By Laura Bass
@laurapbass

The floor is a sea of wrapping paper and ribbon, the lights of the Christmas tree sparkling off of shiny ornaments. I’m snapping photos of my seven-year-old stepson and one-month-old baby when my phone flashes with my mom’s name. My parents are planning to come over for brunch in a few hours, but I imagine they want to be first to wish us a merry Christmas. 

“Merry Christmas,” I say brightly, feeling the best I have in a month between recovering from birth, adjusting to motherhood, and grieving the recent death of my grandmother, who passed two weeks earlier. 

“We’re at the hospital. Your dad had a stroke.” my mom says.

Her words hit hard and fast, a one-two punch that leaves me stunned and speechless. My dad was diagnosed with stage four cancer during my second trimester. For months I prayed he would live long enough to meet my baby. He did, at which point I began a new prayer: let him enjoy one last Christmas. 

We’d spent Christmas Eve at my parents’ house, the first time we ventured outside of our home with our new baby other than doctors’ appointments. The tree was covered in memories. Neil Diamond’s Christmas album played softly in the background, the soundtrack to Christmases of my childhood. We ate dinner off the Spode Christmas tree plates that always adorned the table throughout the month of December, and I tried to ignore the fact that next Christmas, there was little chance my dad would be there. 

He was smitten with his new grandchild, beaming as he held him in his arms. 

On Christmas morning, instead of popping things in the oven at just the right time and putting festive finishing touches on the table, I stare silently out the window as my husband drives to the hospital. The streets are deserted. Everyone is at home celebrating with their families. We pull in front of the hospital doors, and I pause, not knowing what I will find inside.

The waiting room is empty, the reception desk workers the only people in sight. I take a deep breath, hoping my voice will work, that I can get the information I need without breaking down. Armed with a map, I wind my way through the maze of hallways and arrive at the ICU doors. Filling my hands with sanitizer, I try to collect and prepare myself as I scrub them together. Pointed towards a drawn curtain in the corner of the room, I approach at a snail's pace. In a moment, this will be real and not a terrible mistake.

This is not how I want to spend my dad’s last Christmas. This is not how I want to spend my baby’s first Christmas. But this is where I am. 

***

Glancing in the window of the ER waiting room, I see that it is packed; only a handful of empty seats remain. I have spent eight of the last ten days at this hospital. First, giving birth to my third baby and then, after thirty-six hours at home, my blood pressure started rising rapidly and I was readmitted to the women’s center without him. 

Tonight, it feels like I’m stepping into a whole different world. The ER and the women’s center are two parts of the same building, but they are not the same. One is calm; one is chaotic. One is muted and focused, with energy directed towards one goal: healthy babies and healthy moms. One is pulled in different directions, a constant flow of people and energy, diverting emergencies and trying to prevent death. 

I check myself in and choose the most isolated seat possible, gingerly sitting on the edge. In the hormonal aftermath of a new baby, a baby I’ve already spent more time away from than I wanted, the idea of coming down with the flu is unimaginable. To my right, an elderly couple sits, the husband in a wheelchair, the wife tucking a blanket around him. Out of the corner of my eye I see a teenager, ghost white with a sheen on her face, her mother telling the receptionist she hasn’t been able to keep anything down for days. I hold my breath until they move farther away. 

A nurse bustles out, calling my name. I sit in triage while she takes my blood pressure and I explain why I’m there.

“Postpartum preeclampsia,” I say. “Just discharged Christmas Eve, but my blood pressure was really high tonight and the doctor on call told me to come straight here.”

Murmuring sympathetically, she completes my vitals and sends me from the quiet cocoon of triage back into the busy waiting room.

I perch on the edge of my seat again, watch people coming and going. Christmas was just yesterday, but the spirit in the ER is anything but festive. I text my husband an update, scroll through Instagram to distract myself—I thought my hospital discharge meant I was out of the danger zone, but here I am again, hyper-aware of all the things that can go wrong with birth, even after a baby is delivered. 

I’m called back again, and a nurse informs me they are going to run some tests. Looking at my chart, she notices I’ve just given birth. “Tell me about your baby,” she says. “I know you’d rather be with him than here. What’s his name?”

It takes me a full minute to answer, to recall his name. Why didn’t his name, picked out months earlier with love and care, quickly jump off my tongue? What kind of mother am I? 

I know from my last hospital stay, less than two days ago, that my blood pressure is dangerously high, making my mind dull. I’m fumbling to answer questions that shouldn’t give me a moment's pause. I recall the stories I googled from my hospital bed, moms who died from untreated postpartum preeclampsia, and I remind myself it’s not my fault I can’t remember, that this is serious.

Eventually I’m led down a maze of hallways and told I’ll be observed for a few hours, to see if the extra dosage of medication will bring my blood pressure down or if I’ll have to be readmitted. I shudder, thinking of the magnesium drip I’d been hooked up to a few days earlier, the feeling of ice flowing through my veins. I pray this time, the medicine will be enough. I lie back on the bed, thankful for the curtain offering me my own space. In the quiet, questions I’ve been trying hard not to think about rush in, questions I spent the silent nights alone in the hospital pondering. 

What if something happens to me? What if I don’t get to see my boys grow up or grow old with my husband?

This is not the way I planned to spend my baby’s first days. I anticipated soaking in every moment of newborn snuggles, dressing him in adorable Christmas outfits just for the sake of pictures, settling into a new rhythm. I did not anticipate spending most of these days in a hospital bed away from my family, typing “just in case” notes on my phone, but this is where I am. 

***

It’s a drizzly, gray day, and I’m on a walk, desperate for space and alone time. It’s month seven of the pandemic, and in this new world, the one where I’m constantly at home managing the chaos of a toddler and four-year-old, both desperate to be a part of their big brother’s virtual first grade class, walks have become my time to catch up on podcasts. I’m listening to The Nuanced Life*, and the host describes “the spell of solidity.” I stop walking for a moment, stunned.

The host continues, “There are people who walk through this world into advanced age, believing that you set things up and they are as they are.”

We see certain things as solid, unchanging, stable. But we often perceive things to be more stable than they actually are.

Before my dad was diagnosed with cancer, I never thought he’d only meet one of my three children or that he’d die before my thirtieth birthday. 

Before I experienced postpartum preeclampsia, I never gave much thought to how dangerous giving birth could be, to the reality that—even with modern medicine—there are still complications and dangers.

Before March of 2020, I couldn't have imagined a world where everything would grind to a halt the way it did. Before we lived it, it seemed more like the plot of a dystopian novel than a potential reality.

We make plans and imagine the future with some certainty; while we may not have the details all worked out, some things in life seem like a given. We might daydream about new careers or different cities, adding another child to our family, imagining different paths we could take, but there are things we take for granted, things we never imagine our lives without.

When the spell of solidity is broken, we are reminded we aren’t in control; even things we take for granted can disappear. 

On bad days, I want to rail against this, cling tighter to illusions of control, orchestrate small things to give me some tiny feeling of power. On good days, I know I can’t control what happens—but I can control my reaction. I can let the unfairness of life turn me bitter and close myself off from both joy and sadness in an effort to numb myself, so I don’t have to feel hard feelings. 

Or I can take a deep breath. This is where I am. This is how things are. 

How do I move forward? 

* Beth Silvers, “Betrayal in Relationships”, The Nuanced Life September 30, 2020

Guest essay written by Laura Bass. Laura is a native North Carolinian who lives in a house full of boys. She spends her days picking up Legos, encouraging creativity in her kids, and filling all of her free minutes with words—both writing and reading them. She can be found blogging at www.laurapbass.com or on Instagram.