, and I hear myself ask.

“Mom… what do I do?”

The last threads of my composure start snapping. Sobs breaking through me. I feel like I’m cracking apart from the inside all over again.

I cover my face with my hands, “This was supposed to be the good part. Where I finally got to hold her and watch Harry become a father.”

Breaths rattle through my lungs, “All the pain, the waiting and preparing. It was finally gonna be worth it.”

Another choked breath, “and now it’s all horrible. I’m in so much pain and I’m so tired.”

She doesn’t say anything, but I can’t stop myself.

Maybe I’m not ready to see Ann. The thought makes me cry harder.

“I feel like it’s all my fault she’s sick. That’s what I can’t stand. I would do anything to take it away from her and I can’t.

I say what I’ve been thinking since she was pulled from my arms, “I can’t handle this - “

“Listen to me. No, look up, Rebecca.”

She grabs my chin between two fingers.

“Look at me…” I move my hands from my eyes. Snot and tears line my face as I meet my mother’s stern gaze. When she looks at me like this, I feel like a child again.

“You cannot go to her crying and carrying on. She will need her mother to be strong for her. Not blubbering and wailing like this.”

“You were going to learn this eventually and it looks like it’s gonna be today. She’s in the world now and things like this will happen. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad mom or that you did anything wrong.” She lays her other hand on my knee and grips my thigh, like she can make her words more meaningful with her touch.

“You’re in the worst pain of your life. You’re going to be bleeding and in agony. You’re going to need sleep more than anything and barely get an hour before she’s crying for you again. This is going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Maybe the worst days or even weeks of your life. But I didn’t raise a simpering woman.”

“You need to pick yourself up and be strong for her. You will always need to be strong for her.”

I sniff and wipe my eyes as I let my mom’s words sink in.

She was being incredibly harsh and probably unfair. Yet I knew on so many levels she was right. This couldn’t be about me. Even if I was in the state I was in. Ann needed me. She was the priority now.

It was new. An adjustment in my mind to push everything aside for her. Was that what all moms did? Maybe. But there was also every possibility I’d be different. But right now I would hold her, kiss her head, and not shed another selfish tear.

A realization comes to mind. Slowly at first and then it hits me, “All that - is that what you’re doing now?”

A look of surprise crosses her face before she looks away and to the floor. And I see it. Everything I’m feeling right now but for baby Ann.

My mom who always seemed to have everything together maybe wasn’t so impervious after all.

My racing heart calms. I feel less alone.

I can be strong. I can put myself aside for now. Ann needs me. She’s sick and she needs me to be there.

“Are you ready for this, Rebecca?” Mom asks. All traces of her hesitation from before are gone. But what’s there instead surprises me. Confidence. Resignation.

She believes in me.

I wipe my eyes and take a deep steadying breath. “Yes, I’m okay. I can do this.”

Another cold tremor racks my body. Seeing my shiver, my mom takes off her red coat. I lean forward so she can rest it on my shivering shoulders.

“Make yourself proud Rebecca. Whatever comes next.”

When she pushes me down the last of the hall and through the doors to the Neonatal ICU, my head is held just a little higher.

——

The doors close behind them, leaving the dimly lit maternity ward empty. Shrouded in midnight’s spirit once more. The white of the hospital’s tile marked by a nearly undetectable drip of blood left in the wake of their route to baby Ann. Long after the floor had been washed and sterilized, the path endured. Many more women arriving at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit would come to understand the courage needed to be a mother.