“The baby’s heart rate is tachycardic.” The nurse motioned at the machine that was slowly spitting out a continuous sheet of paper with jagged lines on it. “That’s what we’re the most worried about.”
I gave her a blank look, so she continued.
“That means it’s too high, which can become dangerous.”
If anyone asked me where I planned to be on that overcast Saturday in late April, four days before my baby’s due date, I would have said maybe on a walk. Perhaps at the store. Or at a high school sporting event.
I absolutely wouldn’t have said the emergency room.
It started out as an innocent alternating stuffy or runny nose—but this one didn’t clear up, and after a few days, I developed a dry, persistent cough that took control whenever I spoke.
On Friday afternoon, I came home from work and laid down on the couch, only intending to rest for a minute. A few hours later, I woke up with a fever of 102. Early the next morning, after Curtis (he’s very wonderful) left home to help with a funeral, I rolled over and went back to sleep.
When I woke up in the middle of the afternoon, I couldn’t stop coughing. I called Curtis and choked out the words, “I think you need to come take me to the hospital.” An hour later, we were on our way.
Being admitted to the hospital as a possible COVID-19 case is like walking into a crowded space when you’ve just been sprayed by a skunk.
My nurse, a slim girl about my age with bright, compassionate eyes, a floral headband, and blue scrubs, walked me back to a room with a sliding glass door behind the curtain. She handed me a robe, which I struggled into (even simple things are hard at 40 weeks pregnant), and took my vitals. Then she administered a covid test and called up to the OB floor.
A few minutes later, an OB nurse wearing maroon scrubs, a yellow robe, gloves, and a face shield, wheeled in a large wooden cart. She put two bands around my belly and watched in silence as a strip of paper slowly rolled out of the machine. After a few minutes and a few questions, she explained the risk of the baby’s increased heart rate.
I imagined Curtis’s worst fear coming true: that since he wasn’t allowed into the ER with me, they would decide to induce me and he wouldn’t be there for the birth. But the nurse said they weren’t going to take any drastic action . . . yet.
The next few hours were a blur. The covid test came back positive, and a doctor with a cane hobbled in and told me what my treatment would be: three liters of fluid, Tylenol, and a steroid for my lungs that “might cause a burning feeling in your groin.” Then everyone left me to myself in my isolated room, and my only company for the next few hours was a courteous nurse who brought me a “bedside commode” (fancy term for chamber pot on legs) when I told him how badly I had to pee.
When they came back a while later to check the baby’s heart rate, it had dropped back down into the safe range. Curtis’s worst fear wouldn’t come true after all. Not long after, they sent me home and told me to drink a lot of water and keep taking Tylenol and cough medicine.
I followed directions, but my cough held on. By Monday night, it still wasn’t any better.
On Tuesday morning, the day before the baby was due, I woke up at 4:26 having contractions. A few hours later, I woke Curtis up with the confident words,
“I think I’m going to have the baby.”
We left for the hospital when my contractions were two minutes apart, and I spent most of the 45-minute drive asking (ordering) Curtis to stop hitting bumps. He was not entirely amused.
All morning I walked around my room in small circles, pulling the IV tree along with me. Strangely, my cough had all but disappeared (although I would learn later that it wasn’t so strange—my parents enlisted everyone they knew to pray for me).
At lunchtime I bluntly asked our nurse, John, how much longer it was going to take. He said a few encouraging things, like, “You’re not doing well with the pain,” and “Your body is exhausted,” then gave a reassuring assurance: “So it could be a long time still.”
About a year later, the anesthesiologist came in with a cheery smile and a very large needle to give me an epidural (which is the moment Curtis chose to lose his lunch. Apparently large needles are a no-go for him).
I slept for most of the afternoon, they broke my water around when normal people might be eating dinner, and at 8:59 p.m. on April 27, a 9 lb. 7 oz. baby arrived. Enter Graham Paul. They put the naked, screaming baby on my chest and one of the nurses blurted out,
“You have a beautiful baby boy!”
And I wanted to cry because it was over and shout in victory because we made it. I put an awkward hand on the baby and said, “Hi, hi, hi,” and Curtis cut the umbilical cord.
I’ll spare you the rest of the sappy emotions of new parenthood.
After a cough-free delivery day, my cough came back strong and didn’t get better for a few weeks. However, my sense of smell is still gone. But, funny story, for the first two weeks of Graham’s life, I didn’t know I couldn’t smell. I was just convinced that Graham was a miracle baby with scent-free poop.
***
Sometimes, we choose to do hard things—like exercise, diet, or have a baby. Other times, hard things happen to us, like getting covid, a loved one dying, or the car breaking down.
No matter where your hard thing is coming from, whether it’s self-imposed or completely uncontrollable, this hard thing will not last forever. I’d love to promise that on the tail end of it, you’ll have something as wonderful and beautiful as a round-faced, blue-eyed, cheerful baby—but I know that’s not always how it goes.
There are hard things that leave pain and wreckage in their wake, and don’t bear gifts. There is no silver lining. They’re just hard.
And if you’re in the middle of one of those hard things, I’m so sorry. I don’t have any platitudes for you.
Sometimes hard is just hard.
But I can tell you this one true thing: There is one who sees and cares, and His name is God.