After an anxious pregnancy, short-lived relief.

When I got pregnant several months after an unexpected second trimester miscarriage, I was both elated and terrified. The loss taught me that aside from keeping myself healthy and getting prenatal care, I had no real control. I lived every day as if the pregnancy might not work out.

In the end, I gave birth to a healthy baby girl. It was such a relief to finally hold her, to know that I wouldn’t again be blindsided. But this relief was short-lived. I was nursing my daughter at home a week after the birth when I noticed that my pants felt wet. Looking down, I saw blood soaking through my clothes.

I tried to remain calm as I handed the baby to my husband and called the after-hours service at my OB-GYN. I was told to come to the ED right away. Panic-stricken, I realized that I had to take my 7-day-old baby with me. I was nursing, it was nighttime, and I had no formula in the house.

I called 911 and an ambulance came to take me to the hospital. My husband would meet me there with the baby once my mother arrived to watch our sleeping toddler. As the EMTs prepared to move me, I gave my husband some instructions on what to do if I “didn’t make it” (where to find the life insurance policy, for one). Despite having lifelong health anxiety and an inordinate fear of death, I found myself matter-of-fact, calm.

‘No place for a newborn.’

On the way, the EMTs tried to assure me that despite all the lost blood my vitals were stable. In the emergency department, the physician on call saw me relatively quickly—I was experiencing a postpartum hemorrhage caused by a large clot that was preventing my uterus from shrinking down to size. I had to have surgery as soon as an operating room became available.

But after the physician left, I was left to wait. It was eerily quiet, and except for a few brief checks by technicians, nobody came. I lay on a gurney with my baby on my chest. Every time she nursed, I felt more blood. I could hear it dripping onto the floor. The physician had said this wasn’t a life-or-death situation, but I wondered how much blood I could lose before it was.

Eventually a nurse came in and told me that the ED was no place for a newborn. We decided that my husband should take the baby home, and the nurse gave us a box of formula. Somehow, not being able to feed my baby myself, or care for her, was what sent me over the edge, and I began to sob.

photo by Akshar Dave/ Pexels

‘Would I become part of those statistics?’

For hours I lay alone, bleeding. After all the worry I’d had about losing another baby, would I be the one to go? Working for a nursing journal, I knew all too well that this country has terrible maternal mortality rates. People die in childbirth—this is a reality. Would I become part of those statistics?

Finally, it was time for surgery. A nurse met the orderly who was wheeling my stretcher to the OR. “I’m kind of a mess,” I said. “I can feel blood all over me.” I shouldn’t have cared what I looked like, but I was mortified. “Let me clean you up,” the nurse said, gathering some warm, wet cloths and wiping the blood away. Another nurse approached and introduced herself. She had a mask over her face, and all I could see was blue eyes, a sprinkling of freckles, and red wavy hair pulled back in a ponytail.

In good hands.

“I don’t want to die,” I said. “I have a newborn and a toddler at home.” I was falling apart; it had all been too much. I was one-week postpartum, hormonal, exhausted, and anxious. It was 2 AM. I had been in the hospital since 9:30.

The nurse laid her hands on my shoulders, pressing firmly. “Hey,” she said, trying to get my attention. “You are not going to die.” She grabbed my hand, squeezed, and looked right at me. “You are NOT going to die,” she repeated, and her gentle forcefulness reassured me that maybe she was right. It was what I needed to hear. After hours of being relatively isolated in the ED, I finally felt like I was in good hands. “And I’ll be here with you the whole time,” she said.

And she was, until everything faded as the anesthesia kicked in. When I woke up, I was in recovery. I was winded and anxious. The breathless feeling, I later learned, was a result of anemia. I had lost a lot of blood, had almost needed a transfusion. I was told I could not eat in case the bleeding didn’t stop and a hysterectomy was needed. But luckily, as the day progressed, I stabilized and eventually was told I could go home.

‘To feel like a human, seen and understood.’

The anemia took weeks to recover from, but little by little I began to feel like myself. My baby is now eight months old, and I’m grateful for every second with her. In a year of several health scares, I am reminded again how much it means, as a patient, to have a connection with a caring nurse, no matter how brief. To feel like a human who is seen and understood. To have someone take charge and let you know it’s going to be okay. In this regard, I have been lucky. And to the masked nurse whose face I never got to see, I wish I could simply say, “Thank you.”