I still had empty arms, but I no longer felt alone
T
he plastic chair isn’t very comfortable. It’s also in a pretty public spot, not my favorite when it comes to wiping my tears with the back of my sleeve.
I’m sitting outside the triage room in the labor and delivery ward, sitting on the same chair I’d sat in just yesterday, though yesterday feels like a lifetime ago.
Was it only yesterday when I walked through these double doors, smiling in happy anticipation? Was it a mere 28 hours since my world fell apart?
I look through the open door of the triage room and notice the monitor near the bed. A little tear rolls silently down my cheek. I see the screens in the nurses’ station, neon green lines rising and falling with the tiny heartbeats they represent, and my heart clenches as yet another salty droplet wets my lips. I turn my head to the side, hiding my face in a valiant effort to maintain my dignity.
The corridor is full of nurses and residents. Out of the corner of my eye, I recognize the resident who was with me yesterday when we still thought the monitor was broken. When the silence in the room still felt like a technical error. I quickly start counting the speckles on the tiled floor, lest she meet my gaze and sabotage my excruciating attempt at self-control.
In the distance I hear the sound of a baby’s first cries mingling with the jubilant shouts of the new parents. My head aches. My arms clutch my stomach fiercely, struggling to hold my insides together as they threaten to fall apart. I feel the shattered fragments of my heart and wonder if I can ever feel whole again.
I know my baby has already been taken to the morgue. I know there’s no reason to stay here any longer. I’m free to go home. Free to leave what should be the happiest ward in the hospital. As I begin to make my way out, a white-haired nurse approaches and asks, “Excuse me, where are you going?”
“Home,” I reply. I watch the questioning look on her face morph into gentle kindness as understanding dawns.
“Do you feel ready to leave?” she asks. “Are you strong enough?”
Am I strong enough?
“No!” I want to shout. “I’m not strong enough. Not now, not ever!” But instead, I eke out a quiet, “I guess so.”
She must see through my response, because she leads me to a chair as she says, “Here, you sit while your husband goes to get the car. As soon as he’s ready, let me know, and I’ll help you out in a wheelchair.”
The lump in my throat is so big, I’m afraid to open my mouth. When my husband calls, I merely gesture to the kind nurse that I’m ready. She doesn’t place a call to patient transport. She comes over with a wheelchair and helps me into it. As we make our way toward the elevators, she says quietly, “I believe every woman deserves to be escorted out of the hospital, no one should ever have to leave alone.” She makes no mention of my loss. No comment on my tear-streaked face. Doesn’t ask any questions. She just speaks gentle words, filling the awkward silence without drowning out my pain.
Only once we reach the hospital doors does she bend down toward my face, her kind blue eyes looking deeply into mine. “I’m so sorry about what you went through,” she whispers. Then she slowly turns away and makes her way back inside.
And though the weight of the load I carry still sits heavily in my empty arms, her receding figure reassures me that I’m not alone.
