The cold metal chair on the back of my thighs keeps me distracted from the growing pain in my stomach. I tilt my head back, take small, deep breaths, and rub my swollen hands over the top of my belly in firm circles, just how Simone likes, keeping us both calm. In the almost two hours I’ve been sitting in the emergency room waiting to be seen, I’ve shifted from sitting my huge pregnant ass on the back of the lopsided chair to resting just off the front edge. In the same period, I’ve watched two pregnant women—one White and one Asian—come in and be seen right away. What makes them a priority and not me? We are all as big as a boat and complaining of pain.

When I first came in, I could barely stand up straight at the front desk before I was met with a pinched face and a crude demand to sit and wait. The pregnant redhead and her husband who came in minutes after me was immediately seated in a wheelchair and hauled off to the back. I wish I wasn’t here at the hospital alone, or in Indiana at all. I had only been here a couple of days, unpacking our things in the new house, when the pain skyrocketed. My mother, back in New York, urged me to go to the ER right away when I told her about my spotty vision and never-ending headaches. I wish she were here now. She would yell at the top of her lungs, ignoring the judgmental faces until someone gave me real aid.

I called David and told him what I was feeling. Though he was supposed to come home in a few days, he promised to be on the first plane out of Gaeta this afternoon. I still have six weeks left before I’m due, but at least I won’t have to finish unpacking by myself or be alone in his home state after today. Now I can finally meet his family. We met, fell in love, and were engaged in Italy within a year, so we hadn’t officially met each other’s families. What better way to meet everyone than with the delivery of a baby? It was just too soon for her to arrive.

“It’s gonna be okay, Simone,” I say down to my stomach. “You just keep cooking.”

“Miss Tyler?” a voice calls. I breathe relief.

“Hi. That’s me,” I say and smile at the nurse in bubblegum scrubs. She stands a few feet away by the automatic doors separating the ER from the hospital with an empty wheelchair. Her expectant scowl lets me know she’s waiting for me to come to her.

“I can’t walk.” I look down at my feet barely fitting in my furry slippers. Both my feet and hands look like water balloons.

She huffs and wheels the chair over to me as if it’s an inconvenience to her.

“You should lay off the McDonald’s. The salt increases the fluid in your body. Plus, it’s not good nutrition for you or the baby.” She locks her arm into mine and helps me into the chair.

I press my lips into a tight smile. “I don’t eat fast food. I’m vegan.”

Her eyes widen as if she’s met the first Black vegan in the world before she moves behind me and walks us through the doors.

Sparks flash and my double vision returns. My breath comes in short gasps. I shift in the chair until I find a position that eases both my baby and me.

“Can you stop moving, ma’am?” the nurse says, abruptly stopping.

“I feel a bit dizzy.”

“Well, good thing you’re in a hospital then.” She starts back up until we are in front of an examination room.

Before I can meet her sarcasm, or demand she turn off her bitch mode, a sharp pain shoots from my back and into my abdomen. I grip both arms of the chair and scream at the top of my lungs.

“Something is wrong! It hurts!” I shut my eyes. Tears splash my hot cheeks and fall onto my distended belly. “Please help me!”

The nurse jumps in front of me, feels my stomach, and calls for a senior nurse.

Within a few short minutes, I’m moved to a room where the senior nurse takes blood and urine samples. The soft floral scent of her White Diamonds fragrance wraps me in a blanket of comfort. Her silver hair and mahogany face are familiar and puts me at ease for the first time since arriving at the hospital. I read her name from the badge over her chest––Nurse Angela.

She helps me into a hospital gown and the bed, folds my clothes, and asks about my family. I explain that I just moved to my fiancé’s hometown, and that he’s hours away on a flight back from Italy.

“He’s a captain in the navy. We met while I was studying abroad.” Thinking about David slows my breathing. I go on about how we crossed paths in a café on the coast of Gaeta during my visit from Rome to study the architecture of the old city. I remember the cute yet puzzled look on his face when I told him my major was architectural history. The abdominal pain seems to subside as I recall our first meeting.

“How romantic. What about his family?” Nurse Angela asks. “Can they come and be with you?”

I let out a shriek before I can answer her. She holds my hand firmly, allowing me to squeeze tight. I begin to sob and shake from the pain, and the fear of what is going on with my body and my baby. Nurse Angela rubs my back, exhales deeply, then runs to the door and pages the doctor. Her eyes lock on mine as she advocates for me.

“He should be coming in a few,” she says, walking back over. “I have to go back to my station. Is there anything I can get you?”

I don’t want her to go. She is the only one who seems to give a damn, but I sigh and nod.

“Can you hand me my phone?” I point to my belongings on the chair next to my bed.

She pats my hand and gives me my purse.

“Thank you.” The words roll off my lips and crumble into snivels.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she says in a soft voice. “I’ll be back to check on you, sweetie.”

I dig for my phone and call David, even though I know he won’t answer.

“Hey, baby, it’s me. I think they’ve admitted me to the hospital. They took my blood and I’m in a room. The pain is getting worse. Something is wrong. I keep telling them, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I’m really scared.” I take a breath and sniffle back a new wave of tears. “I know we wanted our families to meet each other at the birth—”

“Hello,” a male doctor enters my room. His eyes are glued to his tablet, never looking up at me. “A nurse should be in to take your blood and we can see—”

“The nurse already came and took my blood. And urine.” I click off the call.

“Oh?” He finally looks at me. His smoky grey eyes narrow with confusion. “Well, while we wait on that, let’s take a look.” He places the tablet in his lab coat pocket and takes out his stethoscope.

The doctor feels around my stomach (this seems to be the go-to move here) before switching to the cold flat piece of metal. The pain magnifies with each touch.

“Owww!!” My body jolts from the harrowing pain, yet he continues to press on my body, ignoring my outcry. “Owww!” I repeat even louder and shift away from him. Tears instantly well up in my eyes, distorting his visible aggravation. “It feels like something is stabbing me from the inside.”

“That’s just pressure,” he says, dismissing me again.

Just pressure? How could he tell me what I’m feeling? I know what pressure feels like, and this wasn’t it. I look down at my swollen, now unrecognizable legs and feet, mortified.

“And what about my monstrous legs? Is that pressure?” My mother’s stark tone seeps into my own. “Something is wrong!” I shout, then cry out in pain once again.

“Nothing is wrong, ma’am,” he asserts. “Please stop yelling.”

How can he tell me not to yell when I am suffering the worse pain in my life? Up until now, my pregnancy has been easy and pain-free. I didn’t even have the morning sickness Mom warned me would be inevitable, or the high blood pressure that all the other women in my family had when carrying their babies. Since finding out I was pregnant, I maintained my healthy, vegan, and active lifestyle. But, now after my thirtieth week, everything seemed to be falling apart.

I take a breath, pushing back tears. “Please, can you check my pressure? The women in my family have a history of high blood pressure.”

He checks his watch, then tightens his jaw. After some hesitation and an exasperated exhale, he wraps the blood pressure cuff around my arm, pumps, and listens. Now, this is pressure. I pull out David’s military dog tags from my shirt, clutching the metal into my palm, and shut my eyes.

“You’re in the military?” the doctor asks.

“No. My fiancé is.”

“Ahh, my son is in the navy. Stationed overseas,” he says. His chest deflates. “It’s been a while––” He pauses and knits his eyebrows together, examining the results on the reader. “Hmm, your pressure is a bit high. Looks like preeclampsia.”

I want to scream out “I told you so.” Instead, my head falls back and I let out a huge breath.

“Okay, so what’s next?

“You’re close to your due date, but I don’t think you’re ready yet. I am going to have the nurse give you a low-dose aspirin. That should help reduce the pressure. We’ll wait for the blood and urine results.” He wraps up his stethoscope. “I’m sure you are a strong woman. It’ll be just fine,” he says, and leaves.

I don’t want to be strong; I’m tired of being strong. I’m sad and fucking scared. All I want to do is sink into my mother’s arms. I wish there was more they would do, but it’s something for now. I call my mom and explain to her what’s happening. I can’t tell if she is more pissed or concerned. She says she and my aunt are on the first flight to Indiana. Just the thought of having them here with me, fighting for me, alleviates some of my distress.

 

---

 

A half hour has passed since the doctor left and no one has brought me aspirin. I page the nurses’ station, but no one responds for another twenty minutes. When a nurse finally arrives, I ask for the medicine. She doesn’t say a word, and is in and out of the room without an explanation. After another half hour, she returns with a cup of lukewarm water and a pill, but now the pain has doubled. I ask if the results are back yet, but she doesn’t know.

Another hour passes, then another. Nighttime arrives and still no results. Screams of surrounding new mothers and their babies ring out in the halls and into my empty room. What once sounded like maternal roars are now faint whispers. I struggle to lift my arm and check my phone. Neither David nor my mom and aunt have arrived. I know David and his family don’t speak and they don’t know me, but, at this moment, I’d very much welcome their presence, awkward or not.

Sluggishness turns to sleepiness, decreasing the number of times I page the nurses. The bottom half of my body goes from throbbing to tingling to…nothing. My eyelids become so heavy I just keep them closed. After a minute or two, the smell of White Diamonds wafts into my nose. I open my eyes a slit and make out the blurred face of Nurse Angela. Her words float to me like they are underwater. She’s not alone. Other shadowy figures rush into the room. No matter how much I blink, my vision remains cloudy. An alarm sounds off and echoes around me. Something grazes below my stomach, but I barely feel it. Amid the chaotic noise, Nurse Angela shouts out.

“She’s hemorrhaging!”

Chills shoot down my spine and into my veins. How could I not feel that I’m bleeding? For how long? I reach out for the closest nurse to me. My trembling fingers can barely grab hold of her soft skin.

“Save my baby. Please,” I whisper.

“We need to get her into an OR, stat!” I recognize the voice of the doctor from earlier.

My body shifts as I’m moved from the bed to a gurney. Slowly, the panicked confusion of the room melts into the drumming of a heartbeat––Simone’s.

Bright light stuns my eyes when we enter the hospital corridor.

“David.” His name barely falls from my quivering lips, fearing he won’t be here to hold my hand when I need him the most.

“Nique! Sonnique!”

My eyes widen at the sound of David’s distant voice.

“David!” I push to yell as loud as possible, but it comes out in a raspy whisper.

He calls my name again, but suddenly it’s washed out by my mother’s booming voice.

“What the hell happened to my daughter?” My mother’s voice roars through the hospital as she emerges beside the gurney. Though I am happy to see her, I search for David in the busy, blurry hall.

“Ma’am, we need you to lower your voice,” the doctor snaps in a way I never expected.

“Excuse me? NO! My daughter called me almost six hours ago complaining of staggering pain. I waited three hours for the next flight, it was a two-hour trip, and she is just now being seen? What the fuck happened!”

“Ma’am, I understand, but your tacky manner won’t—”

“Tacky! How dare you? This is my daughter.”

“I’m the father and I demand an answer for this gross negligence.” David’s voice is clear as he emerges at the foot of my bed. He’s fully dressed in his captain’s uniform with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. A hush falls over the hallway. The staff, my mother, and doctor all turn toward him. Momentarily, my vision clears. The tightness in David’s face quickly melts away.

“Dad?”

“David?” The doctor asks. “What are you do—father?”

I look back to the doctor. His grey eyes—same as David’s—spark with awe and confusion. Even in my dazed semiconsciousness the resemblance is clear. His military son overseas is my David.

“Yes, father,” he shouts. “This is my fiancé and my child! Our child.”

The doctor shifts his attention from David to me. The folds in his ruddy face smooth when he realizes he and his staff have been neglecting his future daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

An incessant beeping starts up once more but fades into the darkness of my mind. The demands in the room dissolve into whispers.

“We have to move now! NOW! GO! Get her to OR 2,” shouts my future father-in-law.

“Dear God. Please keep my child and grandchild alive,” my mom pleads.

“How could you let this happen, Dad?” David says.

I lose consciousness to the chorus of their voices swirling into the abyss of my fear.

 

---

 

I awaken after what feels like just a few minutes. Pain flows through my entire body. The same beeping I heard before is now calm and steady, and the chaotic voices are gone. The sunshine gleaming through the window warms my skin and magnifies the stark whiteness of my new room. Everything from the small couch to the window curtains are brilliant white. Even the walls––adorned with lilac, pink, and marigold bunnies––make me cringe. It’s just way too cutesy for my taste.

A day has passed since I arrived in the emergency room. I sort through my memory, recalling the scenes from yesterday, the scariest moments of my life. It hurts to lift my head, my arms, or any of my body parts, but I’m relieved to feel them all. A soft coo catches my ears and instantly tingles my heart. To my left in the neonatal crib is my Simone, swaddled with little lilac mittens and a knit cap. I watch her shimmy around through the clear cradle. David sits behind her crib asleep in a chair, lightly snoring, still wearing his uniform. As joyous as I feel, I break into tears.

David jerks awake and sits up.

“Nique, you’re up,” he sighs with relief. “Are you alright?” He jumps up, comes over to my bedside, and kisses my forehead.

“I’m good. I am so good.”

“Why are you crying?”

“I just…I was so scared. But now I am just so happy she’s okay. She’s okay, right?!”

“She’s perfect,” a voice says from the door.

Standing in the doorframe is Simone’s grandfather. My doctor. David’s father. His shoulders are hunched, and his hands fumble over one another. His tearful gaze shifts to his feet. Familiar voices grow louder, and my mom and aunt appear behind him carrying coffee and breakfast sandwiches. Mom stops talking, clears her throat, and edges her way into the room.

“Baby, you’re up,” she says. “Look what you did.” She beams down at Simone.

David lets go of my hand, sighs and walks over to his dad. Though my mom and aunt are talking to me, my attention is focused on David. He is shaking while talking to his father. With each word exchanged, his father’s face warps with sorrow and regret. His dad nods and leaves the room. David’s shoulders drop before coming back over to us. He stands over Simone and smiles at our daughter, then turns to me with adoration. He doesn’t say a word, which is more than enough for me.

Samantha Guzman is a New York native who works as a graphic designer by day, and a passionate writer by subway commute, lunch, and night. Her aspiration as a creative and a storyteller is to capture the beautiful, unfiltered experiences of Black and Latinx people, sometimes through a fantastical lens. She has her Bachelor’s in Communication Design from CUNY and an MA in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. When Samantha is not creating, you can find her binge-watching sci-fi/fantasy, teen drama, or comic-book based shows on Netflix and the CW.

Image of Rhonda Nunn by Trevor Kodat