From Womb To N.I.C.U

It was 4 am and I got up as I did for Fajr prayer. Shutu came into my room routinely every morning to go to his litter which is on the balcony located right across my room. I picked him up and placed him in the balcony so he could go ahead and do his work. As soon as I dropped him down, I felt a gush of water from me. I was stunned and embarrassed at what had happened. I hurried to the bathroom and realized something wasn’t normal. I was way too terrified to tell it to anyone, all I could tell to myself is that my due date is still one and half month away and this isn’t happening.

I came out from the bathroom and hesitantly called out to my mom and informed her of what had happened. She too got tensed and realized that something isn’t right. We immediately called up my doctor and informed her about what had happened. She then replied saying, “If the water loss is minimal, then there is nothing to worry. This happens in a few cases but gets stabilized and the baby is safe.” She advised me to take complete bed rest until delivery.

My mother carefully got me to bed and made sure I was comfortable and started reciting few verses of the Quran until I slept back. After 4 hours, I got up to a pool of wetness all around me because of which my husband got up too. I was super embarrassed and petrified this time. He looked at me and said, “Be calm, we will go to the doctor right away.” We rushed to my doctor’s clinic where she told that my water had broken and I need to get admitted to the hospital immediately. 

Allah’s alone is in power

I couldn’t understand what was happening. All I knew was that I had a smooth pregnancy by the mercy of Allah  and I wasn’t expecting anything to go wrong. My husband and my parents were with me all the time, keeping me calm and my husband reminding me again and again by saying, QadarAllah Mashafa’al (Allah  has decreed it and what He willed has happened). He is the One who decides our Qadr he knows what’s best for us, He will never do anything wrong and ultimately, whoever has to come will come in the time destined by Allah. 

I had to be admitted in the hospital for three days for observation. The doctors wondered if the water could get stabilized and the delivery postponed. I remember one of the doctors coming up to me and telling, “Please be patient with all this, we are just trying to delay your delivery as the best incubator for a child is the womb.” I also remember reading the book, “The prick of a thorn”.This book was amazing and had many reflections from the Quran which gave me a lot of hope during this time. 

By the end of the third day, I was informed that the doctors are worried about my blood platelets as it is extremely low and I had a chance to lose an extreme amount of blood. They informed my husband that they will be needing blood ready for me in case of emergency. It seemed to be very chaotic all around me and all I would do during this time was recite as much Durood and Isthighfar as possible, stay calm, read books, order ice cream from my husband and chill in the hospital ward.

My water in those two days got stabilized. On the final day of discharge, the doctor said we will do one last ultrasound to make sure that the water and the baby are okay and then, we can go ahead with the discharge procedures. To our astonishment, the ultrasound report showed that I have less than five bags of water left, which is perilous for the baby. I was informed that they had to do the delivery as soon as possible.

I and my family were taken aback because we thought things had become better. My family seemed to be stoic to ensure that I didn’t get affected before I go for my D-day. I am usually the bold one in my house for any situation, so I kept my calm and made sure to not show my nervousness to my parents. They kept telling me not to worry as things will be for the better and everything will be okay. I smiled back at them and told that they too don’t have to worry. To worsen my nervousness, this hospital did not allow my mom or husband to be inside the delivery ward for some reason!

I walked with some heaven dropped charmed valour to the labour room bursting with immense amount of confidence. My mind started saying, “I have bungee jumped from the scariest peak, this will not be that bad.” Continuing with those thoughts, the first thing that really struck my mind was that I had made loads and loads of dua’a during my pregnancy and I was sure that the Almighty wouldn’t let me down. I remembered this hadith in my mind and was in a great peace and ease to whatever would happen:

‘Ubaadah ibn al-Saamit also narrated that the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said, “Who is counted as a shaheed among you?” They said, “The one who fights and is killed for the sake of Allaah.” The Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Then the shaheeds among my ummah would be few. The one who is killed for the sake of Allaah is a shaheed; the one who dies of plague is a shaheed; the one who dies of a stomach disease is a shaheed; the woman who dies with a child in her womb is a shaheed.” ¹

Once I reached the ward, they induced me at around 2:30 PM and informed me that they would need to give another induction after six hours as one is not sufficient. So I lied down on the bed in my ward and started to send out Durood as much as I could, sipping the zam zam water my mother had given me before I came inside the ward.

It had been just half hour since induction and I started getting painful contractions. It felt like someone was crushing my pelvic region and then releasing it. The moment I felt it was gone, I sensed relieve and drank zamzam and continued with sending durood. I would call out to the nurses, but they would pass by and tell it’s still just false pains informing me that the induction takes time to work. These contractions were constantly taking place for the next one hour, then the pain became so extreme that I couldn’t help but scream for my mom. One of the nurses then came and checked, realizing that I was ready and rushed me to the delivery room at around 4:30 PM.

Alhamdulilah! Within an hour, at 5:30 P.M on Saturday, 21st of May 2016, my baby was out. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The next thing I could hear my doctor say was, “Oh! It’s a baby boy and he seems to be very small”. I was gaining consciousness and then losing it every now and then due to anaesthesia which was given to me during labour. My doctor shook me gently and told, “Congrats! Your baby is crying and it’s a baby boy.” They placed him on me for a few seconds. Before I could hold him, they hurriedly took him away from me. I wanted to tell them to keep him near me but by then, I had lost my consciousness again and fell asleep.

When I woke up, my husband came to me and told, “You have done an amazing job, our son looks gorgeous masha Allah.” His smile and expression put me at ease. I asked my husband where our baby was and wanted to see him right away. He then replied, “Our son is in the NICU for observation and he needs rest for now. You could go see him tomorrow morning”. I agreed to him in a lackadaisical way and pretended to go to sleep. I probably had slept just for an hour or two that night despite all the post-delivery trauma. I was too restless to wait until morning.

Finally, the morning arrived and I tried to get up quickly but wasn’t able to. I asked my mother for help. I wanted to do ignore the pains and see my baby. My mother held my hand and helped me walk till the N.I.C.U which seemed to be the most terrifying walk of my life. I entered the N.I.C.U and a nurse came to me, took my details and then guided me to the room where my son was kept. As I walked towards my son, I was infuriated with the loud noises coming from machines which every incubator was connected to. My heart wrenched walking past the other babies who were kept in incubators.

I finally reached him and there he laid, in a glass box with ease and peace. The temperature in it was maintained at 33 degrees. He was covered with lanugo on his face. His tiny feet was connected to the foetal heart monitor, a flexible thin tube was inserted into his vein on the left hand which was connected to the I.V fluid, from the top centre of the box was a syringe hanging down with some milk which was connected through a thin long flexible pipe which went into my son’s mouth to the food pipe. His eyes were covered with cotton gauze as he was under a hyper blue light. He lay there naked except for a nappy which was too big for him. His legs were so thin that the skin on it would fold over each other giving it a wrinkled appearance, his rib cage was so visible that I could count the bones. His hands couldn’t move much due to the connections to the machines. He kept trying to push himself up and then would get tired and come back again. There, I stared at him for almost 15 mins observing each and every part of him. A tag was on his incubator which read my name along with his weight: 1.46 kg and length 34 cms. My heart hadn’t sunk and crumbled so deep ever before. I was astounded. After 20 minutes, the nurses asked me to leave as other parents wanted to come inside to see their baby.

I walked away leaving him all alone in the incubator. I came back to my ward and laid on the bed, closed my eyes and took a very deep breath, tears started rolling down and pictures of my son flashed in my mind repeatedly. I was asking myself, “What have I done to my baby?”

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