Fourth Floor

I struggle to find the words to describe the smell of a hospital. Sterile, chemical, the absence of earth, soot, and flesh. The air is still, suffocating at times, especially in the smaller rooms.

It's a different place than last time. This hospital is smaller, further out of the way. We don't really have the gas for the trip, but my husband's parents live nearby and they're the go-to sitters for our toddler when the time comes, which we believe that it has. The muscles of my lower abdomen tighten viciously and one of the security guards asks if I want a wheelchair. I say no, my husband follows with "She's a tough one", and the other guard quickly escorts us to the elevator. I hold my belly and my eyes scan the room as we rush to the lift. The lobby is different. But everything smells the same.

The guard presses a button beside the number four. At the other place, Triage, L&D and the NICU were all in the same wing of the hospital, also four stories up. I took a similar route for two months straight- in a wheelchair for a bit- but mostly on two feet with increasingly labored steps. In the past, the elevator doors open and I turn to the left. In the present, we do the same.

We're buzzed in and after a few questions, a nurse takes us back to an exam room. Her bedside manner is that of an old friend. I refer to her as spunky, and my husband rolls his eyes. I think back to 2020- to sitting in a different room of a different branch, trying to process the implications of an overreaction, implications that could have taken lives were intuition and fate not on the clock. The nurse asks me about the events of that day, and her furrowed brow deepens further with each response. I give her fractured pieces of the story- I've told it too many times over the last few years, especially within the past nine months.

Sensors are placed on my belly for a while. The nurse comes back in and says everything is fine. A few moments later, she slips a latex adorned hand between my legs and pushes into tender tissues. The glove is removed, lands heavy against the plastic of a waste bin and the spunky nurse tells me that it's not time. I'm not ready.

I am stunned, confused, but she is gentle and leaves me to get dressed. My husband makes a joke to break the tension. My confusion is pushed out by the weight of broken expectation and I lean forward in the exam chair and release unwelcome and unyielding tears. Embarrassment rears its head, looming near the overpacked floral print bag sitting beneath my husband's chair. While it encourages my fits, it insists that it's not the source of the wellspring. My spouse makes his best efforts to soothe but the floodgates are unresponsive to his attempts.

I slip out of the hospital gown and into my clothes, tears unrelenting. After a few moments, I manage to slow the flood long enough to leave the room. The nurse gives us a sympathetic look as she says goodbye, but I cannot match her eyes for more than a few seconds. Intuitively, I slam my hand onto the exit button for the entry doors. I know how these places are built- I've gone in and out of wards like this more times than I can count, though I've tried not to focus on those days. The doors open and the smell of hospital fills my nostrils and strikes me with pained nostalgia. Away from the eyes of the nurses, I begin to cry again.

My husband stops me in front of the elevator and pries, asking what this is is really about. I tell him I don't know but truly, I felt too shaken to describe the layers I was beginning to unravel. My present self cried for my past self, for a naïve first time mother sent home from emergency only to later face the threat of the loss of her and her baby's lives. My past self cried for my present self, for a woman experienced but obsessive, rendered jaded and overprotective by the consequences of the bad decisions made by others. Though fully grown, I cried for my inner child, for a little girl so easily shaped by the fear and anxiety created by life's naturally fickle breeze that she could only take so much in stride. There are some wounds that seem to ripen instead of heal. In that moment, their stench permeated the controlled, sterile air that surrounded all versions of myself.

The elevator doors opened. My husband stepped back to allow me to enter and his fingers lingered from the four to the one. I continued to cry as we descended, and as we walked through the opulent lobby, I stifled tears and hid my face from the guards who'd shown so much concern upon our arrival. My better half did the talking ("They said she's not ready- we'll probably see y'all tomorrow!") and continued to do so as we headed into the chilled Carolina evening. He called his mother to rescind our excitement and said we'd be by to pick up our two and a half year old in the next little while.

As our black Town and Country pulled out into the street, Hayden suggested that we hit a drive-thru. He asks where I want to go and I give him one of the few straight answers I'd been able to muster within the past half hour. He chuckles, unsurprised by my decision, and tells me he'll take me anywhere I want to go. Though I still feel raw, foolish, and exposed, my eyes finally begin to dry. The universe likes to speak in patterns, but there are few constants that bring the same kind of simple comfort as a beefy five layer burrito.