My baby was so close and yet still out of reach. All I could do was say Tehillim and beg Hashem to intercede

wIas expecting my first child when my sister, Gittel, called to tell me that she was getting engaged. Gittel and I are polar opposites but very close, and moving to Yerushalayim after my marriage hadn’t changed that.

I was ecstatic, but a quiet fear niggled at the back of my mind: Would I make it to the wedding? It was summertime, and I was due the day after Succos. I reassured myself that surely it would all work out, everyone knows how close we are; the couple would get married a few weeks after Succos and I’d join straight from the hospital, if necessary.

Wishful thinking aside, logistical considerations meant the wedding was ultimately scheduled for right after Succos, the day after my due date. I was torn. We’d have to choose between spending Yamim Noraim in America, away from my husband’s yeshivah and Eretz Yisrael, or staying home and missing the wedding. We discussed the issue ad nauseam and finally chose to stay put. I was still davening to make it to the wedding, but I knew the odds were stacked against me.

It was a Tuesday evening during bein hazmanim, after a busy day, when I realized I hadn’t felt movements in a while. I drank grape juice, and when that didn’t help, called home to see what my mother thought. My father, a rav who’d seen a lot, answered and encouraged me to get checked out, though it was probably nothing.

I didn’t want to. I was exhausted, and didn’t believe there was really anything wrong. But my husband didn’t think we should wait, so we headed off in the middle of the night expecting to get “laughed out of the hospital.”

We weren’t laughed out. An ultrasound showed that while the baby was breathing, she wasn’t moving. After several hours on the monitor, there was still no fluctuation in her heart rate.

The doctors weren’t sure what the problem was, and told us they suspected the baby might have a genetic or neurological issue. I was terrified. My baby was so close and yet still out of reach. All I could do was say Tehillim and beg Hashem to intercede.

That day, my brother and sister-in-law, Shimon and Simcha, arrived in Eretz Yisrael on vacation. Providentially, Simcha is a midwife, and when they got our frantic messages, they made a beeline to the hospital. Simcha conferred with the doctors, making suggestions for other diagnostic tests, and comforted us.

That night, alone in my hospital bed, I began to feel stomach pain. I mentioned it to my mother, and she was immediately concerned. “You should tell the nurses,” she insisted.

I’ve never liked to be a bother, especially over something as silly as a stomachache. “It’s not a big deal,” I assured her. But as the night progressed, the pain intensified until it was nearly unbearable.